Cai Hongzhu, the founder of Daohuaxiang, passed away, how to achieve a revenue of 60 billion from scratch
On December 25, 2023, it was publicly reported that Cai Hongzhu, the founder of Daohuaxiang, a well-known wine company in Hubei, died of illness on the 24th, and then the official website of Daohuaxiang Group became black and white, and the China Liquor Industry Circulation Association also issued a condolence message this afternoon.
Cai Hongzhu is one of the representatives of self-made Chinese private entrepreneurs, and the Daohuaxiang he founded is also a well-known wine company in Hubei. It is understood that Daohuaxiang Group has previously completed the handover of the old and the new, and in 2018, Cai Kaiyun, the son of Cai Hongzhu, served as the current chairman of the group.
Cai Hongzhu was born in 1951, in his early years, Cai Hongzhu worked as a primary school teacher, beekeeper, and also worked as an accountant in the sales department of a local farm tool factory.
In 1982, 31-year-old Cai Hongzhu took advantage of the spring breeze of reform and opening up, and started with a loan of three people, three cylinders, and 1,500 yuan to set up the first soy sauce factory in the local village.
In 1986, with the support of the local government, Cai Hongzhu officially entered the liquor industry, and subsequently founded the Daohuaxiang liquor brand in 1992.
At that time, Cai Hongzhu put forward the development policy of "two searches, one creation, and three highs", that is, to find famous factories, find famous teachers, create famous brands, high starting point, high quality, and high efficiency, and under the promotion of this policy, Daohuaxiang liquor quickly achieved commercial success.
Especially in 2004, in the face of rapid competition in the liquor industry, Cai Hongzhu adopted a more active market strategy, proposed the implementation of the "Golden Network Project", that is, the marketing center to the terminal to sink, to achieve the trinity of the interests of manufacturers, agents and terminal merchants, and this initiative also accelerated the growth of Daohuaxiang, at that time, it was known as "a factory is built in a year, and a factory is earned back in a year", and has successively acquired local liquor companies such as Guan Gongfang Liquor, and the volume has gradually grown.
In 2011, with Cai Hongzhu's long-term efforts, the sales of Daohuaxiang Group exceeded 10 billion, and Daohuaxiang also became the three major regional liquor enterprises in Hubei along with Jinjiu and Baiyunbian.
During the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, Daohuaxiang Group began to transform, turning to liquor as the main business, and building a "one main and three auxiliary" industrial cluster supplemented by logistics, packaging and cultural tourism industries. In the recently released list of "2023 China's Top 500 Private Enterprises", Daohuaxiang Group ranked 180th in the country with an operating income of 60.52 billion yuan.
Xiao Zhuqing, chairman of Wuhan Jingkui Technology Co., Ltd., told the first financial reporter that Cai Hongzhu, as the founder of Hubei Daohuaxiang Distillery, one of the three major distilleries in Hubei, has made outstanding contributions to the local area, which has led to the development of local taxes and affiliated enterprises, and promoted local employment, and has also made a lot of contributions to local public welfare and charity in Hubei.
It is worth noting that China's private enterprises have always had the problem of difficulty in handing over the baton, while Daohuaxiang Group has completed the replacement of the old and the new as early as 5 years ago.
At the annual meeting of the group held in January 2018, Cai Hongzhu officially handed over the Daohuaxiang Group to his son Cai Kaiyun, who served in the Yichang Procuratorate and returned to the Daohuaxiang Group in 2006.
After Cai Kaiyun succeeded as chairman, Daohuaxiang Group is still based on liquor, and at present, Daohuaxiang Liquor is still a regional liquor enterprise, and its products are mainly mid-range and low-end, and at the 2020 annual meeting of dealers, Daohuaxiang also proposed a 3-year plan of 10 billion.
However, according to the industry, Daohuaxiang Liquor is still far from the goal of 10 billion yuan, and the revenue of the liquor industry in 2022 will be about 4 billion yuan, and more revenue will be contributed by other business segments of the group.
Xiao Zhuqing believes that Cai Hongzhu's death has little impact on the future of Daohuaxiang Group, and after years of hard work, the current marketing foundation of Daohuaxiang in Hubei and Henan is also relatively solid. In addition, Cai Kaiyun has been the chairman of Daohuaxiang for many years and has completely mastered the operation of Daohuaxiang Company, but in the future, Daohuaxiang will still face fierce competition from other regional strong wine companies and the sinking of national famous wines, which is also a new challenge for Cai Kaiyun.