On February 25, 2024, Zong Qinghou, the founder of Wahaha, passed away at the age of 79 due to ineffective medical treatment.
Wahaha Company released an obituary, won the National May Day Labor Medal before his death, outstanding private entrepreneur and so on. A memorial service was held in Hangzhou on February 28.
Zong Qinghou is a very well-known entrepreneur, and in 1989 he founded the brand Wahaha.
It became the richest man in Chinese mainland by selling water, and became a "food and beverage empire" with Wahaha pure water and AD calcium milk as the main commodities.
He, like other business founders, endured hardships and persevered to get to this point.
Zong Qinghou was born in 1945 in Suqian, Jiangsu Province, and his father's family had to move back to Hangzhou, but they could not find work.
The family can only rely on his mother to live, but because of the large number of children, the family's economic conditions are very poor.
The mother attaches great importance to the children's learning, and she works hard to let the children study, because of the difficult conditions, Zong Qinghou also sees it, so his grades are very good.
In the end, he was admitted to the free normal school, but because of his father, he could not be admitted.
He didn't stop at it and didn't complain, he believed that God didn't give you what you wanted.
In order to lighten his mother's burden, he went out to work at the age of eighteen.
Zong Qinghou is willing to do any kind of work, and he has never complained of hardship.
His persistence ushered in the nectar, and in 1982 China attached great importance to the individual economy. As a result, the self-employed economy has risen rapidly.
In 1987, she pedaled her tricycle every day to buy popsicles and books, and later when he was buying oral liquid that children loved, he had the idea of making his own oral liquid and founded the Wahaha brand.
Wahaha is getting better and better, but Zong Qinghou went to the hospital because of lung cancer and underwent surgery, but he still insisted on being on the front line in the hospital bed.
He was lying on the bed inhaling oxygen and chatting with his colleagues about work, and the printer and computer were equipped in the ward.
His thrifty spirit also makes people feel very strange, maybe everyone has been confused by the hot search of Zong Qinghou sitting in the second class, why is he so rich to sit in the second class seat of ordinary people.
He always wears a pair of cloth shoes and smokes a pack of cigarettes for 18 yuan.
He said that the money he earns is to reflect the value of a person and to satisfy the people.
To make others respect their wealth instead of being jealous of themselves, to ask for money, to drive others to have money, otherwise all you get is jealousy, he said that he was born in suffering, and understood that he was an ordinary person and was not superior to others.
Such a compassionate entrepreneur makes people unforgettable, and Wahaha Enterprise has always been in people's hearts.
A reporter once asked Zong Qinghou's daughter what Wahaha minus Zong Qinghou equals, and she answered without hesitation that it is equal to zero, which shows that Zong Qinghou is this brand. There is an irreplaceable place in the hearts of the people. Zong Qinghou, the founder of Wahaha, passed away