Chapter 464 - 212: Special Excellent Level (3)

Chapter 464: Chapter 212: Special Excellent Level (3)

Over time, the small-scale farmers also chose to go with the flow, joining the race to the bottom.

This was also why Jiang Miao wanted to establish a fully integrated supply chain, from production and transportation to sales.

Without independent sales channels, it meant having to accept the distributors’ pricing. The vast majority of distributors, however, demanded low-priced products of barely acceptable quality; they had no interest in high-priced, high-quality goods.

The reason, naturally, was that the risk associated with such high-priced products was also very high. If they couldn’t be sold, the distributors would be stuck with them, resulting in devastating losses.

Sometimes, there wasn’t a significant difference in appearance or taste between high-priced and low-priced products. Ordinary consumers naturally made their purchases based on price, since they had no way of testing product quality themselves.

Hailufeng Company’s establishment of its own specialty store system was precisely to ensure it had a direct channel to consumers. Coupled with advertising and inspection reports, it could first attract a segment of quality-conscious consumers.

In fact, there was a sizable consumer group in the country willing to pay for high-quality products. While not in the hundreds of millions, it numbered at least in the tens of millions.

Especially after nearly thirty years of rapid economic growth, the consumption habits of a portion of the population had begun to gradually shift from simply eating and drinking their fill to eating and drinking well—that is, from pursuing quantity to pursuing quality.

Coupled with the recent, intense wave of food safety concerns on the Chinese internet, high-quality products found an ever-growing market.

But those high-priced products were not necessarily high-quality products.

However, many industry players were extremely impetuous, completely unwilling to settle down and create good products. Instead, they focused on passing off inferior goods as premium ones to earn huge profits.

So-called "organic" products were a prime example. Currently, 90% of the organic products on the market were problematic.

Of course, the issue wasn’t that these organic products were inedible or had severely excessive pesticide residues. Rather, these products simply didn’t meet the standards for being organic; they were ordinary agricultural products masquerading as organic ones.

If the bait-and-switch organic products on the market counted as "organic," then the goods produced by Hailufeng Company’s contracted farmers were "super-organic."

Even with its strict quality control—rigorously managing the soil, pesticides, fertilizers, feed, and water bodies—Hailufeng Company still didn’t dare to label its products as organic.

On one hand, it was because Hailufeng Company’s products didn’t actually meet the standards for organic agricultural products. At the very least, completely avoiding the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides was an incredibly difficult thing to achieve.

On the other hand, Jiang Miao looked down on the "organic" label. Due to chaotic management, anyone could buy an organic certification as long as they had the money. In such a disorderly environment, Jiang Miao truly had no respect for the so-called "organic" designation.

After all, what kind of credibility could you expect from a certification that could be bought with money?

It was far inferior to Hailufeng Company’s own "Special Grade" and "Special Excellent Level" labels. After all, the company’s standards were incredibly strict, and it conducted comprehensive spot checks constantly, ensuring that no problematic products ever slipped through.

Take the aquatic products from the Salt Town Farm, for instance.

Aside from the South American white shrimp, which had been on sale since last September, the other aquatic products only began hitting the market in January of this year. However, wealthy residents from the nearby villages and urban areas had already placed pre-orders months in advance.

All the green crabs, oysters, white shrimp, Luo’s Shrimp, and mitten crabs from the entire Salt Town Farm—aside from the batch reserved for breeding purposes—had been completely pre-ordered by local customers.

So what if the prices were higher than the market average?

The patrons who frequently came to visit and tour the farm knew very well how Hailufeng Company raised these aquatic products.

As a result, this batch of goods was fully pre-ordered by locals before it could even leave Shanmei.

This was also related to Shanmei’s economic development over the past two years. Incomes had soared, especially for local residents in Magong Town, Red Grass Town, Meilong Town, and Gongping Town—the areas most significantly impacted by Hailufeng Company’s presence.

Furthermore, the local people were far more willing to spend on food and drink compared to people from other regions.

With soaring local incomes, a strong desire to consume, and the knowledge of Hailufeng Company’s excellent product quality, it was only natural that their products were highly sought-after.

In fact, even the employees at Hailufeng Company’s headquarters had strong purchasing power. They would buy the products and ship them back to their hometowns.

From this, it was clear that the local consumer market cultivated by Hailufeng Company had already become incredibly strong.

This could also be seen in the daily revenue figures from the specialty stores.

The seven Hailufeng Specialty Stores located in the urban center, Hai Feng County, Lufeng City, and Luhe County each had a daily revenue of around 12,000 to 15,000 yuan—considerably higher than the specialty stores in the Pearl River Delta Region.

Cultivating a market’s purchasing power might seem like a thankless task, and it could even pave the way for other companies to reap the benefits. But without doing so, consumers would lack purchasing power, and businesses would sooner or later get caught in a race to the bottom, ultimately being struck down by an economic crisis along with the entire economy.

Therefore, Jiang Miao had to use technology partnerships to "draw blood" from his collaborating companies and redistribute the profits.

For example, in the domestic feed industry, which was currently experiencing insane levels of internal competition, companies that wanted to use Hailufeng Company’s technology had no choice but to obediently pay the patent fees. Jiang Miao didn’t care how much they lowered their prices; the royalty for every ton of Egyptian Catfish Meal had to be paid in full, not a single cent less.

Even if Hailufeng Company didn’t "suck the blood" of these feed companies, they would still crush their own profit margins down to almost nothing in their race to the bottom.

The solar panel industry was a perfect example of this.

Jiang Miao would absolutely not give up on the patent fees. The same went for the Immortal Soybeans; the royalties had to be collected because this was tied to Hailufeng Company’s grand strategy.

After inspecting the Salt Town Farm, Jiang Miao had just returned home when he saw a dejected He Youwei chatting with Shuya.