Like most "time-honored brands", Hejiang Xianshi Brewing Food Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xianshi Soy Sauce"), located in Luzhou City, Sichuan Province, has many labels: national intangible cultural heritage, national key cultural relics protection unit, and Chinese time-honored brand......
For a long time, the rise of most time-honored brands has not been smooth.
Compared with most time-honored brands, Xianshi soy sauce is also lucky. For example, Sichuan Langzhong Wang Zhongwang Brewing Co., Ltd., which is also a brewing company, was removed from the list of Chinese time-honored brands not long after it was included in the former "first share of soy sauce" Jiajia Food.
However, at present, for Xianshi soy sauce, it can only be regarded as "surviving" at most. After all, for most consumers, Xianshi soy sauce is still unfamiliar......
Well, time-honored ......
In February this year, in the notice on announcing the third batch of Chinese time-honored brands jointly issued by the five departments, Xianshi soy sauce was successfully selected.
According to the official website, Xianshi soy sauce was founded in the last years of the Qing Dynasty and is located in the hinterland of the Chishui River Basin. In the upstream of Xianshi soy sauce, there are two other major fermentation enterprises - Moutai and Langjiu.
According to the website of the Luzhou Municipal People's Government, the predecessor of Xianshi soy sauce is the "Jianghanyuan" sauce garden workshop in Xianshi, which is a home-style sauce garden brewing workshop built by Yuan Haizhong in the 19th year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty (1893). This group of workshops is one of the very few brewing workshops that have never been relocated to the original site and have never been interrupted, and have been continuously used to this day, after more than 120 years, they are well preserved.
In the radical wave of industrialization, Xianshi soy sauce focuses on a "handmade". It is known as "a century-old brand that insists on brewing soy sauce, vinegar, bean paste, fermented bean curd and other condiments on the original site in mainland China." ”
However, on the official website of Soy Sauce in the first market, there is only information about one category: soy sauce. There are mainly rare soy sauce, three-year aged soy sauce, four-year aged soy sauce and concentrated essential oils, and the specifications are divided into 150ml, 210ml, 310ml and various gift boxes.
From the point of view of product prices, the pricing of soy sauce in the first market is quite surprising.
On the flagship store of Xianshi, the highest sales volume is the three-year aging series of soy sauce, which ranks first in the hot sale of soy sauce in the store, with a total of 4000+ people paying. The unit price of 150ml is 33 yuan, 210ml is 47 yuan, and 310ml is 64 yuan...... It is followed by the first market treasure soy sauce, with prices of 210ml, 310ml and 410ml at 26 yuan, 38 yuan and 48 yuan respectively.
On the flagship store, there is also Xianshi aged vinegar on sale, the price is 45 yuan / bottle (410ml), the price is not low.
It is worth mentioning that whether it is the official website or the flagship store, there are no products such as douban and fermented bean curd.
Through conversion, the soy sauce and vinegar products of Xianshi Soy Sauce are not close to the people. Among them, the converted price of soy sauce per 500ml is more than 100 yuan, and the converted price of vinegar per 500ml is also more than 50 yuan, which is obviously beyond the scope of ordinary household seasoning needs.
It is not difficult to understand that with the heavy "cultural" support, Xianshi soy sauce may not want to take the popular route, but choose to rely on feelings and culture to support its high premium. However, from the perspective of effect, the "small scale and high price" of Xianshi soy sauce is really embarrassing.
After all, in addition to showing its face in some government activities or places, Xianshi soy sauce is basically not seen in the markets and terminals around Hejiang County. Compared with selling condiments, the cultural tourism of the soy sauce brewing site in Xianshi is more active.
"Alternative" breakout
Now, after being shortlisted for the "China Time-honored Brand", Xianshi soy sauce has undoubtedly ushered in its own new round of development opportunities.
In the related activities of Luzhou City, the soy sauce of Xianshi also began to show its face frequently. And Xianshi soy sauce has also begun to seek some ways to "get out of the circle". For example, at the "Wine Expo" held in the first half of this year, Xianshi Soy Sauce brought products where soy sauce collided with cocktails, bread and ice cream.
Obviously, these "cross-border co-branded" products will not bring more blessings to the market level of Xianshi soy sauce, at least for a long time in the future, otherwise, Xinhe, Hengshun, and Haitian, who make ice cream, would have already run to the front.
However, this does not affect the soy sauce of the first market to "take advantage of the momentum".
At an event at the end of September, Yang Shiyun, chairman of Hejiang Xianshi Brewing Food Co., Ltd., introduced: "Xianshi soy sauce is making every effort to promote the construction of 600 acres of Chishui River ecological brewing base, adhere to traditional technology, adhere to ecological brewing, and build a condiment production base of 200,000 tons of soy sauce crude oil, vinegar, cooking wine, compound condiments and other systems. It is expected that from 2026, the project will be completed and put into operation one after another. ”[1]
According to a report disclosed on the website of the Hejiang County People's Government on October 14, the Xianshi Soy Sauce Chishui River Ecological Brewing Base Project has been progressing rapidly since it was launched on May 15 this year, and the main structure is about to be capped. According to the person in charge of the project, "the packaging workshop has been capped, and there is a pressing workshop and a koji-making workshop behind the packaging workshop. At present, the infrastructure has been completed, the main construction has begun, the warehouse is striving to be capped before the Spring Festival, and the equipment will be installed after the Spring Festival, and strive to be put into the market at the end of next year. ”[2]
The investment project of Xianshi Soy Sauce Chishui River Ecological Brewing Base is about 2 billion yuan, covering an area of about 617 acres, with new administrative office buildings, raw materials and grain depots, production workshops, R&D centers and other facilities. After the project is put into operation, it is expected to achieve an annual output of more than 200,000 tons of soy sauce, an annual output value of about 3 billion yuan, an average output value of 3 million yuan per mu, an annual profit and tax of 5-800 million yuan, and more than 1,000 jobs for the society.
From the perspective of total output, what is the level of the 200,000-ton condiment production base of Xianshi soy sauce?
According to the latest available data, the total output of condiments in 2022 is 698,500 tons, and the total sales volume is 695,600 tons. In 2022, Meiweixian, which is responsible for Zhongju High-tech Condiment Business, will achieve an operating income of 4.955 billion yuan and a net profit of 581 million yuan.
According to this estimate, if the soy sauce in the first market reaches full production, and the gross profit margin is comparable to that of Meiweixian, its revenue level will be close to about 1.5 billion yuan.
However, the ideal is very plump, and the reality is very skinny. At present, in addition to the brand and production capacity, the current soy sauce has not yet shown more market advantages, especially at the channel level, which is basically a "blank". In the face of increasingly fierce competition in the condiment market, the idea of focusing on specialty products and cultural products cannot help enterprises become bigger and stronger.
Of course, the more "blank" the more "opportunity", the key is to see what new measures will be implemented in the follow-up of the first market soy sauce, let us wait and see.
Resources:
[1] Sichuan News Network, ""China in Sichuan Flavor" Xianshi Soy Sauce Chairman Yang Shiyun: Make Every Effort to Promote the Construction of Chishui River Ecological Brewing Base (Chen Qiao, Li Jutao, Yang Yizhuo)
[2] Hejiang County People's Government website "Hejiang County: Xianshi Soy Sauce Chishui River Ecological Brewing Base is about to be capped" (County Rong Media Center)