In recent years, high-quality agricultural consumer technology companies are becoming an important engine for rural revitalization and regional economic development. Standardization, quality, and globalization have accelerated some of China's most distinctive agricultural consumer goods to the national and even the world's table, and caviar is a category we will focus on today.
Caviar, together with foie gras and truffles, is known as the "world's three major cuisines" and is known as "black gold". Behind the high price, the strong market demand and extremely high gross profit margin have also made it a good business in mainland agriculture and breeding.
According to the China Fishery Statistical Yearbook, China's caviar production accounted for 10% of the world's total in 2014, and by 2019, China's caviar production accounted for 70% of the world's total.
With the rapid development of the caviar business, the once unknown sturgeon farming industry has gradually come to the fore and become a tuyere industry.
Runzhao Fishery from Ya'an, Sichuan, an important source of caviar, has said in public reports that in 2023, the company's domestic sales will increase by 4% year-on-year, and most of them are B-end enterprise customers. At the same time, as the industry's leading caviar supplier, Runzhao Fishery's caviar brand "Fusita" has also attracted the attention of the capital market.
In January this year, Fusta received more than 100 million yuan in A+ round of financing, which was exclusively invested by Fengshang Capital. Previously, Fusta received tens of millions of yuan in the first round of investment from Shenzhen Capital Group. In the latest round of funding, investors said that Fusta has doubled its sales in the past three years. "Vosta grew by 70 percent in China last year, and 100 percent in the previous two years." In a recent interview, Li Jun, the founder of Runzhao Fishery, revealed the actual data to Inspur New Consumption.
Li Jun, founder of Runzhao Fishery
In fact, since graduating from aquaculture in 1991, Li Jun has been deeply involved in the industry, at first the largemouth catfish became the first in the local area, around 2000 to learn about sturgeon farming and the caviar industry behind it, and turned to this track with more "technological barriers", now it has been more than 20 years.
The ups and downs in the middle of entrepreneurship are indispensable, especially in the field of agricultural products, but with the firm belief and long-term iteration of Li Jun's team, up to now, Fusita has 11 breeding bases, 2 bases under construction and a modern processing plant that meets European and American export standards, and currently ships more than 60 tons of caviar every year, ranking among the top in the world.
At the same time, the development of the enterprise has also led to the common development of the surrounding villages and farmers, which has made Fusta receive in-depth reports from CCTV "Focus Interview" and other media.
The growth path of Fusta also makes us more curious: how did it survive the long gestation period of more than ten years as a sturgeon farming company? When faced with the demanding requirements of international markets such as Europe and the United States, how does Vosta meet the standards and gain trust? In order to achieve greater in-depth development space, how will it continue to break through in the face of the domestic market and branding?
"Our core mission has always been to increase the value of the company." Li Jun told Inspur New Consumption that whether it is breeding and production, or upstream fish fry breeding, as well as downstream brand building and overseas sales, Fusta's goal is to build a complete business system around caviar, and continue to invest in building deep industry barriers to become a world-leading caviar brand.
In the process of dialogue between Inspur New Consumption and Li Jun, we felt more about the simple and long-term values and playing style of an agricultural technology company.
Runzhao Fishery's more than 20 years of painstaking operation, thanks to today's rapid growth and benign market feedback, is not only a classic case in the field of agricultural products, but also can provide many profound inspirations for other types of consumer companies.
Conversation | Li Jun
Edit | Gong Yi, Wu Keke
Inspur New Consumption: Sturgeon is currently being successfully farmed on a large scale in Ya'an, Sichuan, but few people may know that today caviar is mainly produced in China.
How has the caviar industry changed from foreign production and foreign consumption to domestic production and domestic and foreign consumption?
Li Jun: Our industry can be divided into two links: front-end sturgeon farming and back-end caviar processing.
As for front-end farming, China started research in the 50s and 60s, in line with the rest of the world, but the initial research did not involve caviar, because at that time caviar was mainly caught in the wild, and the yield was very high, and there was no need for artificial farming.
Later, wild caviar resources were depleted, and countries around the world began to ban fishing, which provided market opportunities for artificial farming. At that time, foreign countries first started artificial farming, and then China entered in the 90s, and it was during this period that we learned that after sturgeon was raised to maturity, it could produce caviar, bringing more economic benefits.
And caviar is a very mature category in foreign countries, with a good market foundation, and China officially joined the WTO in 2001, so we hope to seize the opportunity to do domestic caviar exports.
When we first decided to make caviar, we thought that a team of 10 people would be enough, but as Chinese caviar continues to gain recognition in the international market, our business volume has also grown, so we continue to expand our production scale to meet the increasing market demand.
Until today, caviar has almost become an industry for Chinese, which was not expected at first. Although international counterparts still exist, the growth of domestic caviar is too fast, and it now occupies more than half of the global market share, which is also a surprising achievement.
Inspur New Consumption: What are the core advantages of China's ability to dominate the production of caviar products, is it better than foreign countries in terms of quality, price or overall efficiency?
Li Jun: In fact, it's not just quality, because the results of the market have proven everything, if it is not for the advantages in all aspects such as cost performance and efficiency, we cannot occupy more than half of the global market, this is a definite fact.
Inspur New Consumption: What is the current development stage of the caviar industry? Will it continue to grow rapidly, or will it maintain a relatively steady pace?
Li Jun: At present, the industry is in a stage of rapid growth, but there is also a huge crisis, that is, the urgent need for industry norms. Why? Because our development experience has given other practitioners and investors a lot of confidence, everyone wants to participate, which also brings the problem of uneven quality.
Therefore, the top priority at the moment is to establish standards to ensure the quality of domestic caviar, otherwise the industry will be easily ruined, because the food industry especially needs standardized processing and production processes, and cannot ignore quality like small workshops.
The processing of caviar requires factories that meet national food production standards, and food safety and quality levels must be guaranteed throughout the production process, and further testing is required after production. Without basic food safety requirements, the industry can quickly be screwed up.
Inspur New Consumption: How will the standards of the caviar industry be formulated in the future, and will they be jointly determined by the leading enterprises and relevant state departments?
Li Jun: The formulation of standards requires a combination of national standards, local standards and enterprise standards. At present, enterprise standards and local standards have been formulated, and subsequent national mandatory standards will also come out. With standards, the industry has a basis for implementation, and market rectification and standardization can be completed quickly.
Inspur New Consumption: At present, there may be some irregularities in the industry, and after the standardization is completed, the head enterprises can achieve faster development.
Li Jun: Indeed, I personally expect that it may take 8 to 10 years to meet the global demand for caviar and return to the historical annual sales level of 2,000 tons in the 80s, and at that time caviar was produced by wild fishing, and the production is sales, and the actual market demand may be more.
Therefore, there is still a lot of space in the future, especially in the domestic market, and it is still difficult to predict how large it will be in the end.
Inspur New Consumption: How is caviar developing in the domestic market? What are you currently working on?
Li Jun: We are now spending a lot of energy on the promotion of the domestic market, because the potential is huge. Red wine and oysters, for example, also came to China from abroad and are now well established and consumed in huge quantities.
In contrast, caviar is still in its infancy in China, and many people don't know much about caviar. Although it is recognized as a high-end ingredient, few people have actually tasted it.
Therefore, there is still a lot of room in the Chinese market, but we need to do consumer recommendation and category promotion, and after doing this well, we will step to a new level. Because caviar itself is a good ingredient that can bring pleasure to consumers, but at present, everyone does not know enough about it, and I believe that everyone will love caviar after trying it in the future.
1. "Technology" is the primary productive force of sturgeon farming
Inspur New Consumption: From industry opportunities to your own entrepreneurial experience, in today's more conservative era, many people will consider becoming civil servants or entering large enterprises after graduation. You chose to start an aquaculture business in the 90s, how was the environment different then than now? Why did you choose such a path?
Li Jun: Unlike now, that era was a time of reform and opening up, and the social atmosphere encouraged people to go to the sea to do business, which was an era full of opportunities and challenges.
At that time, the state and public opinion encouraged everyone to go out, and entrepreneurship was the mainstream atmosphere of that era.
At that time, there were more opportunities in foreign-funded enterprises or private enterprises in the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta and abroad, because there was indeed a certain gap between China and foreign countries in the 90s, so many choices that seem different today are actually created by the times.
Inspur New Consumption: At that time, you started to do largemouth catfish farming, which was the first in the local area, and later you became the head of the industry in breeding sturgeon and making caviar, and you can see a champion trait in you. What is it that sustains you to do your best and continue to stand out?
Li Jun: Actually, we still have a long way to go, but I can only say that from my personal personality, when I decide to do something, I want to do it well and do what I want.
In addition, I studied aquaculture, in this industry from the 90s to the present, found that aquaculture is actually a big industry, related supporting industries such as feed, fishery medicine and downstream processing and other fields have come out of a large scale of enterprises, but the aquaculture enterprises themselves are still in the development stage.
At that time, I talked to a few classmates about this issue, and everyone found it difficult to understand why so few companies can scale up in the real center of the aquaculture industry.
So we want to try to change this situation, at that time we were still young, not afraid of the sky, we are very confident in ourselves, looking back now, it has been twenty or thirty years in the industry, and we are still on the road to this day.
Inspur New Consumption: You have been in the industry for twenty or thirty years, from the beginning of the development of small enterprises to today's large-scale farming, what problems have you broken through in the process? How has solving these problems helped you in your subsequent development?
Li Jun: At the beginning, we must break through technology, which is the foundation, and only by making a breakthrough in technology can we make products.
After that, the scale, that is, after the completion of the process from 0 to 1, how to go from 1 to 100, this stage involves the management and the integration of all aspects of resources that help to expand the scale.
Finally, there is marketing and marketing, including channel building and branding.
At present, we have basically completed the first two stages, and we are now in the third stage.
Inspur New Consumption: Does Each Stage Need to Be in Place Before It Can Be Further Amplified?
Li Jun: Not exactly, for example, technology, the breakthrough from 0 to 1 is only the first step, it does not mean that it has been perfected, but until today, we are still pursuing the improvement of technology, continuous accumulation and precipitation.
The continuous improvement and improvement of technology has also created our core competitiveness, because over the years, our technical efforts have finally been imperceptibly precipitated into specific production processes, specifications and behavioral habits.
Only by taking the time to do these groundwork well can you better amplify the value of your business when the opportunity arises.
2. High-threshold categories are both challenges and barriers
Inspur New Consumption: Around 2002, you switched from largemouth catfish farming to sturgeon farming, what was the reason behind this change?
Li Jun: Around 2000, we encountered a problem similar to today's "involution", why? Because farming belongs to agriculture, one of the problems in this industry is that once a new variety or technological breakthrough is made, it will soon be widely imitated and bloom everywhere.
After rolling up, our customers have become competitors, and they have switched to their own farming after learning the technology from us, and these customers are mainly farmers, and competing with farmers for the market is tantamount to self-destruction of their livelihoods.
Therefore, we decided to look for a category with a high barrier to entry and a moat, and we found that sturgeon farming and caviar industry were just the right fit.
Because this industry has limitations on resources, technology, time and capital investment, which means that most people will not do it, and there are fewer competitors, these seemingly difficult problems from the outside world will make us more determined to enter this industry.
Today, it seems that our original judgment was right, and it is precisely because we chose a track that few people have set foot on and avoided vicious competition that we can develop step by step to today.
Inspur New Consumption: High threshold means that it is difficult to succeed in the end, in the face of high risk and uncertainty in the early stage of entrepreneurship, how do you face the challenges and continue to solve the problem? Efficient methodology or firm convictions?
Li Jun: I would like to believe in a truth - the simpler the matter, the lower the threshold, and it is often difficult to last. And I myself was born in breeding, and I am good at technology, which is also the basis for us to establish advantages, so I also believe that I can eventually do it, and this judgment comes from our technical professionalism.
Why do you persevere no matter how hard it is? Because we believe that we can do it, the bigger the challenge, the more exciting we are, and the bigger the challenge, the higher the threshold, and we want to find a difficult career to do.
As long as we are willing to invest energy and resources, once we break through, we can build strong barriers.
The road forward is always tortuous, and when we encounter obstacles, we either move out of the way or take a detour, and if we can't get around, we will try our best to break it, in short, we will definitely find a way to pass.
3. Entrepreneurship is a process of constantly climbing and solving problems
Inspur New Consumption: From the beginning to the current industry leader, has your sense of goal or direction changed too much? Is a larger vision established?
Li Jun: My goal has never changed, and I have only done this one thing in my life.
As for the vision, there is a saying called "climb the East Mountain and Xiaolu, climb Mount Tai and the small world", every time we take a step up, our horizons will also expand, and we see a lot of things that cannot be seen by the limitations of our previous thinking, and these new things inspire us to move forward to a higher goal.
In the 18 years since the company was established and I have been in the business for more than 30 years, we have always been learning and growing. From solving production technology problems, increasing output, to opening up the international market, we have invested more than ten years, and now we are turning our attention to the domestic market, and we are exploring new things and responding to new challenges every step of the way.
So we are always on the road, and this is also a process of constantly solving and discovering new problems, although there are challenges, but also opportunities and a sense of achievement.
Inspur New Consumption: There is a point of view that if you want to do a particularly big thing at the beginning of your business, you will often not reach the end, but on the contrary, enterprises that do their best at each stage and continue to solve problems have a better chance of success. Do you feel the same way?
Li Jun: When I was in my 20s, Li Ka-shing's career was booming, and I hoped that I would be as successful as him in the future.
However, when I really entered the industry, I didn't think too much about it, I was more concerned about how to do a good job and become stronger, so I kept moving forward, and when I looked back today, I found that I had come so long for this matter, but I was getting farther and farther away from Li Ka-shing.
Inspur New Consumption: What things have surprised you in this process?
Li Jun: It's not a surprise, but it's gratifying that we have achieved a leading position in the subdivided industry, which has brought a positive impact to the industry, of course, we are still developing, and the current results will only strengthen our determination to move forward.
Because entrepreneurship is a process of continuous climbing, although sometimes there are breakthroughs, but these are episodes in the journey, we are always on the road, and we will continue to meet market demand in the future and do a good job in brand output.
Inspur New Consumption: After more than 20 years of deep cultivation in the sturgeon farming and caviar industry, in the face of today's opportunities of branding and globalization, what do you think is the most important thing or the most important thing to invest in? How is it different from the past?
Li Jun: We have reached a critical moment to accelerate the promotion of products to domestic and foreign markets through the brand, and our dream is to make Fusta a world-renowned high-end brand, and there is still a long way to go to achieve this goal.
While there may be challenges along the way, the most important thing we need to do is stay focused and continue to solve problems, and there are no shortcuts.
1. Sturgeon farming takes 8-15 years, how to face the challenges of the long cycle?
Inspur New Consumption: From your entrepreneurial experience to the business model of Fulsta. Caviar has high added value, but strict environmental requirements, long breeding cycle, and high technical requirements, how do you solve the challenges in the farming scene?
Li Jun: The key is still in technology and management, and we are willing to continue to invest time and manpower to solve the problems, those stuck problems have basically been solved, now we pay more attention to how to improve and upgrade, technological innovation, product upgrading is endless.
We are not afraid of difficulties, because problems cannot be solved all at once, and it may take several years to gradually move forward. But every failure brings us closer to success, and we are able to see progress from failure and increase our own confidence, a quality that is in the DNA of our technicians.
Inspur New Consumption: What are your characteristics in technical team building, and how do you achieve industry leadership?
Li Jun: After our technicians enter the company, they are all the same as the workers, and they go directly to the front line to participate in production, and then gradually transition to technical management. Because our management is based on production, and production is supported by technology, in this way, our technology can be precipitated into each production link.
But we are not just buried in things and do not do strategic planning, last year we set up a technology center, specializing in strategic and directional technical research, to ensure long-term development, because to do technology must be a long-term thing, only to solve these problems, in order to truly establish the core competitiveness and barriers of enterprises.
Wave of new consumption: The cycle of sturgeon farming is as long as 8-15 years, and there may be a lot of uncertainty in the middle, how do you think about the input-output ratio?
Li Jun: Regarding the input-output ratio, in fact, the key issue that has plagued me for many years is the need to continuously invest money. Our company started with 2 million, in addition to the continuous investment of shareholders, we invested all the profits into the company, because except for the first 2 years without profit, every year after that was profitable, we invested for 17 consecutive years without dividends, until last year for the first time a small amount of dividends.
In addition, we went through two rounds of funding, both to solve the company's funding problem in the expansion, which was painful for me for about 10 years until the year before last.
Inspur New Consumption: What profitable projects did you rely on to transfuse caviar before?
Li Jun: The first is the sale of fish fry, the fry we breed are not only for our own use, but also sold in large quantities, and we are one of the leading suppliers of sturgeon fry in China, and we also sell some other cold-water fry.
The second is commercial fish farming, which is directly supplied to the market for food after 1-3 years, and our annual sales of commercial fish are 100 to 2 million catties, and the return rate of this kind of business is fast, and the gross profit margin is 30%-40%.
We have relied on these two stable profits to form a continuous cash flow and continue to invest in the sturgeon project.
Wave of new consumption: Raising other fish may make money faster, but raising sturgeon is actually fighting for the final goal, and it needs to be kept in a tense state for a long time. How do you and your team come together and are willing to invest in the end goal for the long term?
Li Jun: This process is actually very painful, and the team is also full of people, but now we have adapted to it, and we have achieved "an iron battalion, a flowing soldier". Because the core members have been very stable, the specific breeding and production processes have also precipitated into standards.
We also made equity incentives for the core team, and the treatment is also in the middle of the industry, although it is difficult, we have persevered.
Inspur New Consumption: If you look back now, what kind of mentality do you think is needed to make caviar? Because it may be really difficult for ordinary people to do well.
Li Jun: Many people ask me how I have lasted so long, and I joke that if I had known that it would take so long, or even a lifetime, I would never have chosen to enter this industry in my twenties.
At that time, we learned that the maturing cycle of sturgeon is about 6 years, and naively thought that caviar could be made in 6 years, and the idea at that time was that 6 years is not 3 years longer than the normal breeding cycle, so we entered the industry with confidence, and later learned that it takes at least 8 years to produce caviar.
Why? Because 6 years means that only 1% to 5% of the sturgeon individuals can mature at this time, and most of them will mature in 7-8 years, and the quality of the eggs that mature for the first time is very poor and cannot be used to make caviar, and the fish can only meet the requirements when the fish matures twice after two years.
So even if the fish matures in 6 years at the earliest, we have to wait until the eighth year to produce caviar, but at that time we had no way back but to move forward step by step, but in the end we persevered.
2. How can demanding caviar products be standardized and quality-oriented?
Wave of new consumption: Some species of sturgeon are reared for up to 15 years, but it may only take 15 minutes to actually collect eggs and turn them into products. In the eyes of those who don't understand, making caviar is not just killing fish and taking eggs and packaging, but Fusta's products have to go through 17 steps when processing, and even usually have to give fish physical examination and do B ultrasound.
What are your specific requirements for standardization? What is the ultimate return for the business?
Li Jun: These processing technologies were originally imported from abroad, because we didn't understand them at that time, but later we established a production line under the guidance of international caviar masters, and after knowing how to produce, our strength lies in doing promotion and improvement, because we have professionals in microorganisms, breeding, quality control and other aspects.
Since then, we have continuously improved our production processes, and it has taken several years to develop norms and standards, and today our caviar production efficiency is one of the highest in the world.
As for returns, standardization first improves product quality, and more importantly, ensures the stability of quality. In non-standardized production, it is possible to occasionally encounter a can of good quality caviar, but it is very difficult to consistently produce high quality.
Because the quality of caviar mainly depends on two factors, the first is the timing of egg retrieval, the caviar made when the eggs are just ripe is the best, but the maturity time of each fish is different, and it is difficult to accurately grasp it.
The second is hygiene control, the processing of caviar is additive-free, the production is carried out in an almost sterile environment, and the people, water, air, etc. who come into contact with the product have undergone very fine disinfection, and at the same time, it is necessary to avoid contamination of the product with disinfectants, which are problems that require time and energy to solve.
Only by doing these well, can we ensure stable and continuous production of good products, which was a problem in the industry before, and the price of caviar varies greatly, which is also because of this.
Inspur New Consumption: Agriculture is not a completely standardized product, and it is natural to face more uncertainties and need to adhere to the mentality for a long time. In the face of these problems, what do you think is the attraction and value of farming?
Li Jun: Agriculture is a biological industry, and most of the products are living organisms, which are more affected by factors such as environment and natural conditions.
Analogous to industrial products, as long as it is done in accordance with the standard process, the certainty of the product qualification rate will be very high, but agricultural products will be affected by many uncontrollable factors, such as we cannot determine the temperature every day and whether it will rain tomorrow, so we need to constantly adjust the breeding strategy, which is very troublesome and hard.
Although there are more uncertainties and hardships, I still hope that more people will enter agriculture, because it is indeed an industry full of opportunities. For example, some commercial fish farming has a gross profit of 30%-40%, and it can be effective in 1-2 years, and today in other industries, there may not be many opportunities for such high profit margins.
Despite the many challenges, agriculture is still worth exploring because it is a blue ocean as long as the problems encountered can be solved.
3. To open up the international and domestic markets, it is more necessary to win trust and expand promotion
Inspur New Consumption: In the past three years, Fulsta's shipments have doubled, becoming the leading supplier of the global caviar market, but the mature caviar market abroad also has high requirements for products, and many foreign customers may not believe that there is still high-quality caviar in China.
How did you start by opening up the international market and gaining the trust of foreign customers?
Li Jun: Many years ago, there was some prejudice against Chinese food in foreign markets, so the problem we had to solve was how to win trust in terms of safety and quality.
In the past, others questioned food safety in China, so we proved the safety of our products through technical testing and inviting a large number of customers to visit the production process.
In terms of quality, we invite customers from all over the world to conduct blind tests, repeatedly test and compare, and when customers experience it and find that the quality of our products is very good, they will gradually accept us and help us endorse.
Through these methods, we have won the trust of foreign markets, and it took 10 years to gradually complete the promotion of products.
Inspur New Consumption: What are your main markets in the world? How much room for growth is there in the future?
Li Jun: The traditional sales markets for caviar are Western countries such as Europe and the United States, and these markets are currently in the recovery stage, with an annual growth rate of about 15%-20%, which is not low, because it is a mature market.
In addition, emerging markets such as China, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, etc. are also growing rapidly. The Chinese market is the fastest-growing, with Vosta growing 70 percent last year and 100 percent in the previous two years.
In general, caviar is still in the process of rapid development in the world, just like other products made in China, we have been widely recognized abroad, and now we need to maintain steady growth. In emerging markets, we also need to do a good job in category and brand promotion, and foreign countries are still our main markets.
Inspur New Consumption: According to the 2023 Taobao Hidden Native Products Report, the average price of domestic caviar per gram is 8.5 yuan, which may be considered a bit expensive by some domestic consumers if the category education is not sufficient.
In the face of today's relatively conservative consumption environment in China, what kind of promotion strategy does Vosta have? Will the price of domestic caviar fall in the future?
Li Jun: The price of caviar is too expensive in China, which is actually a misunderstanding, because this is comparing the price we give to distributors with the terminal price, but in fact, the price of caviar in the hands of foreign consumers is still higher than that in China.
Taking gross profit as an example, although our gross profit is higher for domestic sales, the channel and promotion expenses need to be excluded from the gross profit, which also needs to be clarified.
Today, caviar is not mature in China, but in the future, with the expansion of consumer groups, channels and promotion costs may also be greatly reduced. In short, the price still changes according to the market situation.
4. From the supply chain to the front of the stage, how to do a good job of brand step by step?
Inspur New Consumption: The caviar market is gradually maturing, and the brand will become more important in the future, what are your plans for brand building in the future?
Li Jun: Brand building is a new challenge for us, and we are constantly recruiting talents and promoting brand strategy.
We believe that branding is a long-term process, so the current strategy is to continue to do what we should do, not in a hurry, and we do not have the ability to throw money to create a sensation, which is not suitable for the current development stage of our company.
From our current strength, we can't become a household name in the short term, so we are more inclined to establish communication with consumers in terms of branding, reach target customers from various channels, carry out category promotion, and do a good job in brand promotion.
Inspur New Consumption: How does Fusita do online and offline promotion? Which end will be the focus in the future?
Li Jun: At present, both online and offline promotion are being done, the focus is online, what we want is not for consumers to buy impulsively after swiping the video, because this will not lead to repurchase, but to reach those customers who really like caviar through serious promotion.
Finding these loyal customers and serving them well is key to our survival and continued growth, otherwise it may end up being a flash in the pan.
In addition, we will increase brand awareness, but not just for sales, but also to let people know what Fusta is doing, build public trust, and make consumers more willing to accept our products.
Inspur new consumption: At present, the main customers of domestic caviar in China are still B-end enterprises, but the C-end actually has great potential, is there a contradiction between the 2B and 2C models, and how will the two be unified in the future?
Li Jun: At present, the domestic consumption of caviar is mainly concentrated in the B-end, especially offline, 2C individual consumers are more on the e-commerce platform, many consumers out of curiosity about caviar and then buy our products, which is a good thing, help us cultivate high-quality customers, at present, our sales on Jingdong is the first in the category, and the growth rate in recent years is relatively fast.
In our opinion, 2B and 2C complement each other, because there is no difference between the products themselves, the difference is only the channel.
Inspur New Consumption: You have been supplying many foreign leading brands, what is the value of the development process of these brands for your own branding?
Li Jun: Actually, we have a complementary relationship with the big foreign caviar brands, because they used to sell wild caviar and didn't know much about artificial breeding and production.
As wild caviar resources dwindled, we solved their front-end supply problems and formed a complementary partnership. In the past, the strong brand in this industry was the brand, but in the future, due to the particularity of caviar production, suppliers may occupy a dominant position in the industrial chain.
As for what needs to be learned, they can see from them that whether it is a product or a brand, it is a long-term and challenging thing, and it requires continuous and high-frequency investment. In the future, we will continue to learn from these international brands and improve our brand building capabilities.
Inspur New Consumption: You started sturgeon farming in 2002, made caviar later, received investment from Shenzhen Capital a few years ago, and received investment from Fengshang Capital in early 2024, what help do you think capitalization has brought to the development of the company?
Li Jun: The purpose of our continuous financing is to become a well-known food brand, which puts forward the requirements for scale, so we continue to expand the volume and continue to do channel construction and brand promotion.
We also hope that Fulsta will become one of the world's top caviar brands and occupy a significant share of the market, and to achieve such a market position, it needs to be greatly improved on the existing basis, so there is capital intervention.
Shenzhen Capital Group joined because we needed funds to expand our scale when we were developing, and this year's round of financing is to achieve a bigger goal.
As for whether to enter the capital market in the future, there is no plan for the time being, and now we just need to set our goals and continue to move forward rapidly.
I believe that gold will always shine, and when the company reaches a certain scale and has social influence, the capital market will naturally open its doors to us. Our core mission has always been to enhance the value of the company, and issues such as listing are not a priority at this stage.
Inspur New Consumption: After the intervention of capital, in addition to financial support, does it also bring other resources and vision help?
Li Jun: Of course, the injection of capital has allowed us to achieve our set goals faster and reduce operational constraints. Although capital may be time-sensitive, we are very careful and communicate in advance to make sure they understand our long-term plans and goals, because what we ultimately want to do is a long-term business.
The involvement of capital is a good thing, and at present, our two investment institutions have provided a lot of help to the company, not only capital, but also brought a lot of high-quality resources.
Inspur New Consumption: This year, you plan to increase the output of caviar to more than 70 tons, and after the third phase of the Tianquan sturgeon base is completed, the production capacity will be further improved, and some other domestic caviar companies have also revealed expansion plans.
What is the basis for this scale-up, and what is the ultimate goal?
Li Jun: In the next 3-5 years, or even longer, we will continue to be optimistic about the domestic market, and we will also increase our domestic supply substantially.
At present, although the demand in foreign markets is growing, the proportion of overseas sales in our company's total production is decreasing, because we are screening customers in foreign markets, and the growth potential of the domestic market is greater.
We and some of our friends are actively expanding our production capacity, because we see a huge opportunity in the domestic market, due to the long breeding cycle of the caviar industry, we need to plan at least 5 years in advance to meet the future development needs.
Inspur New Consumption: Your business sector covers from upstream fish fry breeding, farm construction, to midstream caviar production, as well as downstream brand building and overseas sales, what are the core advantages and long-term value of this whole industry chain model to the enterprise?
Li Jun: At present, our brand value is mainly focused on caviar, and the rest of the links are to provide stable and continuous output of high-quality products to serve.
However, building the whole industry chain is the foundation for us to adhere to long-termism, because only by mastering each production link can we ensure the final food safety and quality stability.
Inspur New Consumption: In the face of the rapid development of the caviar market and the rise of domestic brands, what kind of competition pattern will the industry usher in in the next 3-5 years or longer?
Li Jun: As the industry is gradually recognized, there will inevitably be more competitors entering the future, and although they may achieve some success in some aspects, it will be difficult to form a lasting competitive advantage in the long run.
Because the peculiarity of the caviar industry is that time is not the main barrier, standardization is the key. So even if there are willing companies to enter the industry, it is unlikely to have a significant impact on our long-term decision-making in the next 10 years.
Because of our technology accumulation, time accumulation and the help of external resources, we have formed a certain overall advantage, which is difficult for latecomers to surpass.
Inspur New Consumption: On March 28 this year, CCTV's "Focus Interview" reported on how your caviar industry chain in Ya'an Tianquan relies on "a big fish to drive the people to get rich", and what role will you play in the industry in the future? What are the considerations for social value?
Li Jun: As an enterprise, we didn't expect that what we were doing could help rural revitalization, but in the process of development, we found that we could match with the government's plan and contribute to the local area.
Therefore, we have created jobs, used local labor services, promoted the integration of fishing and tourism and the development of the catering industry, and shared fish ponds and other projects, so that villagers can participate together and share the dividends of the industry.
In the future, as we build more bases, this model will also drive more villagers to get rich and help rural revitalization.