The story of a Shandong guy imitating a vegetable mold to do business, from a vegetable delivery worker to the owner of tens of millions of houses. After graduating from high school, Zhang Yifan, a young Shandong guy, came to Qingya Chinese and Western Restaurant to be a vegetable distributor. Make a model of this dish. One day, a customer ordered a Japanese carp sushi from 45 yuan. When he saw that there were only three small rolls of sushi, the customer said angrily, "The real thing is completely different from the picture. Isn't this a lie? " It turns out that the restaurant enlarged the sushi pictures on the menu for the sake of beauty. A month later, a colleague and friend in Zhang Yifan was fired because he forgot to change the sample, which led to food deterioration. The friend sighed and said, "If only there were samples that won't go bad." The speaker has no intention, but the listener has intention. Zhang Yifan had a brainwave: "Using real vegetables as samples is expensive and perishable. If the sample is made of alternative materials, won't this problem be solved? " Zhang Yifan consulted a lot of materials. I learned that as early as a few years ago, hotels in Japan had this kind of sample, called vegetable mold. Then, he consulted several hotel owners about this idea, and most of them said they could try it. Zhang Yifan spent 800 yuan to buy a plate of "Braised Bass" from Japanese Yamamoto Food Model Processing Factory. Zhang Yifan took this vegetable mold rice to the Engineering College of Qingdao University and asked Professor Liu Yongming, a mold expert. Liu Jiaoshou told him how to make the mold: first, fix the fish with a frame, and pour the silica gel on the fish. When the silica gel is partially solidified, a small hole for pouring is drilled on it, and then resin is poured into the small hole. After the resin is cooled, the silica gel mold outside is separated, and the resin mold left inside becomes the molded vegetable mold. After removing the coarse grains from the corners, use a knife to carve out the unique pits and spots of the food, and finally use pigments and dyes to color the food, so that the vegetable mold can be confused with the real one. In 2008, after Zhang Yifan resigned, he borrowed 30,000 yuan to buy materials and equipment and began to make vegetable molds. "Shredded pork with green pepper" earned 10,000 yuan, and it took Zhang Yifan a week to make a few. When he took these vegetable molds to the hotel for sale, the boss smiled and said, "It's nothing like it. I don't want it for free? " Zhang Yifan had to consult Liu Jiaoshou again. Liu Jiaoshou told him that to make a good plate model, he should learn carving, carving, coloring and other techniques. After three months' hard practice, Zhang Yifan has cooked dozens of dishes, including "shredded pork with green pepper", "spicy chicken" and "roast beef with potatoes", and the price is set at 500 yuan per serving. Zhang Yifan came to a restaurant on Fuzhou Road to sell vegetable molds. The hotel owner is very interested, but thinks the price is too expensive. Zhang Yifan said, "I'll leave 10 for you to try. After a month, I won't charge you a penny unless the order rate in your store doubles. How about you buy this 10 vegetable mold if the order rate doubles? " The boss agreed, and a month later, the boss bought a vegetable mold of 10 for 5000 yuan. Half a year later, Zhang Yifan's vegetable mold opened the market in Qingdao and earned more than 200,000 yuan. Only "shredded green pepper" Lemmon sold dozens and earned tens of thousands of yuan. In August 2008, Zhang Yifan rented a small factory building in Licang District, Qingdao, registered Qingdao Yifan Food Mould Co., Ltd., recruited more than 10 employees and added 10 equipment. At this time, Zhang Yifan's customers are all medium-sized restaurants, and the food update rate of these restaurants is very low. Zhang Yifan knows that only when its own gourmet mode enters high-end hotels can it really open the market. Every time he contacted high-end hotels, those in charge said, "The guests in our high-end hotels are of high quality and don't need to use vegetable molds to promote sales." Just when Zhang Yifan was at a loss, Shangri-La Hotel, a five-star hotel, was about to launch the "Food Month" activity. He quickly contacted the person in charge of the hotel: "I'll show you a dish model, isn't it icing on the cake?" The other party was tempted and promised to let him try. On the day of the event, a table of Zhang Yifan's "special dishes" was placed in the corner of the restaurant. Because it was so lifelike, a child grabbed a piece of "papaya", and as a result, he took it with him to the ground. People can't help but marvel at this fake dish again and again. The person in charge of the hotel bought a table of vegetable molds on the spot. Since then, many high-end hotels in Qingdao have ordered dishes from Zhang Yifan. In just one year, Zhang Yifan earned 3 million yuan. Since then, Zhang Yifan has developed a pattern of dishes with the theme of wedding banquet and birthday banquet. While ensuring the quality, Zhang Yifan also established a regular return visit system: all the vegetable molds sold by the company were cleaned and maintained regularly within 3 years; The company will replace the broken vegetable mould for customers free of charge. Zhang Yifan also actively participated in exhibitions all over the country. At the 2008 Shanghai Food Festival, Zhang Yifan showed China food models for foreign guests, which attracted customers from some Southeast Asian countries. At that time, orders were flying in like snowflakes. In May 2009, Zhang Yifan Guangzhou Branch was established. Today, he has assets of10 million yuan. Xiaohe Shandong