Chapter 393 - 185: Mid-Autumn Festival Warm-up

Chapter 393: Chapter 185: Mid-Autumn Festival Warm-up

"Braised mutton soup."

"How much is mutton a pound these days?"

"I don’t know. I bought it at the Hailufeng Specialty Store. Four pounds of mutton ribs for eighty yuan."

"That cheap? Are you sure there’s nothing wrong with it?"

Li Xiaoli shook her head. "I doubt it! Their products have always been high-quality. It’s probably because they sell directly from the source, that’s why it’s so cheap."

"Don’t be so quick to trust these businesses. They claim they have their own farm, but we’ve never seen it. Who knows where they’re really getting their sheep from." Her husband, Yang Dong, was a bit of a skeptic.

"We’ll know once we try it. You can tell right away if mutton is bad."

"It’s too gamey. The last time my mom brought over that leg of lamb, Xiaohu and I couldn’t stomach it. You were the only one who ate it. You didn’t cook all four pounds, did you?" Yang Dong asked quickly.

"I did! There isn’t much meat on ribs anyway. If you two don’t eat it, I’ll just freeze the rest and have it tomorrow." Seeing the pressure cooker start to hiss, Li Xiaoli ran into the kitchen to turn down the heat.

Meanwhile, Yang Dong went into the bathroom to take a shower.

Their son, Xiaohu, was lying on his side on the living room couch, playing on his phone.

「Half an hour later.」

Li Xiaoli opened the cooled pressure cooker, and a savory aroma wafted out. But her brow furrowed slightly. ’Why can’t I smell much of that gamey flavor? That’s strange.’

"What’s wrong?" Yang Dong asked, hearing his wife muttering in the kitchen as he walked over to the dish rack to get bowls, chopsticks, and a soup spoon.

"Nothing." Li Xiaoli thought she must be imagining things. She poured the braised mutton from the pressure cooker into a large soup tureen. "Dinner’s ready!"

One meat dish, one vegetable dish, and one soup.

The electric fan blew across the hot steam rising from the braised mutton, spreading the aroma further throughout the living room.

"Smells so good!" Xiaohu sniffed at the bowl of braised mutton and couldn’t resist picking up a rib. "HOO... HOO..."

Yang Dong, however, didn’t touch the mutton. He had never liked it, not since he was a kid. He picked up a piece of cola chicken wing and began to gnaw on it.

Just then, Li Xiaoli took a sip of the rib soup. Her brow unfurrowed. "Huh? This soup is so sweet and savory, and it has a faint, milky aroma. Why isn’t it gamey?"

"For real?" Yang Dong was skeptical. "You’re not just trying to trick me into drinking mutton soup, are you?"

"Mmm, mmm... It’s so good! Dad, it’s really, really good!" Xiaohu had already devoured a large piece of rib meat. He picked up another, blowing on it quickly. "HOO... HOO..."

"I still don’t believe it..." Yang Dong also picked up a piece. After one bite, a flash of surprise crossed his eyes. He took another taste. "You’re right, it’s not gamey. Is this really mutton? It’s not pork pretending to be mutton, is it?"

"No way. I can tell the difference between pork and mutton." Li Xiaoli shot her husband a look, then picked up a piece of well-simmered Morchella. The moment it entered her mouth, she was struck by its incredible umami. "Honey, this Morchella and mutton are a match made in heaven."

Yang Dong had completely forgotten his aversion to mutton and began to dig in with gusto.

The family devoured every last bit of the four pounds of mutton ribs.

「After they had eaten and drunk their fill.」

Lying on the sofa, Yang Dong picked his teeth and said, "Those mutton ribs were great. It’s the first time I’ve ever had mutton that wasn’t gamey."

As she cleared the table, Li Xiaoli casually mentioned, "I heard there’s a type of sheep in the Northwest, Tan sheep from Yanchi, that supposedly isn’t gamey and has a milky aroma. It sounds a lot like this mutton."

"Heh, that’s the lamb they serve at state banquets. Your mutton was only twenty yuan a pound. No way it’s Yanchi Tan sheep," Yang Dong retorted without a second thought.

"That’s true." Li Xiaoli agreed it was impossible.

Yang Dong grew even more suspicious. "For it to be this cheap and this delicious... they didn’t use some kind of chemical additives or corner-cutting tricks, did they?"

He sat up and started searching on his phone for methods to make mutton non-gamey and give it a milky aroma, but after searching for a long time, he couldn’t find anything problematic.

After washing the dishes, Li Xiaoli dried her hands. "What are you looking at?"

"The Hailufeng Company’s farms."

"Their farms?"

"They have videos. It seems they explain how they can eliminate the gamey taste by adjusting the sheep’s diet," Yang Dong said, half-convinced.

Li Xiaoli also started looking up review videos of Hailufeng Company’s mutton on various websites.

Apparently, quite a few people suspected Hailufeng Company of using unethical shortcuts, and even more influencers wanted to get famous by riding on this wave.

As a result, many "debunker" influencers bought Hailufeng Company’s mutton for taste tests and inspections. Naturally, the results showed no issues whatsoever.

As for starting rumors that there was something wrong with Hailufeng Company’s mutton, these bloggers just wanted to get famous, not get canceled.

Everyone knew that Hailufeng Company’s legal department had a reputation for being ruthless on the Chinese internet. Once they sank their teeth into you, they’d cling on like a mad dog and never let go.

Therefore, those debunker bloggers and clout-chasing influencers didn’t dare start rumors about Hailufeng Company. After all, precedents had been set; others had already been made an example of.

Hailufeng Company had also issued related statements welcoming all parties to test and review their products, but with one condition: stick to the facts. If anyone dared to make baseless accusations, Hailufeng Company would absolutely fight them to the bitter end.

While Yang Dong and his wife were searching for information on Hailufeng Company’s sheep farming...

...the excitement for the Mid-Autumn Festival lottery event on the specialty store’s app was reaching a fever pitch.

Many users were recommending the Hailufeng Company specialty store app to their friends and family. After all, who doesn’t love a chance to cash in on a good deal?

From September 5th to September 25th.

The number of registered users on the Hailufeng Specialty Store app skyrocketed once again, increasing from 36 million to 57.36 million, an increase of almost a million users per day.

Although they gave away 10,000 legs of lamb and a host of other items, this also caused sales on the specialty store app to soar.

At the same time, it drove traffic to their physical, offline stores.

Users in the Pearl River Delta Region enjoyed an incredibly fast online shopping experience.

After all, Hailufeng Company had 50 physical stores in the Pearl River Delta Region. After placing an order, customers could choose to pick it up at a nearby store or schedule a time for an employee to deliver it, essentially guaranteeing same-day delivery.

This model solved a great many problems.

For instance, it reduced spoilage during shipping, lengthy delivery times, and courier fees.

Of course, these savings on shipping could only offset a portion of the physical stores’ operating costs. Fortunately, Hailufeng Company bought its properties outright instead of leasing them, avoiding being bled dry by landlords and sublessors. The benefits from this alone were enormous.

Take the Panyu Branch where Li Xiaoli picked up her order, for example. For an 80-square-meter shop, especially one near a wet market, the monthly rent would be at least 15,000 yuan.

Furthermore, many landlords and sublessors love to jack up the rent whenever they see a store doing well.

By purchasing the properties directly, they didn’t have to worry about such things. Although the initial cost was substantial, the advantage was that future operating costs would be very low. Even if a physical store performed poorly, they could close it down and lease it out, recouping their losses through rental income.

Through continuous giveaways.

Hailufeng Company accumulated a large base of loyal customers. In addition to their other long-standing products, sales of the recently listed Hero Dairy pure milk also soared.

The 50 physical stores could sell 1,000 to 3,000 cartons of 250ml pure milk and 300 to 500 cartons of 1-liter pure milk every day.

Of course, these high sales were due to the excellent quality and low prices. In addition, after receiving their gifts, customers would often make an impromptu purchase on the Hailufeng Specialty Store app or in a physical store. The honey, pure milk, and fish products—all affordable, generously portioned, and delicious—became their top choices.

This was especially true for customers visiting friends and relatives for the Mid-Autumn Festival, who would sometimes buy a dozen or more cases of pure milk or honey to give as gifts.

Having broken into the Pearl River Delta market with its pure milk, Hero Dairy began to turn around its continuous losses. Including its powdered milk, cheese, and other products, it managed to break even in September of this year.

However, Hero Dairy was still under significant inventory pressure. It needed to further increase its sales volume, especially in retail channels, before it could enter a profitable phase.

Meanwhile, Hailufeng Company’s customer acquisition strategy of "splurging cash" also forced other e-commerce platforms and related businesses to make changes to cope with the impact.

In particular, the few local Lingnan dairy companies entrenched in the Pearl River Delta Region, while crying that the wolf was at the door, also accelerated their plans to establish dairy farms and pastures in the North to reduce production costs.

Many domestic dairy companies had already realized that a new era was dawning. If they did not change their business strategies in time, they would very likely be eliminated by the market.