Cai Hongliang's 46 years have seen two major turning points: one was selling Baicaowei to achieve financial freedom; the other was founding Zihaiguo, which now tastes the bitterness of company enforcement and personal consumption restrictions. This bitterness was arguably destined from the start. Two years ago, Lotus Holdings gave up the acquisition, and Cai Hongliang's painstaking re-entrepreneurship project ultimately stumbled on the eve of entering the capital market. Compared to selling Baicaowei and cashing out, fate played a joke on him. The MSG king, seeking transformation, seemed not to have taken Zihaiguo to heart. After this battle, Cai Hongliang and Zihaiguo quickly faded into obscurity. Some believe he will find another excuse to continue a capital story, but when looking back, he finds himself at the center of public opinion. It can be said that his founding and selling of Baicaowei aligned with the cyclical growth of the leisure snack industry, and entering the convenient hot pot category had some consumer scenarios, but in the red ocean of convenient food, giants won't allow it to thrive at their bedside. In the self-heating food track, there are many imitators, and with takeout and instant noodles already fighting fiercely, competition is intense. Zihaiguo once appeared frequently in outdoor trends and had a certain status on the Sichuan-Tibet route, but it was a flash in the pan. Look at who eats Zihaiguo now? Especially on flights and high-speed trains, the smoke from self-heating can easily trigger alarms, and it has long been banned by relevant authorities. Stumbling with Zihaiguo After Baicaowei, Zihaiguo is Cai Hongliang's second entrepreneurial project. At its founding in 2018, he named the brand's operating entity Hangzhou Jinlingyang Enterprise Management Consulting Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "Hangzhou Jinlingyang"), embedding the antelope image in the name, showcasing untamable personality, agility, and resilience, revealing his high hopes for this re-entrepreneurship project. Hangzhou Jinlingyang indeed lived up to his expectations. Zihaiguo was favored by the market as soon as it launched, especially during the special three-year period, becoming a must-stock item for homebound people. After the market exploded, it attracted capital from various investors, securing hundreds of millions in financing. With luck and sharp insight, Cai Hongliang grasped the essence of self-heating products and rapidly drove company growth. From 2020 to 2023, Hangzhou Jinlingyang achieved revenues of 958 million yuan, 992 million yuan, and 820 million yuan, entering the top tier of the convenient food sector. Cai Hongliang's strategy, like his "pioneering" for Baicaowei, relied on traffic to win. On one hand, he collaborated with celebrities like Hua Chenyu and Na Ying for social media seeding, while frequently appearing in variety shows and films; on the other hand, he used Focus Media's elevator ads for coverage. Spending real money led to high company expenses. From 2020 to 2022, sales expenses were approximately 293 million yuan, 431 million yuan, and 174 million yuan, accounting for 30.58%, 43.45%, and 21.22% of respective revenues. In 2021, brand promotion expenses were 156 million yuan, and operational promotion expenses were about 90 million yuan, accounting for 15.73% and 9.03% of revenue, respectively. During the 2021 Double 11 period, Zihaiguo's online sales across all channels exceeded 100 million yuan, maintaining the top spot for four consecutive years. In 2022, Hangzhou Jinlingyang finally escaped the dilemma of two consecutive years of losses, achieving net profit attributable to parent of 27.5228 million yuan, and was poised to sprint toward the capital market. However, the company did not intend to IPO independently but sought acquisition by a listed company. In March 2023, "MSG King" Lotus Holdings (600186.SH) announced plans to acquire no less than 20% of Hangzhou Jinlingyang's equity, with a transaction price of 300-600 million yuan, at a premium rate of about 970% to 2000%, immediately drawing questions from the Shanghai Stock Exchange, which also issued risk warnings about the target's short existence, high sales expenses, and uncertain sustainable profitability. Lotus Holdings was embroiled in controversy and eventually retreated, announcing five months later that the two parties failed to reach consensus and terminated the acquisition. Zihaiguo thus missed the capital market, and there was little news of a marriage with listed companies afterward. Its own disputes finally erupted last year. On November 1, 2024, and February 18 this year, Hangzhou Jinlingyang was listed as a person subject to enforcement twice, with a total enforced amount of 71.1424 million yuan. Among them, legal representative Cai Hongliang had an enforced total of 59.8916 million yuan, has been subject to consumption restrictions, and his equity holdings in Hangzhou Jinlingyang totaling 18.33 million yuan have been frozen. Father of Baicaowei Before founding Zihaiguo, Cai Hongliang's entrepreneurial journey was far less tortuous. He seized the opportunities in snacks and e-commerce, successfully earning his first pot of gold. Among serial entrepreneurs, Cai Hongliang's resume is quite ordinary. He was born in a rural area of Pan'an County, Zhejiang. After graduating from technical secondary school in 1997, he went to Hengdian World Studios to learn appliance repair, then moved to Hangzhou to work as a self-employed appliance repairman, and later worked as a repairman at Master Kong's factory and Yidele Electronics Factory. After three years of social hardship, Cai Hongliang decided to go into business again and won the bid for Master Kong's corporate welfare club, essentially a small shop inside the factory. However, the small store did not satisfy his ambition. Three years later, he opened his first snack store in the university town of Xiasha, Hangzhou, naming it Baicaowei, stepping into the leisure snack market. At that time, leisure snack company Laiyifen (603777.SH) had been established for four years and was expanding in the Yangtze River Delta, serving as a model for Cai Hongliang. Cai Hongliang discovered that the large college student consumer base not only demanded unique flavors but also had higher expectations for product appearance and packaging. The leisure snack industry, long dominated by small workshops, faced an opportunity for renewal. Baicaowei focused on nut-based snacks with simple and elegant packaging, becoming a hot commodity in the market. According to reports, its store turnover reached nearly 300,000 yuan in two months. In the following three years, Cai Hongliang replicated this model, expanding offline stores to over 140, with annual sales exceeding 100 million yuan. After winning offline, Cai Hongliang led Baicaowei online, precisely riding the wave of e-commerce dividends. Baicaowei opened a store on Tmall, achieving sales of over 6 million yuan in the first month, which made Cai Hongliang see the potential of online e-commerce. In 2010, Baicaowei implemented a strategic shift, closing stores on a large scale and focusing mainly on online. Four years later, online sales exceeded 1 billion yuan, making it the absolute king of online leisure snacks. In 2016, Baicaowei's sales reached 2.7 billion yuan, and Cai Hongliang transferred 100% equity of Baicaowei's parent company, Hangzhou Haomute Food, to Haoxiangni (002582.SZ) for 960 million yuan, becoming the first merger case in domestic snack e-commerce. Later, when asked by media why he sold his hard-raised "child," he said, "When it's time to guard the kingdom, I'll hand it over; I love conquering kingdoms." Afterward, as leisure snack companies like Liangpinpuzi and Three Squirrels successively listed, Baicaowei's market voice gradually weakened. In 2020, Haoxiangni sold Baicaowei to PepsiCo for $705 million. Baicaowei was bought and sold, and everything was no longer related to Cai Hongliang. In 2021, during the Yabuli China Entrepreneurs Forum annual meeting, he revealed, After selling Baicaowei, after the three-year performance commitment and factory expenses, he actually earned only a little over 200 million yuan. He did not rest on his laurels and live a carefree life but founded Zihaiguo. He said he likes to create the second, third, and fourth curves of life and enjoys pioneering. Time, fate, and luck—how can one not sigh at Cai Hongliang's current situation? From March 17-19, the 10th China FMCG Innovation Conference will be held in Chengdu, alongside the 4th China FMCG Hard Discount Conference, which will invite snack chain systems, brand executives, and distributor benchmarks to deeply discuss the future changes and opportunities of hard discount. 【New Order · Symbiosis】 ****The 10th China FMCG Innovation Conference Time: March 17-19, 2025 Location: Chengdu, China