Text丨Consumption is one degree deeper
Guo Yunlong, who has worked in Yili Group for nearly 30 years, joined Shuanghui Development at the age of 54 and served as the company's vice president.
Shuanghui's "poaching" this time seems a bit sudden.
Since joining Yili in 1995, Guo Yunlong has been promoted to the position of vice president and senior general manager of key accounts. Not long ago, he also attended an industry event as an executive at Yili.
However, if we count the talent introduction actions of meat enterprises in the past few years, it can be seen that dairy executives have always been the key objects coveted by such enterprises. Meat companies are deeply engaged in production and channels, and they have always been a short board in terms of branding and marketing.
As the most competitive segment of the traditional FMCG field, dairy companies have a lot of experience in the above aspects. As a result, "take-it-or-leave-it" has become one of the most prudent and efficient strategies.
During the two sessions in Shandong in 2024, Guo Weishi, deputy to the Shandong Provincial People's Congress and president of Linyi Xincheng Jinluo Meat Products Group, said that it is necessary to accelerate industrial upgrading, build a whole industry chain cluster, and plan to lay out 1.5 million outlets in the next three years. 
As a professional manager, Guo Weishi, who was born in 1972, parachuted into Jinluo in September 2009 and assumed the position of president.
Prior to that, he worked in Yili for 14 years, and his rank was once the director and deputy general manager of the liquid milk business department. He has been deeply involved in and witnessed the growth and rise of national best-selling products such as Nutritional Shuhua Milk and QQ Star Children's Milk.
He was joined by Fan Hongwang, who is now the vice president of Jinluo Group.
After Guo Weishi came to Jinluo, he copied the sports marketing experience he participated in during his time in Yili to Jinluo. In 2010, Jinluo immediately became the leading meat product merchant in the Guangzhou Asian Games.
In addition, Yili's past "category branding" has also been reflected in Jinluo, and products such as "more meat grains", "healthy eating power" and "Dele Food" have gushed out.
Counting carefully, Guo Weishi is a pioneer in the cross-border meat industry of dairy enterprises. The key is that he has led the brand transformation and upgrading of meat enterprises, and let the industry see the personal ability of executives with dairy enterprise resumes.
Zhou Jinying, who has four years of experience in Yili (2005-2009) with Guo Weishi, has worked in the public affairs department of Yili Group for 11 years. Finally, in March 2016, she took a step forward and joined Xinfengxiang Group.
This is a large-scale agricultural and animal husbandry group mainly engaged in white-feathered chickens. After becoming bigger and stronger, it began to gradually go downstream and launched a chicken breast brand for C-end sales - Youxing. And Zhou Jinying is the person in charge of Youxing's business. Now, she has become the vice president of Fengxiang Co., Ltd., a listed company.
At the China Retail Circle Conference held recently, the Youxing chicken breast brand won the grand prize - 2023 Outstanding New Consumer Brand.
Obviously, Yili's resume and accumulated experience have become one of the important reasons why she successfully created a C-end hit.
According to the incomplete statistics of "Consumption Deep", there are also meat products companies such as Yurun and Tianmu Group, all of which have business dealings with dairy executives.
In fact, many meat companies are not shy about helping their own businesses with their past resumes.
In March 2022, Inner Mongolia Erdun Sheep Industry Co., Ltd. hired Mr. Yang Wenjun as the honorary chairman of the company. The latter used to be the general manager of Yili Liquid Milk and the general manager of Mengniu Liquid Milk Company.
Erdun Sheep Industry directly mentioned in the announcement that the company recognizes Mr. Yang Wenjun's past experience, rich experience in enterprise management and operation and international business vision. This hiring will help enhance the brand influence and business scale development of "Erdun".
However, not all dairy executives can enter the meat industry smoothly.
Zhu Yongsheng, who has accompanied Yang Wenjun to work together in Mengniu and Erdun for many years, will take up the position of vice president of Xintianbang Food in February 2022, in charge of food business, mainly responsible for the operation of "picking up taste".
Tianbang is an agricultural and animal husbandry enterprise that raises pigs and makes feed, and has always hoped to expand the food business and seek higher premiums. "Shifen Taste" is a food brand they face for the C-end.
However, only half a year later, Zhu Yongsheng submitted a written resignation report, requesting to resign from the position of vice president of the company and no longer hold a position in the company.
Despite the successes and setbacks of this "crossover", it is clear that meat companies have a natural filter for dairy executives. Behind this, in fact, there is a difference between the two industries.
The focus of meat enterprises is on the production side and the traditional channel side. Even if it is as powerful as Shuanghui and Jinluo, a large part of its business comes from slaughtering. And the brand awareness of this business segment is weak. Not to mention Muyuan, Tianbang, Fengxiang and other agricultural and animal husbandry enterprises with breeding enterprises.
The dairy industry is a highly homogeneous industry, and it is also an area with a very high market concentration, and Yili and Mengniu occupy an absolute right to speak. In terms of brand, product, marketing, consumer maintenance, etc., the two companies are far ahead of any FMCG segment.
Especially in terms of youth, the dairy industry knows the best in catering to young people. And these are precisely the ones that meat companies urgently need to strengthen.
Frankly, Shuanghui is already ahead of the industry in this regard. However, it is also an indisputable fact that the growth has been slightly weak in recent years, and the whole brand is old.
By introducing dairy executives, adopting the "take-it-or-leave-it" doctrine and carrying out another run-in transformation, it is very likely to drive its own brand to take a big step forward.
More importantly, the industry boss has released such an obvious signal, which is very likely to drive a large number of meat companies to follow.
From this point of view, it is necessary for the leading dairy enterprises to hold a stable internal conference. After all, the annual salary offered by the bosses of meat companies should be more attractive.