Produced by One View Commercial
Author/Li Yan
Edit/Wooden Fish
In the autumn of Changshan in Quzhou, you can see such a picture: golden and plump pomelo hanging on the branches, and pomelo farmers are busy picking in the meantime, showing a bumper harvest scene everywhere.
In Zhejiang, you can see such a product: street restaurants have it, shopping mall chain restaurants also have it, and supermarkets around the country also have it.
This product is called "Song Yuzu Juice", and this brand is "Yuzu Xianggu". In the eyes of many users, Song Yuzu juice is like a single product that has exploded from the sky, appearing in various scenes. In 2022, Yuxiang Valley achieved sales of nearly 400 million yuan a year with the single product of Song Yuzu juice, and by 2023, this number will increase to nearly 600 million.
The popularity of Song grapefruit juice in Zhejiang quickly attracted the attention of peers. One View Business found that in the supermarkets in Zhejiang, a large number of "double grapefruit juice" with the same color packaging as Song grapefruit juice appeared. Various large manufacturers, including Wahaha and Wanglaoji, have successively launched single products related to "pomelo".
On March 15, Song Wei, the founder of Yuxiang Valley, released a reflection with the theme of "Clear Opposition to Wahaha's 'God'" through the official account of Yuxiang Valley. This article once caused an uproar, and for a period of time, Song Wei repeatedly gave his own views on this topic: every enterprise has its own ecosystem, to be an innovative and creative enterprise, and to refuse to "create gods" for enterprises.
So, why did Song Yuzu juice become a big item imitated by peers? What kind of company is Yuxiang Valley? Why do everyone have a perception of the popularity of this item "falling from the sky"?
On an ordinary weekend, One View Commercial came to the office building of Yuxiang Valley in Shanghai to talk to Song Wei and explore the story behind Song Yuzu juice.
Compete with 130 imitations
"Song Grapefruit Juice" is not Song Wei's first attempt at "pomelo", nor is it his first successful item.
Long before the establishment of Yuxiang Valley, Song Wei was engaged in high-risk futures business and also entered the health care products industry. By chance, a bottle of "Korean Yuzu Tea" with a price tag of 98 made Song Wei smell new business opportunities. With the idea of making a domestic "honey refining pomelo tea", he traveled to various places for investigation, and finally found Changshan Hu pomelo in western Zhejiang, which has both health care functions and raw material origin advantages.
In 2013, Song Wei founded Zhejiang Changshan Hengshoutang Pomelo Co., Ltd., founded the Pomelo Valley brand, and built an advanced honey-refined grapefruit tea production line and production and processing base in Changshan.
To make a Chinese honey-refined grapefruit tea, in the eyes of the buyers at that time, there was no such great imagination.
"The purchasing director of RT-Mart talked to us about this product afterwards and told us that Korean honey yuzu tea can't sell a few bottles a day in their store, and as soon as our honey condensed yuzu tea comes out, many stores can sell more than 200 bottles a day, and the sales volume is directly tens of thousands."
At that time, the raw materials of this honey-refined grapefruit tea were taken from Changshan Hu pomelo, and the threshold for imitation was not high, and Yuxiang Valley had not yet made barriers in the supply chain. Soon a batch of imitations of the same specification but at a lower price appeared on the market. Under the low-price competition, Song Wei had no choice but to give up this item.
How do you create a piece that can't be replicated? How do you make your own core ingredients? In Kochi Prefecture, on the Japanese island of Shikoku, Song Wei found the answer.
As the core production area of Japanese yuzu, Maji Village in Kochi Prefecture relies on the village's yuzu to sell more than 1 million items a year and earn more than 200 million yuan.
What is not known to outsiders is that the yuzu here was transmitted to Japan through the Korean Peninsula by Tang envoys as early as the Tang and Song dynasties. Song Wei, who was in the orchard of Yuzu, made up his mind: to bring Yuzu back to Changshan from Japan.
It took three years for 600,000 yuzu seedlings to complete the seedling cultivation in Changshan, and in the six years from 2017 to 2023, Song Wei encountered three severe frost damages, encountered a drought that occurred once in decades, and many trees were planted three times before they survived, and invested about 150 million yuan in 10,000 acres of land without any income.
Before planting, is there a plan for the cost of the input, and is the investment in line with expectations?
In the face of the question raised by Yilan Business, Song Wei replied: It is difficult to budget agriculture, our so-called expectation is only the number of acres, our goal is to introduce Japanese pomelo (YUZU) and make an industrial chain, and the investment in this matter is not expected.
"Song Grapefruit Juice", named "Double Grapefruit Juice" at the beginning of its birth, is exactly the same as the honey-refined grapefruit tea of that year, and several double grapefruit juices followed the trend and swept all channels. According to Song Wei's statistics, at the most, there were more than 130 imitations across the country, most of which took similar packaging and played the old routine of price war. In order to distinguish himself from it, Song Wei made up his mind to change the name of "Double Grapefruit Juice" to "Song Grapefruit Juice" in July 2023.
You can get in by paying, and supermarkets are not the preferred channel for new brands
At the beginning of its launch, Song Wei made it clear that restaurants were the primary channel for "Song Yuzu Juice".
On the one hand, "Song Grapefruit Juice" has a refreshing taste and relieves greasy, and pomelo has the effect of eliminating food and relieving hangover, so Song Wei positioned it as an accompaniment to food and drink. The catering channel has become the most suitable hotbed for "Song Yuzu Juice". On the other hand, the catering channel itself has the characteristics of being closed and monopolistic, and there are not many drinks that have become popular from the catering channel.
"When a region, the catering channel has not cultivated the market well, we will not enter the supermarket, and this order will not change." In Song Wei's view, the priority choice of catering channels is determined by product attributes, and is also determined by the economic conditions at that time.
The catering channel is a must for the beverage industry. According to the "2014-2024 Market Size and Forecast of China's Beverage Industry by Channel" released by iiMedia Consulting, the catering channel is the third largest channel for beverage sales, and it is expected that the beverage sales scale of the catering channel will exceed 197 billion yuan in 2024.
In the view of One View Commerce, compared with other channels such as supermarkets, the catering channel can allow start-up brands to avoid competition with traditional beverage giants to a certain extent, but the high gross profit needs to be more painstaking.
Initially, Song Wei talked about 300 restaurants in Changshan, Quzhou, the base of Yuxiang Valley, and there were not many shopkeepers who could accept the price of the products at that time, but after more than half a year, a group of restaurant owners came to Song Wei to buy goods, and the reason was that "consumers like it".
This is also a significant advantage of the F&B channel, where it is difficult for other competitors to shake its position when a drink has gained a foothold.
"Song Yuzu Juice", which is strong offline, only uses the e-commerce platform as its own publicity platform.
Yilan Business found that at present, Yuxiang Valley has settled in various mainstream e-commerce channels such as Taobao and Douyin, and the live broadcast room is also running for a long time. Song Wei admitted frankly that online channels currently account for less than 5% of revenue. For Yuxiang Valley, online channels play more of a role in publicity.
When it comes to marketing, Song Wei considers himself "Buddhist".
"The marketing of FMCG brands is fundamentally based on product power. Before this year, we didn't invest much in advertising, and I didn't care about most of the marketing tools on the market, because I don't think they understand real marketing. ”
Song Wei told Yilan Business that since the beginning of this year, in some markets where the distribution rate has reached the standard, Yuxiang Valley has begun to lay out advertisements, in order to make "Song Yuzu Juice" more famous than "Double Grapefruit Juice". In Song Wei's view, advertising, like planting trees, depends on the long-term. Don't rely too much, but seek a long stream. Product power is the foundation of marketing. The foundation of product strength lies in the supply chain of its core raw materials.
The different and scarce supply chain makes it difficult for "Song Yuzu Juice" to be replicated. Even if there are still a batch of similar packaging and the same "double grapefruit juice" products on the market, Song Wei is still confident that this time, "Song Grapefruit Juice" will continue to rely on product strength.
It will be declared for listing in 2026
In the picture on the official website of Yuxiang Valley, in addition to "Song Yuzu Juice", there are also drinks such as lactic acid bacteria, soda, and even some personal care products.
In the last year, several 100% coconut water became popular on the Internet, and coconut has become the hottest fruit in summer. As a fruit, although the taste of grapefruit is not suitable for "single out", it has more room for imagination.
"In Japan, there are more than 100 FMCG SKUs related to Yuzu. Spanning beverages, alcohol, condiments, snack foods, personal care and beauty and other categories, in my opinion, the long-tail effect of this industry space far exceeds that of coconut. ”
Even so, in Song Wei's plan, in the next 3 to 5 years, the primary goal of Yuxiang Valley is to spread "Song Yuzu juice" to the whole country. When the raw materials are sufficient, we should consider enriching the product line, and even cut into products that are more suitable for online channels, such as personal care. "The ultimate form of Yuxiang Valley should be a fast-moving consumer goods enterprise with 'pomelo' as the core element." Song Wei concluded.
One View Business understands that the next five years. Yuzu Valley will expand the planting of 100,000 acres of yuzu in the country, and replicate the three Changshan in southwest and central China. Because the seedlings have been laid out first, there is no need to wait for four or five years like Changshan to plant now, and there will be a harvest in about two years, and the initial processing plant and beverage filling plant of fresh fruit will also be laid out synchronously.
In other words, with the mature market cultivation model of Zhejiang, Yuxiang Valley can directly replicate the original experience in agriculture, industry, logistics and even marketing, and shorten the investment cycle in the early stage.
In Song Wei's view, the biggest challenge facing the current Yuxiang Valley is on the management side. As the scale grows rapidly, the company's governance structure and team management strategy will change. According to reports, at present, the company's performance has met the national requirements for the threshold of listed companies, and it is expected to apply for listing in 2026.
For example, a line in "Dune 2": "Those who get spices will win the world". In five years, a small pomelo seedling told the story of Song grapefruit juice, and Song Wei found his "spice". Zhejiang is just the starting point of the story of Yuxiang Valley.