Today is the first day after the 'first seven' of the sect elder. Zong Lao has always been an entrepreneur I respect. He and I were both mentors and friends, and of course, competitors ...... each otherOn the evening of March 3, Zhong Sui, the founder of Nongfu Spring, known as the "lone wolf" in the business world, rarely spoke out publicly, responding to the "love-hate relationship" with Zong Qinghou and Wahaha. After the death of Wahaha founder Zong Qinghou on February 25, some people went from mourning and remembering Zong Qinghou to disgusting, abusing and boycotting his rival Nongfu Spring and its founder Zhong Sui. In the past week, Wahaha and Nongfu Spring's treatment in the consumer market has gone to two extremes, Wahaha product sales have surged, but Nongfu Spring has been boycotted, and some netizens have posted on various social platforms, turning out the past story of "Zhong Sui started from Wahaha, but he was ungrateful", and scolded the female anchor in Nongfu Spring's Douyin live broadcast room until she choked up, and stopped appearing for a while. From February 25 to the present, Nongfu Spring (9633HK) fell nearly 5%. In the open letter, Zhong said, "After the death of the patriarch, I went to the mourning hall to pay my respects, lay wreaths, and express my condolences to the family of the patriarch. Zong Lao hated online violence during his lifetime. I never thought that there would be a lot of slander against me and Nongfu Spring on the Internet, which was by no means what the elder was happy to see. As a party who was accidentally involved in the whirlpool of events, it is necessary for me to make a clarification by borrowing a few reminiscent past events from the time of Zong Lao's life. Zhong mainly responded to two questions:1. The first pot of gold did not come from Wahaha. Second, it was not a "cross-selling" back then, and it was not possible to talk about being expelled from Wahaha. In the entrepreneurial stage, Zhong Sui adopted a radical strategy in marketing, customized product standards, and strongly grasped the dominance of discourse, which can be called "brave", and is not afraid of offending opponents and even the whole industry, so he has fallen into the first crisis many times, such as the mutual litigation with Wahaha and other enterprises in early 2000, and the dispute over drinking water standards in 2013. 
After the incident, Zhong was extremely low-key, rarely gave interviews, and rarely appeared in public. This public response to a "historical question" from more than 30 years ago is rare. In the 2023 Hurun Report, Zhong ranked first with a wealth of 450 billion yuan, and Zong Qinghou ranked 31st with a net worth of 95 billion yuan. This is the third time that Zhong has become the richest man in China. On March 4, Nongfu Spring's share price was **117% to close at 424 Hong Kong dollars, with a total market capitalization of 476.9 billion Hong Kong dollars. 01
The Farmer and the Snake? Zhong Sui: It's ridiculous!
After Zong Qinghou passed away, many people bought Wahaha's products in boxes and sent them to the gate of his Qingtai Street headquarters and Xiasha base as sacrifices to express their remembrance of the entrepreneur. **On the Internet, Wahaha Douyin official *** sales skyrocketed. On February 28th and 29th, Wahaha's official *** did not start the live broadcast, but the store's sales increased by more than 500%, and the No. 1 selling product was Wahaha AD calcium milk. On March 1, Wahaha's Douyin account announced that it had received countless concerns and support recently, and the number of store orders had increased significantly. At the same time, it is recommended that consumers consume rationally and buy on demand. Some netizens posted an announcement on the company's replacement of drinking water under Wahaha**. A stage lighting company in Guangzhou said, "In order to express the memory of Zong Qinghou and support Wahaha, from now on, the company will only use the Wahaha brand for drinking water, and each employee will be given a carton of Wahaha milk." But Nongfu Spring never expected that the death of a competitor would cause him to encounter a ** storm. On Xiaohongshu, some posts describing Zhong Sui's "ungrateful" start from Wahaha have received hundreds or thousands of likes, and the comment area is full of scolding, calling Zhong a "profiteer", Nongfu Spring is a story of "farmer and wolf", declaring that "boycotting all products of Nongfu Spring", and mentioning that Zhong's son is an American citizen and a "thief". 
Wahaha Douyin***'s announcement. 
The scolding of Nongfu Spring on Xiaohongshu. The focus of Zhong's attack is: he started with Wahaha back then, but he achieved his career by sacrificing Wahaha's interests. The saying that Zhong made his fortune in Nongfu Spring has been circulating for decades. According to the reports of "China Economic Weekly", "Xiaoxiang Morning News", and Shenran Finance, in 1988, Hainan set up a special economic zone, and a wave of going to sea was set off in the society. He has grown mushrooms, sold curtains, and raised shrimp in Hainan, but none of them have made any money. Around 1991, Zhong became the leading merchant of Wahaha oral liquid in Hainan and Guangxi. At that time, in order to control dealer channels, Wahaha strictly prohibited cross-regional cross-border cross-shipments. Seeing the price difference between different regions, Zhong picked up Wahaha's wool and accumulated the first pot of gold through "string goods". This behavior angered Zong Qing and cancelled his ** business qualification. In an open letter on March 3, Zhong said, "In the early days of the development of the market economy, all kinds of management were very extensive, and modern sales concepts such as channel management and rushing goods were impossible to talk about at that time. It is ironic to look at the problems of the past from the perspective of the present. ”Zhong clarified that his first pot of gold did not come from Wahaha. "During my business in Hainan, I found that around 1990, Hainan real estate was just emerging, and Hainan did not have the capacity to process curtain fabrics. Therefore, I set up Dacheng Curtain Company in Hainan to ship the curtain fabrics produced in Hangzhou to Hainan for sale, and gradually developed the curtain business to Wangfujing and Lufthansa Department Store in Beijing. Therefore, the cloth business is the first pot of gold I got from starting a business. He said that in 1991, after being introduced by a former colleague, he went to visit Zong Qinghou at the Wahaha headquarters on Qingtai Street in Hangzhou, and then was invited by Zong Qinghou to see the cannery he had just acquired. Seeing that the professional canned food production equipment was idle, Zhong remembered the canned eight-treasure porridge that was popular in some parts of Southeast Asia at that time, and later brought back six cans of local eight-treasure porridge products from Singapore and sent them to Zong Qinghou's home. Zhong said in the open letter that Zong Qinghou agreed with this suggestion, developed and produced the well-known Wahaha Nutritional Eight Treasure Porridge, and proposed that Zhong Sui set up Wahaha offices in Guangxi and Hainan to sell Wahaha Children's Nutrition Oral Liquid, and Zhong readily agreed. 
However, at that time, the consumer demand in Hainan and Guangxi markets did not meet expectations, and Zhong was unable to sell the products. Later, several trading companies went to Hainan to buy goods from him, and he was able to clear the purchases. As for the "string of goods", Zhong said that it started from a joke of his: "Many years later, at a sales meeting of Nongfu Spring, I joked that Wahaha, which we did not sell in Hainan back then, was probably sold to Guangdong, and if it is put now, it will be recognized as rushing goods." He said that he did not expect that a casual joke at the time has now become a crime of "ingratitude". He said that he had never received a salary in Wahaha, let alone been fired for rushing goods. A few hours before Zhong's open letter was issued, Zhou Li, the entrepreneurial veteran of Nongfu Spring, posted on the circle of friends: "(Wahaha and Nongfu Spring)The two companies are in the same city, although there was competition in the early years, and even went to court, but they still competed openly under the legal framework. ”Zhou Li was the executive director and deputy general manager of Nongfu Spring and stepped down in May 2023. Zhou Li said that after 2000, due to the difference in product structure and market positioning, Nongfu Spring has basically not discussed the competition with Wahaha, in 2013, when Nongfu Spring and the first hard drinking water standard, there were also people who went to Zong Qinghou to instigate, Zong used a sentence "That is someone deliberately engaged in farmers" to show his attitude. Zhou Li said that at noon on February 27, he and Zhong went to the Wahaha Xiasha base to mourn, and Zhong expressed his condolences to Zong Fuli and Shi Youzhen (Zong Fuli's mother), and also mentioned to Shi Youzhen that he had been to her house that year. On February 28, at Zong Qinghou's memorial service, Zhong Sui posted condolences on the Internet. However, after Zhong issued an open letter, netizens still didn't buy it. In the early morning of March 4, there was still scolding in the Douyin live broadcast room of Nongfu Spring dealers. As of press time, Wahaha has not responded to this matter. 
Nongfu Spring dealers' Douyin live broadcast room was also full of scolding. 02
Wahaha is strong in scale, and Nongfu Spring is strong in profit
Zhong started his own business after 1993, first with health care products, and then with drinking water, and once had a tight bite with Wahaha in products. In 1993, Zhong founded Yangshengtang *** and launched Yangshengtang turtle and turtle pill products. Wahaha entered the bottled water market in 1996 and launched Wahaha purified water. In the same year, Zhong founded Xin'anjiang Health Hall Drinking Water, which is the predecessor of Nongfu Spring. During that time, the competition between Wahaha and Nongfu Spring was fierce. Around 2000, there was an open exchange of fire between the two sides. In April 2000, Zhong publicly said that pure water was not beneficial to health, and announced that Nongfu Spring would no longer produce pure water, but only natural water. This move was boycotted by pure water merchants such as Wahaha and Robust. On June 8, 2000, Wahaha held a press conference at the West Lake State Guesthouse during the day, and Nongfu Spring held a press conference at the same place in the evening. Wahaha and other enterprises jointly sued Nongfu Spring for "unfair competition", and Nongfu Spring responded with a counterclaim. In the letter, Zhong mentioned the conflict at that time, saying: "We had lawsuits against each other, but in the end, Elder Zong and I shook hands and made peace in the presence of the main leaders of Hangzhou at that time. "This is not the deepest ** whirlpool that Nongfu Spring has been involved in. From April to May 2013, in 28 days, "* published 67 pages and 76 reports in a row, pointing out that the water quality of Nongfu Spring did not implement the national standard, and that "the standard is not as good as tap water". Nongfu Spring publicly refuted, saying that "** is unfair. Eventually, the two sides sued each other, and Zhong announced his withdrawal from Beijing's bottled water market at a press conference at the time. Since then, Zhong has been unusually low-key and has almost disappeared from public view. 
In 2015, Zhong said in an interview with Phoenix Finance"I think the real entrepreneurs who sink down to study are ...... they don't want to talk aboutIt's not that I don't want to say it, because many times what is said is a misunderstanding, and what is reported is not what you say. It's not that I don't want to come out for an interview, I'm afraid of being misinterpreted. ”In January 2020, before Nongfu Spring went public in Hong Kong, it was revealed that the Wuyishan Water Intake Project in Fujian Province was suspected of "damaging the environment", and a local resident of Wuyishan in Fujian Province named Qiang Wen reported through Weibo that Nongfu Spring had destroyed the park's vegetation in Wuyishan National Park without the approval of the management department. Nongfu Spring responded that the Wuyishan project was legal and compliant, and that the whistleblower's family had a conflict of interest with Nongfu Spring. On September 8, 2020, Nongfu Spring landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and the company's market value was HK $370.3 billion based on the ** price of the day. From 2020 to 2022, Nongfu Spring's revenue increased from 2287.7 billion yuan increased to 33.2 billion3.9 billion yuan, net profit from 527.7 billion yuan increased to 849.5 billion yuan. In the first half of 2023, Nongfu Spring's revenue will be about 2046.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 233%；The net profit attributable to the parent company was 577.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 253%。According to the 2023 Hurun Report, although the 69-year-old Zhong's wealth has shrunk by 5 billion yuan compared with 2022, he still has become the richest man in China for the third consecutive time with a net worth of 450 billion yuan. This is due to Nongfu Spring's outstanding performance in the first half of 2023, with its share price not affected by the overall downturn in the Hong Kong** market, while benefiting from the Hong Kong dollar exchange rate** in 2023 and the company's large dividend of nearly 6.5 billion yuan in 2023. Zhong is also the fifth entrepreneur to have been the richest man three times or more in the 25-year history of the Hurun Report, the top four being the Rong Zhijian family, Huang Guangyu, Wang Jianlin family and Ma Yun family. Affected by the overall adjustment of the pharmaceutical sector in the capital market, the company's market value has shrunk by more than 40 billion compared with the same period in 2022, accounting for about 10% of its total wealth. According to the "2023 Hurun Top 100 Chinese Food Industry List", Nongfu Spring ranks among the top three companies with a value of 460 billion yuan, although it is down 12%, it is still the most valuable soft drink company. 
Nongfu Spring's revenue scale is only 60% of Wahaha's, but it wins in profitability. According to the latest data released on the list of "Top 500 Zhejiang Entrepreneurs in China", in 2021, Wahaha's revenue will be 5191.5 billion yuan, net profit of 62$1.9 billion; Nongfu Spring's revenue was 2969.6 billion, net profit of 716.2 billion yuan, more than Wahaha. Wahaha's performance began to decline after reaching a peak of 78.3 billion yuan in 2013, and from 2014 to 2021, its revenue was 72.8 billion yuan, 49.4 billion yuan, 52.9 billion yuan, 46.4 billion yuan, 46.8 billion yuan, 46.4 billion yuan, 43.9 billion yuan, and 51.9 billion yuan, hovering within 50 billion yuan in most years. According to the list of the top 500 private enterprises in China in 2023 released by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, Wahaha's revenue in 2022 will be 51.2 billion yuan, a slight decrease from 2021; Wahaha did not report its 2022 profits.