Chapter 391 - 184: Nourishing Things Silently

Chapter 391: Chapter 184: Nourishing Things Silently

His colleague analyzed the fish as he ate. "We got a whole pound of fish for just 15 yuan. What kind of ocean fish could be this cheap?"

The wholesale price for these mass-produced Egyptian fish fillets from Hailufeng Company was 8.6 yuan per kilogram, while the online retail price was 9.9 yuan per kilogram.

Wholesalers, in turn, typically sold them to restaurants for 9.9 yuan per kilogram.

The large portion of fish and chips the two were eating contained a pound of fish. When you add in the fries, flour, seasonings, ketchup, paper bag, and other expenses, the total cost for one serving came to around 7 yuan. That meant a profit of about 8 yuan.

A restaurant’s gross profit margin needs to be at least 30% to 60%; otherwise, you won’t make much money.

It didn’t take long for Old Zhou and his colleague to finish their fish and chips.

Meanwhile, Du Xiaoming and his family were already rushed off their feet. An endless stream of the city’s migrant workers, finished with their day jobs, flooded the food street in search of a meal.

Happy Chicken Cutlet was all about value for money.

"One Combo C, to go!"

"Alright, just a moment." Tang Likai grabbed a disposable container and filled it with a third of a fried fish fillet, two Orleans-style chicken wings, and a dozen or so crispy, golden-fried fish skins. She added a large pile of fries, a scoop of mashed potatoes, half a tomato, and a generous handful of finely shredded cabbage.

All packed.

"Payment received: 12 yuan."

"I just scanned it," the young man said, holding up his phone screen.

"Alright, young man."

This inexpensive meal combo was also Du Xiaoming’s idea.

Even though one of these meals was enough to stuff a person, its actual cost was just over six yuan, yielding a gross profit of more than five yuan.

It had recently become one of their best-selling items. They sold over a hundred of them every evening, and the numbers were still climbing.

A 12-yuan meal that included fish, meat, vegetables, and fruit—packed with protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, fiber, and minerals—was an undeniable boon for the capital’s migrant workers, especially in a city where every inch of land is precious.

Of course, similar inexpensive fast-food options could be found elsewhere in the Capital City.

The cost of living in China’s major cities is actually a relative concept.

For instance, things like fresh produce markets and cheap fast food can sometimes be even cheaper than in third- or fourth-tier cities. This is due to more developed supply chains and intense market competition.

Conversely, the prices for produce and fast food in third- and fourth-tier cities aren’t always significantly lower than in first-tier cities.

However, the recent nationwide 10–15% drop in the retail prices of seafood, poultry, pork, beef, mutton, eggs, dairy, and cooking oil was having a massive impact on society.

In August of this year, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) fell by 2.3% year-over-year.

It was projected to fall even further in September.

When it came to food and drink, things were becoming increasingly affordable across the country.

As long as you weren’t chasing mid-to-high-end produce like cherries, strawberries, or White Truffles, an ordinary person could cook for themselves and eat quite well on just three to four hundred yuan a month.

For the more extreme, you could even follow the example of "Algae Bro" from the online forums, who cultivated his own spirulina for food and managed to survive on just over ten yuan a month.

However, cultivating your own spirulina for food required a certain degree of technical know-how and practical skill, not to mention the need to watch out for bacterial contamination.

In reality, one could also solve the food problem by buying bulk milk powder and soy protein powder. These "life-support meals" cost only a few cents per serving, but the taste was an acquired one.

For example, people were already posting tutorials on the Ah B Platform.

You could buy Hailufeng Company’s Egyptian Catfish fillets online—a 20-kilogram wholesale case for just 172 yuan.

Egyptian Catfish is high in protein and fat and contains various vitamins. Paired with potatoes as a staple, a person could meet their basic nutritional needs for just over two hundred yuan a month.

Fortunately, as the economy recovered, the number of people subsisting on such "life-support meals" had started to shrink significantly.

This was especially true in Ji and Yu Provinces, where large numbers of migrant workers with experience in operating farm machinery were being recruited by Hailufeng Company, United Mining Company, COFCO Group, and Beidahuang Group to work in Monan.

In addition, many migrant workers from the civil engineering sector were also heading north in droves for employment.

Monan had suddenly become a hotspot of opportunity.

Hailufeng Company’s Monan Branch alone had recruited over two thousand people from across North China, with plans to expand further next year.

After all, managing 30 million mu of land—even high-standard, heavily mechanized farmland—would require over a hundred thousand people once you included staff for all the supporting facilities.

Monan’s local population was certainly not large enough to meet this demand.

Take Zhelimu City, where the Monan Branch was located, for example. With a population of only about 2.8 million, even if you estimated the working-age labor force at 60%, that would amount to just 1.68 million people.

From that number, you still had to subtract people working for government agencies, public institutions, state-owned enterprises, private businesses, and in farming. Add to that the young workers who had already left the region for jobs elsewhere, and there was hardly any available labor left.

Fortunately, the vast labor pool of the North China Plain was available. Combined with the fact that a large number of migrant workers from the construction sector were semi-unemployed, recruiting people to work in Monan was relatively easy.

Although the real estate market was still half-dead, it was now a certainty that Monan and the Northwest, buoyed by the advent of Immortal Soybeans, would become the nation’s next economic hotspots.

Immortal Soybeans weren’t just a matter of food security; they had also revitalized a host of related industries.

For instance, developing 200 to 300 million new mu of farmland in the future would demand enormous amounts of manpower and resources, boosting sectors like agricultural and construction machinery, fertilizers, pesticides, and other farming consumables.

This provided a substantial consumer market for the country’s excess production capacity and rescued the flagging market confidence.

Sometimes, market confidence truly is paramount.

If the public loses faith in the market, consumer spending plummets. Many people will subconsciously cut back on expenses, choosing to hold onto their cash and wait to see how things develop.

The government was already planning to roll out a one-trillion-yuan New Agricultural Development Plan. The plan would focus on transforming the deserts in Monan and the Northwest, creating a vast expanse of large-scale farms, ranches, and their supporting industries.

If everything went according to plan, Monan and the Northwest Region could directly create nearly three million jobs while indirectly stimulating employment for close to another ten million.

This would also set off a chain reaction, giving the North China Plain and the Guanzhong Plain an even larger economic hinterland and further stimulating rapid growth in the northern economy.

Whether the goal was to lower unemployment or to balance the economies of the north and south, east and west, this one-trillion-yuan investment was well worth it.