Author 丨 Ranjan Source 丨 Blue Media Finance
If you're traveling to Tianjin, and you have a local friend, it's a very good thing that you're here. But the only thing, do not tell him that you want to go to eat the dog.
In the view of the Tianjin people, this is the same as you go to Chongqing to eat mandarin ducks pot, is a kind of unspeakable offense. And it is incumbent upon every Tianjinite to dissuade their foreign friends from walking through the doors of Dogfu.
Although it's a long-established restaurant, Tianjiners have never been willing to use Dogfu as their hometown's calling card. Only the millennium Spring Festival night, Guo Donglin and Feng Gong a section of the "old song new song", so that "thin skin, big stuffing eighteen folds, just like a flower" of dog meat all over the world, tianjin people also had to pinch their noses to recognize.
From the exclusive use of the shipping channel workers, to the snacks of the fathers who stayed in the green houses and chu houses, and finally to the "Famous Trademarks of China", the dog meat is full of fireworks and legend, just like the other century-old companies.
A
In 1831, a child named Gao Guiyou was born in Wuqing County, Tianjin, and his father, adhering to the folklore of the cheap name of the child, gave the child the nickname "Dogzi". The first time I saw this, it was a very good idea.
When Gao Guiyou was 14 years old, his father sent him to the Liu Family Steam Shop on the edge of the Southern Canal in Tianjin to work as an assistant. The owner saw that he was too young to do anything else, so he let him learn how to make buns. But don't look at Gao Guiyou is only a teenager, but he is dexterous and studious, not a few days to learn the bun, and the size of the uniform, folds to take a beautiful. Subsequently is to learn what will be what, especially good thinking, understanding, so do out of the bun color white face soft, bite open the flow of oil, fat and not greasy, delicious flavor, quite popular with customers.
Three years after the full division, saved some savings of Gao Guiyou opened his own baozi store, because he did the baozi skin book stuffed with large, meat and oil, so especially by the dock engaged in a large number of manual labor recognized by the workers. So the business became more and more prosperous, Gao Guiyou busy day and night, there is no time to talk to customers, so some people jokingly called "the dog sells buns, ordinary people do not care". As time passes, people will call his bun store as "dog indifferent".
So at that time in Tianjin people think, the dog is for the common people and the poor food, and "high class" has nothing to do.
Two
The one who really made the dog meat go out of Sanqiaohekou and become famous in Tianjin was Gao Guiyou's son, Gao Jinming.
After Gao Guiyou's death in 1916, Gao Jinming inherited the business and set up a branch on Dongdajie in Nanshi in the following year, and in 1932, he moved the old branch to the entrance of Beidaguan Bridge, and in 1937, Gao Jinming merged the old branch with the old branch and moved to the back door of Tianxiang Shopping Mall, one of the landmarks of Tianjin, and set up a new branch called "Deju". The new name "Deju" was established. In just 20 years, the buns from the corner of Tianjin formally entered the center of the city.
The reason why the development is so fast is that Gao Jinming caught the opportunity of the times. At that time, Tianjin had a very special position on the political map of the country - not far from Beijing, not close enough to avoid the capital's treachery, but also convenient to jump out when the wind and waves are calm and "picking peaches".
For a while, Tianjin became the politicians, cultural celebrities, and respected gentry to "raise their hopes". These high class people often hang out in the green houses and churches, and have all-night parties and tea parties as a matter of course.
But at that time, these elegant green houses often do not provide hot food. Seeing this business opportunity, Gao Jinming took his men and put the steamed buns into cages to sell them along the streets. This primitive takeaway was called "Hutong Kebangzi", and like today's "street stalls", it specialized in the nighttime economy, and it was simple, brutal and effective, which made the reputation of Dog Li spread all over Tianjin.
Three
In 1947, Gao Jinming passed away, and his son, Gao Wenhuan, inherited the brand. But at that time, Tianjin was already a place of chicken feathers, no longer a safe haven for politicians and businessmen. Under the turmoil of the time, the business was getting more and more difficult, Gao Wenhuan barely managed to operate until 1952, and finally could not hold on and chose to close down the business.
In fact, by this time, the so-called "hundred years old" dog meat has been completely yellow. Its destination should have been the same as "a store has to take a hundred years old soup to escape from the famine", "a store has got the recipe from the palace", and become a ridiculous food legend in the pile of old paper.
But after the founding of New China, the city of Tianjin nationalized Dog Li Baozi and moved the store to Shandong Road in the Heping District, and then set up a branch in Nanshi Food Street. Although no longer associated with the Gao family, but the "dog indifferent" by Aixinjueluo Pu Ren inscription of the black background gold letter signboard, is considered to be preserved, and is still hanging in the main store on the door of the building.
It was only after this that Dog Li started to go out of Tianjin and began the difficult path of expansion.
Four
It is not easy to make a name for yourself across the country. In fact, for the next forty years or so, the fame of the dog's mouth spread only on a small scale, relying on anecdotes about celebrities that were hard to tell from the real ones to make an occasional presence, but then quickly cooled down.
The turning point came in 1999. In 1999, with the approval of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), Dogfu received the title of "Famous Trademark of China". Subsequently, in the Spring Festival night of the millennium, Guo Donglin and Feng Gong performed a comedy "Old Songs, New Songs", in which they suddenly mentioned the dog meat buns. In the meantime, everyone in the country knew that the buns were "thin-skinned and stuffed with eighteen folds".
The dog with the money began to fire in a brutal and unreasonable way across the country, and quickly became the darling of capital.
In 2004, GoBelive opened its first overseas branch in South Korea, and in 2005, Tianjin Tongrentang, which is also a century-old company, bought GoBelive for 106 million yuan and gave it the English name "GoBelive". GoBelive". This also marks the beginning of the road of brand innovation, from the dockworkers out of the dog Li began to abandon the grounding of the past, to turn to the lofty brand innovation road.
Now it seems that in the group of difficult brothers and sisters of the "hundred years old", Tongrentang is a rare capital game to play the role of the flowers. After getting the signboard that can "tell a story", Tongrentang began to let the dog to transform the sale of frozen food, in order to break the spatial and geographical limitations of the product, and at the same time, also in the country to start a very high level of consumption of restaurants, trying to quickly complete the capital expansion.
In November 2006, with the approval of the Ministry of Commerce, Dogmeat was officially recognized as one of the "old Chinese brands". With the help of the capital, the company started to make preparations for listing, and planned to land on the A-share market in 2007 or 2008 at the latest.
But just at this time, the over-exploitation to the point of detachment from the survival of the soil of the dog, began to be incompatible with the soil.
Five
One of the most important factors is price.
In 2008, the price of an ordinary pork-filled bun in Dogli was one dollar and a half, which was already more than the price of another well-known store, Qingfeng Baozi, today. And by 2020, the price of a pork-filled bun had reached five dollars seven.
That's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the dog's strategy to replace its products. Its chairman Zhang Yansen also said publicly in 2017, must break the "old" is cheap thought, because the old in order to do a long time, there must be profit margins, in order to maintain the quality of the case, there is a reasonable price.
Dog Li Shandong Road store menu (source of public comment)
"maintain the quality" of this statement to do or not to do, the dog Li and the consumers are divided. But one piece of information that can not be ignored is that, since the plan to go public in 2006, the dog has been in 2014 to submit an application. But in July of the same year, this difficult application is still smashed by the Securities and Exchange Commission with an iron fist.
The reason for this is not known, but the dog is still stubborn, and chose the second best option to be listed on the New Third Board in 2015.
After the financial report was made public, the masses were able to get a glimpse of the "century-old number" of the ability to create wealth: in 2015, the dog indifferent to the food company realized revenues of 89.49 million, an increase of 20.82% year-on-year. Net profit of 6.01 million, an increase of more than 30%, a moment to become a dazzling star on the new three board. Even in 2019, its revenue and profit still maintain double-digit growth.
This is a stark contrast to the oldest next door. For three consecutive years, Quanjude's performance declined, and even received an annual report inquiry letter issued by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, requiring it to explain the company's operating data.
But in the midst of the scenery, the dog has chosen to take the initiative to withdraw. On May 8, 2020, Dogs Nuts publicly submitted an application to terminate its stock listing, and on May 11, it was granted.
Six
The reason for choosing to voluntarily withdraw from the market is in fact very simple, the trading volume of the New Third Board is really too low. This is unacceptable to the obsession with playing the game of capital and trying to get financing from the secondary market.
Can't finance, means can't get abundant cash flow, means can't smash out a new brand image, means in the Internet tide fall behind. Compared with the negative evaluation of "not delicious", this is the most fearful thing of the dog.
But the dog failed, or rather did not succeed.
In 2015, the Shanghai Stock Exchange index from 3210 points to 4277 points after a rapid sprint down extremely fast, to the beginning of 2016 even fell to 2737 points. The dog even did not even survive the release, the stock price and the index together into a four-year "long bear".
In order to boost the stock price, the dog began to frequently tell stories, such as spending 30 million cross-border play coffee, such as the merger and acquisition of Australian companies to launch the "probiotic buns", not to mention the subsequent masks, big health industry.
Fancy, but not effective.
In fact, what happened to Dogfood is the same as many "century-old" companies, trapped in their own pride and reserve, or stick to their own business and then abandoned, or blindly diversify and continue to lose blood. By the time the last thing you want to do is turn around, you've already been crushed in the face by the wheel of time.
As the movie "Tongue 2" says, people and food are moving faster than ever in a dramatically changing China. No matter how hurried their steps are, no matter how involuntary the gathering and dispersal and sadness and happiness come, there is always a flavor, in its own unique way, three times a day, on the tip of the tongue to remind us to recognize where we are going tomorrow, and not to forget where we came from yesterday.
When the food of the dog can neither remind people of where it comes from, nor let people look forward to the future, then it has lost the fundamental meaning of existence.