Autumn and Winter Check-in Challenge
In the ancient legends of our country, it is believed that winemaking began with Du Kang (a person from the Xia Dynasty), so Du Kang is also called "the saint of wine" by the Chinese people. Cao Cao once wrote in "Tanka Xing" that "the only way to solve worries is Du Kang", and Du Kang here refers to Du Kang wine. Therefore, Du Kang has also become synonymous with wine, and the trademark of "Du Kang" is a natural advertisement.
Although some liquor manufacturers now use "how to solve worries, only Du Kang" to flaunt their historical heritage, but in fact, in Cao Cao's era, there was no liquor, only rice wine. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, there were a total of four Dukang distilleries in the domestic liquor industry, namely Yichuan Dukang, Ruyang Dukang, Luoyang Dukang in Henan and Baishui Dukang in Shaanxi.
The trademark dispute over "Du Kang" has been going on for a long time, from the three Du Kang distilleries in the last century to the present day when Luoyang Du Kang and Baishui Du Kang look at each other unpleasantly. Today we will talk about the stories of these Dukang distilleries.
Yichuan Dukang, produced in Yichuan County, Luoyang City, Henan Province, is a strong aroma liquor and was once listed as a state banquet liquor. Yichuan Dukang Distillery was founded in 1968, formerly known as "Yichuan County Distillery", officially renamed "Henan Yichuan Dukang Distillery" in 1971, and Dukang liquor was put on the market in September 1972.
In the sixties and seventies, most of the emerging strong fragrance liquor distilleries in various places learned from Sichuan liquor, but Yichuan Dukang did the opposite in the early days of its establishment, sending a large number of personnel to the Gujing Gongjiu of the Jianghuai Liquor School to investigate. At that time, Gujing Gongjiu had just won the national famous liquor, and it was also the first distillery of the Jianghuai liquor school to win the national famous liquor.
In 1972, Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka visited China and said at the meeting, "The only wine in the world is Du Kang", which also made Du Kang's popularity even higher. After Yichuan County took the lead in resuming the production of Du Kang liquor, Ruyang County in Henan Province and Baishui County in Shaanxi Province were not far behind, and factories were built in 1972 and 1973 respectively. Since then, a three-legged situation has been formed. As to why all three places have established the Dukang Distillery, each place has its own saying.
There is a Du Kang Spring in Baishui County, Shaanxi, according to legend, Du Kang is used to make Du Kang wine with the spring water here, and the local sacrifice to the wine ancestor site has also evolved for thousands of years, and it is said that Du Kang's tomb is there. In Ruyang County, south of Luoyang City, Henan Province, there are now Dukang Village, Dukang River, and Dukang Spring. In Yichuan County, although there is no legend related to Du Kang, there was a wine vessel of the third dynasty of the Xia Shang Dynasty, which became the basis for Du Kang to make wine in Yichuan.
In the 70s of the last century, the awareness of trademarks was relatively weak, coupled with the limited consumption level at that time, there was not much competition between each other for the market, so the three wineries were still able to coexist peacefully. In the early eighties, with the increasing attention to trademark awareness in China, coupled with the increase in grain production and consumption levels in various places, the competition between the three Du Kang wines intensified.
Since 1980, the three distilleries have been fighting in private to prove who is the true successor of Du Kang. In 1981, the three Du Kang distilleries applied for the "Du Kang" trademark, and under the coordination of a number of ** departments, it was decided that Yichuan Du Kang would register the "Du Kang" trademark, and Ruyang Du Kang and Baishui Du Kang would jointly use it.
In 1983, the "Trademark Law" was promulgated and implemented, and in the same year, Yichuan Dukang, Ruyang Dukang and Baishui Dukang signed a cooperation agreement to license the latter two companies to use the "Dukang" trademark. Although the three companies share the same trademark, different patterns and logos are affixed to the specific liquor bottles, and their respective production sites and factory names are indicated to show the difference.
In the following ten years, the three Dukang wines ushered in their first glorious period, and their performance has achieved varying degrees of growth. In 1985, the total sales of the three Dukang liquor companies exceeded 40 million, while Wuliangye only had 15 million in the same period, and Kweichow Moutai had just come out of the loss, and the sales market was weak.
In 1988, China's Xinhua News Agency released a message that Yichuan Dukang Distillery had exported to 50 or 60 countries and regions this year, exported 360 tons, and earned 3.6 million US dollars, so it was called the title of advanced export enterprise. In the same year, Yichuan Dukang and Ruyang Dukang were both rated as the 53 best in the 5th Wine Appraisal Conference, while Baishui Dukang unfortunately fell off the list.
In 1992, the trademark "Du Kang" entered the renewal period, and the three enterprises had a dispute over trademark issues, but they still failed to solve the problem under the coordination of the regulatory authorities. In the same year, the Ikawa Du Kang Distillery was the first to advertise itself as an "authentic" Du Kang liquor, and the others were not, a practice that caused dissatisfaction among the other two. In the early negotiations, although the registration was approved by Ikawa Dukang, it was clearly stipulated that the trademark should be jointly used by the three companies, and it was not created by any one of them, which was also the result of a compromise between the three companies.
In order to completely resolve the dispute over the trademark "Du Kang", the State Administration for Industry and Commerce decided to apply for the Du Kang trademark with a place name. In December 1996, Baishui Dukang took the lead in taking a step back and registered the trademark of "Baishui Dukang", and at this time, the contradiction between Yichuan Dukang and Ruyang Dukang escalated again, and the trouble was inextricable.
In 2002, Ikawa Dukang went bankrupt;In 2007, Ruyang Dukang went bankrupt. Because Baishui Dukang stayed away from the battle between the two in time, the production of Baishui Dukang was not affected, and it was transformed into a private enterprise in 2005, paying tens of millions of taxes, and becoming the only one of the three major Dukang liquors to survive.
The bankruptcy of Yichuan Dukang and Ruyang Dukang is a big loss for Henan's local liquor. In 2009, under the leadership of Luoyang City, Yichuan and Ruyang merged and reorganized, and established the current Luoyang Dukang Holdings, which has two production bases, namely Ruyang Dukang Liquor and Henan Dukang Liquor (formerly Yichuan Dukang).
In the years after the merger, Luoyang Dukang developed rapidly, and its sales in 2013 were close to 2 billion. Because of the plasticizer turmoil and the introduction of the policy of restricting the consumption of liquor, the entire liquor industry began to decline after 2013. In 2014, although Luoyang's sales fell to 14500 million, but because the Song River fell more, Du Kang sat in the first position of Yujiu by mistake that year.
Baishui Du Kang finally boiled Yichuan Du Kang and Ruyang Du Kang away, and he could finally enjoy Du Kang's reputation alone, but he didn't expect to usher in a stronger opponent. Since the birth of Luoyang Du Kang, there have been several lawsuits with Baishui Du Kang, and the two sides have won and lost each other. Of course, there is also a certain amount of administrative intervention behind this, and Henan Province and Shaanxi Province are almost all on the position of their own local brands.
Because of the rampant OEM wine, the product line is very chaotic. No matter what you see in major supermarkets and supermarkets, Baishui Dukang is basically an OEM product, and almost none of them are produced in Baishui County. The speculative model of Baishui Dukang is also very strong, and when the strong aroma wine was popular before, it mainly produced strong flavor wine.
Now with the increasing popularity of fragrant wine, Baishui Dukang began to focus on and produce fragrant wine again, and this year's 4th Yellow River Aromatic Wine Summit Forum was held in Baishui Dukang Company. Recently, Baishui Dukang issued a document to prepare to completely eliminate OEM products next year, and it seems that it will start to vigorously support its own products.
In 2011, Henan Province selected the six golden flowers of Yujiu, and Luoyang Dukang was among them. In the later two Golden Flower selections, Luoyang Du Kang was still on the list, squeezing the old Song He, Zhang Gong, and Baofeng down. Luoyang Dukang also has a certain amount of speculation, and has now established a soy sauce liquor company in Moutai Town, ready to produce soy sauce liquor. Now that the soy sauce wine has begun to cool down, is it a little late to lay out the soy sauce wine?
Although Luoyang Dukang is now stronger and has a higher output, the reputation has decreased slightly compared with the Yichuan Dukang and Ruyang Dukang periods. However, its main product "Jiuzu Dukang" series is still very good. Although in previous years, Luoyang Dukang's performance was still declining year after year, but the overall strength was slightly stronger than that of Baishui Dukang.
In 2022, Luoyang Dukang's revenue will be 150.5 billion yuan, ranking second among the local liquor in Henan. Although WhiteWater Dukang did not disclose specific sales, one thing is clear, WhiteWater Dukang's revenue is less than 1 billion. Until 2019, the two families were still in a lawsuit, and perhaps in the distant future, the two may continue to quarrel, or they may shake hands.