On March 3, Nongfu Spring's official Weibo released the article "Zhong Sui: I and the Sect Elder Two and Three Things". Among them,Nongfu Spring Co., Ltd. Chairman Zhong Sui"Borrowing a few memories worth recalling from the old man before his death" to clarify a large number of rumors about him and Nongfu Spring that have appeared on the Internet recently. The full text is as follows:
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 mentors and friends, and of course, competitors to each other. Some time ago, when I learned that Zong Lao was seriously ill, I immediately asked someone to ask for a visit, but at that time, it was inconvenient for Zong Lao to see guests, so I regretted that I could not make the trip. 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. In February 1988, I officially resigned from my job as a reporter for "Zhejiang **" and went to the sea to do business. I've run a newspaper and grown mushrooms, but I haven't succeeded. However, during the start-up period 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 earned from starting a business, not the rumor on the Internet that "the first entrepreneurial income comes from Wahaha". In 1991, after being introduced by a former colleague, I had the honor to visit Zong Lao at the Wahaha headquarters in Qingtai Street, Hangzhou. After that, Elder Zong invited me to visit the cannery he had just acquired, which was a large state-owned factory with more than 2,200 people. I saw that the professional canned food production equipment was idle, so I remembered the canned eight-treasure porridge that was popular in some parts of Southeast Asia at that time, and I told Zong Lao about this idea. Later, I asked my cousin to bring back six cans of local eight-treasure congee products from Singapore and deliver them to Zong's home. Zong Lao was very happy and felt that my suggestion had a market, and then invested in R&D and developed and produced the well-known Wahaha Nutritional Eight Treasure Porridge, and proposed that I set up Wahaha offices in Guangxi and Hainan to sell Wahaha Children's Nutrition Oral Liquid. I gladly agreed. Unfortunately, at that time, the consumer demand in Hainan and Guangxi markets did not meet expectations, and it was difficult for me to sell products all over the market. Later, several trading companies came to Hainan to ask me to buy goods, and I was able to clear the purchases. Later, I learned that there is a market for children's nutritional oral liquid in Guangdong. Many years later, at a sales meeting of Nongfu Spring, I joked that Wahaha, which we didn't sell in Hainan back then, was probably sold to Guangdong, and if it were put to now, it would be recognized as a rush to the market. Unexpectedly, a casual joke at the time has now become my "ungrateful" crime. I have never received a salary in Wahaha, let alone been fired for rushing goods. In the early stage of the development of the market economy, all kinds of management were very extensive, and the modern sales concepts of 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. After 2000, the dispute between natural water and pure water was boiling, and as the two "protagonists" of the dispute, Wahaha and Nongfu Spring clarified their respective positions and product propositions in the dispute, and both achieved certain results in the follow-up. After that, 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. To this day, I still insist that the minerals in water are essential for human health, which is why I insist on producing natural water. However, my respect for the entrepreneurial spirit of the elder has never wavered. I have always said on various occasions that Zong Lao is a representative of entrepreneurs that I respect. The above two or three things with the elder of the sect, thinking about it today, are not only a small story worth remembering, but also a lot of spiritual wealth. I also hope that while the majority of netizens express their remembrance of the elders, they will not be led by individual self-leaders or big Vs. Whether Wahaha or Nongfu Spring, they always adhere to the same thing: to produce good products for the people. Once again, I express my thoughts about the patriarch!
Zhong is slight. March 3, 2024.
in Hangzhou. 
*: Nongfu Spring***