The Dragon Boat Festival is Sam's "one phase and one meeting" with members.
Through the blend of taste, smell and vision, Sam paints an impression of the Dragon Boat Festival that makes people reminisce about the whole year, so that members are full of anticipation in every midsummer season in the future.
Sam's Purchase: Huang Ai cherishes this once-a-year opportunity. As early as the end of the Dragon Boat Festival in 2023, her team is already thinking about the various possibilities of goods in the coming year. The challenge is how to give new ideas to traditional products that have been passed down for thousands of years and restore people's expectations for the festival.
Huang Ai laughs that her work is like "making 100 patterns from tomato scrambled eggs". Innovation is essential.
Although the concept of creative zongzi is not unusual, there are very few that can be recognized after hunting. Sam has his own vision for innovation.
"Innovation is not a deliberate pursuit of unconventionality. Instead, Sam's merchandising principles return to our most unpretentious mission – to allow members to save money on everyday merchandise and surprise and delight with unexpected new and exotic merchandise. This means always focusing on the needs of our members and making meaningful differentiations so that they are full of anticipation every time they walk into Sam's. Huang Ai introduced.
"Member first" is the compass in every Sam's heart, and it is the origin of everything.
Getting to know the members well is a must for every Sam's person. Huang Ai and her colleagues spent a lot of time listening to the voices of their members. "Members don't just come to Sam's for everyday shopping, they want to see something different every time they come – new ingredients, new ways of cooking, new things they've never seen before, and even new ways of living...... Sam's is where members get inspired. ”
In terms of food, the members' favorite is "no question of the West and the East". Not only do they know a lot about the cooking of Chinese ingredients, but they also know a little about European wine regions and cheese technology. Ingredients from around the globe, on the table of Sam's Club, come together in a variety of wonderful ways.
Observing that the acceptance of black truffles by members is very high, and related items are very popular, the idea of using black truffles to improve the traditional "mushroom + ham" germinated. Zongzi is traditional, but there can be new expressions – and the concept of black truffle cloud leg dumplings was born.
The most important and difficult point of "integration between China and the West" is "integration". The aroma of black truffle is strange and intense, and the first step in making it shine in the rice dumplings without being obtrusive is to ensure the quality of the raw materials.
The purchasing team tasted almost all the black truffle sauces on the market, and carefully considered the origin of the raw materials, the picking season and other details. The final selection of ingredients comes from the Alps – the region's black truffles have a moderate flavour that complements the rest of the rice dumplings; And the picking month is strictly regulated, a little earlier or later, and the aroma of black truffles cannot fully bloom.
In this way, the "just right" black truffle sauce can harmoniously blend with the rich glutinous rice, salty cloud legs, and dense salted egg yolk thousands of kilometers away, and turn it into a new pleasure.
Quality is the cornerstone of Sam. Because members do not compromise on the quality of life, Sam's purchasers do not compromise on the quality of goods.
"Every single product is like being inspected under a microscope, and every detail in the development chain, from the design concept, formula, process, to packaging, display...... It's all critical for us. To do every step to the extreme, it means not to follow the rules, but to innovate. ”
At Sam, innovation exists in different forms. If the addition of black truffles is compared to an imaginative artistic creation, then the development of dried scallop egg yolk and meat dumplings is like a complex and sophisticated scientific research project, breaking through the shackles of traditional craftsmanship upward, and also infinitely rooted in tradition, polishing every step to the extreme.
The production of a zongzi, from wrapping, steaming, soaking, cooling, to final vacuum packaging, is a "theorem", and almost all manufacturers on the market follow such a production process. But to meet the "Sam's standard" in Huang Ai's heart – the glutinous rice is flavorful, the appearance is full without cracking, and the egg yolk is sandy to just the right amount...... This means that the procurement team has to challenge the "rules of the trade".
"Raw rice soaked in dashi" is the first key to unlocking umami. The raw rice is directly immersed in the soup base, and the rice grains absorb the essence of the broth during the gelatinization process, so that every bite is not bland.
Behind this, it is time that is sacrificed.
"A lot of times, when we break the existing process, a lot of senior suppliers are questioning, and they say that even the old brands have not made such a request. But we believe that this change is worth it, and it will be done no matter how difficult it is. ”
The cooking time, cooking times, water absorption rate and other indicators of zongzi have been adjusted after countless precision experiments, which seem to be only once, twice, one minute, or two minutes, but every detail is the procurement team's response to the expectations of members.
Dare to break through and be willing to take time, in order to be worthy of waiting for a while.
The freshness permeated by every grain of rice comes from the preparation of broth, which is a "slow" work, and the essence is in the word "fresh". But this word is all-encompassing: what kind of ingredients are used as the base? How to proportion? How long does it take? How do you soak the soup well enough into the glutinous rice without loosening? …… Every answer is tried out again and again.
As far as the selection of scallops is concerned, the purchase of dried scallops produced in almost all the seas of the north and south of the river can balance the different acceptance of seafood by members from the north and south. In the end, they set their place of origin in the golden sea area of Dalian.
The existence of Japanese-style bonito makes "fresh" more interesting, and two different seafood flavors collide with a more diverse and rich mellow aroma. It's the result of co-creation with the development team responsible for the seafood category, and this way of working is not uncommon at Sam's.
"Our colleagues have experts who have been deeply involved in a certain field for more than ten years, or even decades; Some have experience working across industries in different countries, and some have been executive chefs in high-end hotels...... No product is the result of a person's decision-making, but a condensation of the experience and experience of a group of Sam's. ”
"At this time, most of the members who come to buy zongzi are not for gifts, but to go back and eat them themselves." Huang Ai introduced that this fascination and expectation of the taste itself is a wordless compliment to Sam.
The encounter of "one period and one meeting" is worth countless attempts.