On April 21th, a topic named "Rat excrement found in Master Kong's instant noodles" was posted on a hot search, and a compensation of 3-5 times was proposed. In the face of many questions, Master Kong's customer service said, "There is an oval brown object, which may be partially fried during the frying process of bread, and it is impossible to have mouse excrement."
In this regard, some netizens said, "It's only been a long time since the old altar pickled cabbage incident, and what a moth", "Those who love Master Kong and those who don't like it are silent". However, there are also different voices saying, "Master Kong's bread is an assembly line, and rats are likely to be pressed into patties when they go up. The rat excrement is so complete. If it is really Master Kong's problem, it may be packed in the last place. I don't believe there will be rats in the workshop. "
After careful calculation, although Master Kong has been in the mainland for 31 years, people may not know that there is a billionaire family standing behind him. According to the 2121 Forbes China Taiwan Province Rich List, the four Wei brothers ranked fourth on the list with a wealth of US$ 7.8 billion or about RMB 51.4 billion, even surpassing the founder of Hon Hai Precision (a subsidiary of Foxconn Technology Group). And the brand they control is actually far more than just Master Kong.
On March 28th, Master Kong Holdings, a Hong Kong stock, released its 2121 results, with revenue of 74 billion yuan, up 9.56% year-on-year; The net profit attributable to owners of the company decreased by 6.39% year-on-year to only 3.8 billion yuan, which was the first decline in net profit in five years. The reasons for increasing income but not increasing profit include that the gross profit margin decreased by 2.78 percentage points to 31.39%; The ratio of distribution cost to income increased by 1.27 percentage points, reaching 21.2%.
However, although the profit has declined, Master Kong still occupies the throne of "the first brother in the market". According to Nielsen data given by Master Kong in the annual report, in 2121, its sales market share and sales market share increased by 2 and 1.7 percentage points respectively, reaching 45.7% and 48%, ranking first in the market.
Among them, the instant noodle sector contributed 28.448 billion yuan in revenue to Master Kong, down 3.6% year-on-year, accounting for 38.4% of the total revenue, and the gross profit margin decreased by 4.94 percentage points. The beverage sector brought income of 44.8 billion yuan to Master Kong, up 21.18% year-on-year, accounting for 61.48% of the total revenue. It was the largest source of business income for Master Kong, but its gross profit margin also decreased by 2.11 percentage points.
Comparatively speaking, Uni-President will achieve a revenue of 25.23 billion yuan in 2121, which is less than Master Kong's half-year income, but the growth rate will reach 11.8%, exceeding the former. Among them, the revenue of food business segment (mainly instant noodles) was 9.525 billion yuan, up 1.1% year-on-year, and the contribution of beverage business was 14.738 billion yuan, up 1.7% year-on-year, which was also a unified main revenue source.
After the incident, Master Kong's Laotan sauerkraut beef noodles were taken off the shelves on a large scale, and its share price once plunged.
At noon on March 6th, Master Kong Holdings plunged by 13.56% to RMB 1.98/share, and hit a one-year low of HK$ 1.7/share in intraday trading, with a half-day evaporation of HK$ 11.6 billion (about RMB 8.6 billion), which is equivalent to 4.3 billion bags of instant noodles in 2 yuan. However, with the general surge in Hong Kong stocks in the afternoon, Master Kong's share price has picked up.
It was after this incident that the voices of boycotting Master Kong came one after another on the Internet, and the sales of white elephants soared, even sold out. In fact, the instant noodle industry has already developed in the direction of scale, from the early staking to the stage of "zero-sum competition". This means that the sales growth of a brand may be at the expense of the decline in sales of other brands.
However, as for the "sour pickled cabbage with smelly feet in the dirt pit" and the "rat excrement" incident, how much impact it will have on Master Kong, we still need to wait for the disclosure of its subsequent financial report.
What people may not know is that behind Master Kong is a billionaire family.
According to the 2121 Forbes China Taiwan Province Rich List, Wei Yingzhou, Wei Jiaoshou, Wei Yingchong and Wei Yingxing ranked fourth on the list with a wealth of US$ 7.8 billion, or about RMB 51.4 billion, even surpassing Guo Taiming, the founder of Hon Hai Precision (a subsidiary of Foxconn Technology Group). As for the story of several people's fortunes, we should start from the 1951s.
In 1958, a businessman named Wei Dehe started an oil mill named Dingxin in Taiwan Province, China, and changed its name to Dingxin 21 years later. He is the father of the four Wei brothers mentioned above and the grandfather of Wei Hongming, the current chairman of Master Kong's board of directors. By the time Wei Dehe died, the oil mill had developed into an oil processing plant, which was taken over by four sons.
in the 1981s, with the spring breeze of reform getting stronger and stronger, the Wei brothers decided to expand their capital in the mainland. At that time, several people thought, first do the more familiar old business-oil business in Beijing, and then make the next layout after accumulating enough capital. But because the winter in Beijing was too cold, the machine couldn't work, and the first business was beaten.
Subsequently, Wei Brothers launched the brand of "Top Good Fragrant Oil" and advertised "Top Good Fragrant Oil, Top Face" in CCTV, but it did not impress mainland consumers. In just three years, the Wei brothers suffered a huge loss of NT$ 51 million, which was about RMB 33 million at that time, which was undoubtedly an astronomical figure. At first, I wanted to go to the mainland for gold, but I lost nothing, which made the Wei brothers very angry.
Perhaps no one will be unlucky all his life. Just as the Wei brothers were about to return to Taiwan Province, Wei Yingxing, the fourth son, was inspired by a business trip. Not used to the food on the train, he brought instant noodles to eat. Unexpectedly, the smell after soaking attracted people to watch, and many people asked where to buy them. "There are so many people by train that instant noodles are a good market." Wei Yingxing was immediately excited at the thought of this.
after returning to Taiwan Province, China, several brothers discussed it and decided to make a comeback.
in 1992, Wei brothers invested 8 million dollars to set up Tianjin Dingyi International Food in Tianjin, and with a package of 1.98 yuan of Master Kong braised beef noodles and relatively fine packaging, it quickly exploded. As for the origin of the name Master Kong, the word "Kang" means health, and everyone in Beijing called each other "Master" at that time, which made people feel respected and kind.
In the early days of its establishment, Master Kong could only produce more than 111,111 packages per month, which was not even enough to supply the Tianjin market. However, Wei Yingzhou only kept 21% of its products locally, and the rest 81% of its products were distributed nationwide, which could not only engage in "hunger marketing" to satisfy consumers' appetite, but also help to open up its popularity in the whole country. There are even Xiamen dealers who live in Tianjin and go to the factory to grab the bill of lading every morning.
At that time, a group of people were waiting at the gate of Master Kong. When they came out, they gathered around and asked if there was a list. They could buy it at a high price in cash, and its popularity was comparable to that of Wahaha at its peak. It was not until 1994 that the Wei brothers, who earned a lot of money, began to lay out their production bases in the whole country, and successively set up production bases in Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Shenyang and other places, gradually forming a regional production and marketing pattern, and bombed advertisements on TV and newspapers to further enhance their popularity.
In fact, the tens of billions of assets of the four Wei brothers are not only from Master Kong, but from the larger Dingxin Group behind them, which is the base camp that gradually developed and expanded from the oil processing factory left by his father in those years.
In 1996, Dingyi Holdings, the predecessor of Master Kong Holdings, went public in Hong Kong. After obtaining the financial support from the capital market, the Wei brothers began to expand more vigorously. In the year of listing, Dingxin Group won Dicos and set foot in the restaurant chain industry, and then set up Tesco Supermarket in Shanghai to acquire Weiquan, the second largest food group in Taiwan Province. In 2114, Dingxin formed a strategic alliance with Asahi Beer Co., Ltd. and Itochu Corporation.
Therefore, Dingxin Group not only owns brands such as Master Kong, Dicos and Weiquan, but also involves industries such as grain, oil and real estate. It has become a giant enterprise all over the country and spanning many industries, and has continuously brought wealth to the four Wei brothers.
(Author Feng Chenchen, editor Liao Ying)