Chapter 340 - 167: Layout and Stalemate

Chapter 340: Chapter 167: Layout and Stalemate

"Okay."

In fact, Jiang Miao already had a plan in mind.

Propolis is a type of traditional Chinese medicinal material that can boost the human immune system. This effect wasn’t limited to humans; it also worked on some animals, like dairy cows.

With the right dosage, it could be fed to the cows along with other nutrients to enhance their immunity and reduce the need for veterinary drugs.

As for beeswax, besides being used as a binding agent for traditional Chinese medicine pills, it could also be used for fruit preservation, candles, cosmetics, dental materials, and wood and leather treatment.

Cosmetics manufacturers commonly purchase beeswax and propolis as raw materials, so there was no worry about selling them.

Of course, if beeswax production became too high, they could add a candle production line and directly manufacture a batch of candles.

However, he probably wouldn’t need to consider candle production in the short term. After all, Hailufeng Company’s current annual beeswax output was only two to three hundred tons. Compared to the national annual capacity of tens of thousands of tons, it was only about one percent and wouldn’t impact the beeswax market at all.

After inspecting the honey processing plant in Phoenix Town, Liu Changqing continued to lead Jiang Miao toward Shangguantang Village in Zhangshan Town, north of the Luling City District.

Hero Dairy’s dairy farm in Luling City was located in Shangguantang Village, Zhangshan Town.

The reason it was established here was that Shangguantang Village in Zhangshan Town had a small river channel that connected directly to the Ganjiang River, and this channel could accommodate 200-ton inland flat-bottomed boats.

This allowed for the transport of very heavy fresh grass from various counties and districts of Luling City via inland transport vessels, thereby reducing shipping costs.

Lin Datong, the manager of the farm in Shangguantang Village, Zhangshan Town, received a call from the gate guard and quickly rode his small electric scooter out from inside the farm.

As soon as he saw Jiang Miao and Liu Changqing, he slammed on the brakes and greeted them breathlessly, "HUFF... HUFF... Boss! Hello, I’m Lin Datong."

"Take it easy. I’m just here to take a look. Where’s Manager Li?"

"General Manager Li is at headquarters."

"Datong, show us around inside," Liu Changqing said with a smile.

Lin Datong naturally recognized Liu Changqing. After all, they were both part of Hailufeng Company’s management, operated in the same region, and had business dealings with each other. He bobbed his head profusely. "Yes, yes... General Manager Jiang, Vice Manager Liu, this way, please!"

As they walked, Jiang Miao carefully observed the farm.

"Datong, what’s the total number of cattle at this farm?"

Lin Datong quickly and carefully replied, "We have 3,000 calves, 3,000 bred heifers, 3,000 maiden heifers, 10,000 milking cows, and 1,000 adult bulls. That’s a total of 20,000 head. This is also our company’s largest farm at the moment."

Strolling through the facility, the entire farm was immense, covering an area of nearly 6,200 mu. It included professional cattlesheds, cow activity areas, a manure treatment plant, a silage field, hay storage warehouses, a milking parlor, staff quarters, a dock, and other supporting facilities. There were a total of 324 employees here.

And Lin Datong wasn’t just the farm manager; he also served as the head of the veterinary station. This was because he had a degree in veterinary medicine and over a decade of work experience at other dairy farms, giving him extensive management expertise.

A short while later, another manager from Hero Dairy came jogging over. The man had a very recognizable face: long and horsey, with slicked-back hair. He was wearing a technician’s uniform.

"Boss, hello! I’m Ma Qianyang, the manager of the Luling Dairy Factory."

Jiang Miao patted him on the back. "Hello! Is production at the factory running smoothly?"

Ma Qianyang wasn’t overly formal. "We’ve finished calibrating some of the production lines. We can currently produce whole milk powder, skim milk powder, butter, whey protein powder, and casein."

Hero Dairy’s industrial layout involved pairing a dairy farm with a dairy processing plant to reduce the cross-regional transport of liquid milk.

The Luling Dairy Products Processing Plant was located just across the river from the Luling Breeding Base. For ease of transport, they even used a specially made pipeline, suspended over the river, to pump fresh milk directly from the milking parlor to the processing plant on the other side. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

After all, the Luling Dairy Farm currently had 10,000 milking cows that could produce around 350 tons of liquid milk per day. Aside from a small portion used to feed calves, about 300 to 320 tons of raw milk needed to be transferred to the dairy processing plant.

"What’s the production capacity?"

"We can produce 45 to 50 tons of milk powder, 4.5 to 5 tons of whey protein, 4 tons of butter, and 12 tons of casein per day," Ma Qianyang answered fluently.

Jiang Miao watched the rows of cows being led into the milking stalls. "Datong, what’s the production cost for raw milk at this farm?"

"Around 3.6 yuan per kilogram," Lin Datong replied after a moment’s thought. "That’s the comprehensive cost."

Seemingly worried the boss might misunderstand, he quickly added, "This cost is basically the lowest in the Yangtze River Basin. Bright’s farm in Shanghai, even relying on cheap imported feed, still has a comprehensive cost as high as 4 yuan per kilogram of raw milk."

"It really is the lowest in the Yangtze River Basin," Ma Qianyang chimed in.

Jiang Miao nodded. "I know."

However, he was still not satisfied with this cost.

"By the way, what’s the milk powder market like right now?"

Ma Qianyang gave a wry smile. "Boss, the domestic milk powder market is sluggish overall right now. Due to overcapacity, many large dairy companies are spray-drying their excess raw milk into powder. Currently, whole milk powder is about 80,000 yuan per ton, while skim milk powder is around 25,000 yuan per ton."

Jiang Miao wasn’t too concerned about this situation. "It doesn’t matter. Our costs are low enough. For now, sell at the lowest market price to formulated milk companies and infant formula companies that need it."

’Cost is our advantage.’

Although he knew Hero Dairy’s production costs were far lower than their domestic competitors, Ma Qianyang still suggested, "Boss, I think we need to restart the production lines for fresh milk, yogurt, formulated milk, and cheese as soon as possible to diversify our product range."

"Let’s wait a while," Jiang Miao didn’t agree immediately, because Hailufeng Company’s strategic layout wasn’t complete yet.

’We need to keep a low profile at this stage.’

There was another reason why the retail prices of many dairy products remained high: the domestic multi-level distribution system. After all, with each level of distributor adding their own markup, the retail price of a kilogram of milk increased by at least 2 yuan.

Jiang Miao was well aware that no matter how powerful Hailufeng Company became, it couldn’t strong-arm the distributors when it came to dairy products, because it wasn’t a monopolized market.

Therefore, to break the deadlock, the only way was to bypass the distributors through a direct-to-consumer model, using Hailufeng Specialty Store’s physical and online stores.

And that was precisely what required time to set up.

This setup would probably be complete around the end of this year.

Before the end of the year, Hailufeng Company would officially launch its specialty store app. At the same time, it would open a large number of physical stores and establish a relatively complete logistics system in the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, the Beijing-Tianjin region, and the locations of its major branch offices.

Only by accomplishing all this, combined with the tremendous reputation Jiang Miao would build from the success of the Immortal Soybeans, could they break the stalemate in the dairy market.