The 6th China FMCG Channel Innovation Conference, hosted by New Distribution, a professional new media platform for FMCG, was grandly held from April 1 to April 3 at Chengdu Agile Howard Johnson Hotel. This grand event attracted 3,000 industry professionals from across the country, including distributors, community e-commerce platforms, brand owners, and internet companies, filling the venue to capacity.

On the morning of April 3, at the China FMCG Trade and Distribution Business Development Summit, Mr. Chen Yuchi, Director of New Retail at Evergreen Aquatic Products, delivered a keynote speech titled "The Road to New Retail Transformation in Traditional Industries."

Evergreen Aquatic Products, established 30 years ago, has been deeply rooted in the aquatic products industry, covering the entire industrial chain including aquatic seedlings, aquaculture, feed, microbial preparations, and aquatic product processing, supplying domestic and international dining tables. As a well-known established enterprise, what insights do they have for new retail transformation that we can learn from?

New Distribution has carefully compiled and excerpted the essence of Mr. Chen Yuchi's speech at the conference, now published for the benefit of New Distribution readers.

"Do one thing well for a lifetime: make this fish and this shrimp well, and thoroughly understand the industrial chain." This is what my father, Chen Dan, Chairman of Evergreen, has always told me since I returned to the company.

From Mr. Chen's introduction, we learned that Evergreen was founded in 1991, starting with agricultural products and trade, supplying raw materials to feed mills. Now Evergreen is a comprehensive enterprise integrating aquaculture, aquatic products, food processing, and cold chain logistics, and is currently the only enterprise in the industry to have opened up the entire industrial chain. There are about 25,000 farming households growing with Evergreen, and it is also the first leading aquatic enterprise in Guangdong Province.

Moreover, Evergreen provided the entire Egypt with farms, planting fields, feed mills, and aquatic processing plants, a BOT project. Today, Evergreen's market has expanded to more than 20 countries and regions, including Russia and the UK.

Seedlings, feed, microecological preparations, aquaculture, aquatic processing, and cold chain logistics are the six major segments of Evergreen's current industrial chain. Starting with feed, they found that with feed as a foundation, they could extend to shrimp and fish farming, but farming fish and shrimp requires good seedlings, so Evergreen gradually laid out seedling production and became increasingly professional. Now, Evergreen's seedling base is the Southern Seed Base under the national 863 Program.

Currently, Evergreen has 22 feed mills across China, two microecological preparation plants, 23,000 mu of free aquaculture area, three aquatic processing plants, and extensive cold chain storage and transportation capabilities.

As a national key leading enterprise in agricultural industrialization, Evergreen has been committed to building an aquatic food industry chain from pond to table for 30 years, establishing a complete aquatic food industry chain system including seedling breeding, feed production and sales, microecological preparations, aquaculture, aquatic food processing, cold chain logistics, and smart fisheries. It has set up more than 70 subsidiaries in over 10 provinces in China and regions such as Southeast Asia and Africa, ranking among the top 100 global aquatic enterprises.

Despite such strong capabilities, Evergreen suffered setbacks in the early stages of retail.

Initially, seeing the retail industry developing well and aquatic retail being relatively scarce, I thought that with cost advantages, Evergreen could achieve high quality and low prices in aquatic retail. At that time, Evergreen thought this cake was easy to grab. So, large-format products of 10 kg and 5 kg were produced.

Contrary to the imagined easy market win, these initial products, though cost-effective, were launched without fully understanding the market, resulting in a failure to open up the market.

It was not until recent years that Evergreen gained insight into market demand, no longer pursuing large specifications for retail products, but starting to launch small-format new products, such as semi-finished or finished products that individual consumers can simply heat to make a meal. This time, Evergreen successfully won the favor of many consumers, and in terms of channels, it actively embraced emerging channels like community group buying, reaping significant benefits.

From a fish and shrimp farming enterprise to a retail enterprise that now covers both online and offline, old and new channels, what changes have occurred in Evergreen's mindset?

First, People

Customers have changed, from export to distributor channels, to reaching individual consumers. When the service target changes, the mindset must also change. For export, you think about selling ten or twenty more tons; for distributors, you might consider not needing attractive packaging but larger specifications for easy transportation; for consumers, there are personalized needs, requirements for appearance, and more detailed considerations for product craftsmanship and taste. They don't need products that leave half a pack in the fridge after a meal.

To this end, Evergreen has continuously increased investment in food research and development, establishing a food research institute. At the same time, through cooperation with the catering association, cooking association, and hotel association, they leverage the strong R&D capabilities of their chef teams to make up for shortcomings.

In addition to product specifications becoming smaller and more refined, distribution methods have also shifted from large agricultural wholesale markets to supermarkets, e-commerce, and community group buying. This is to meet the needs of the current main consumer groups, the post-90s and post-00s. Most of them are not good at cooking and need semi-finished prepared dishes to balance participation, healthy eating, and taste.

Second, Product

In China, consumers have transitioned from not having enough to eat, to eating enough, and now to eating well.

Fish and shrimp farming enterprises have always relied on large-scale output. When catching fish and shrimp, it's impossible to catch one or two jin at a time; a single catch might empty several ponds. After catching live aquatic products, how to keep them safe is an important issue.

We have a pursuit: to let consumers have a recognition and approval of the Evergreen brand, recognizing the efforts and technology invested in the farming process, so that Evergreen's fish and shrimp can be sold at a higher value, and everyone can identify with our corporate value.

But in this process, Evergreen still regards several issues as the life of the enterprise:

First is food safety, which requires practitioners to start from the source, ensuring standardized and safe farming. Second is the prevention and control of diseases in aquaculture to ensure supply stability. Third is stocking density and farming environment. Many farmers blindly pursue high profits and efficiency while ignoring product quality and safety issues, requiring enterprises to provide positive guidance.

In its self-built farming bases, Evergreen reduces stocking density, uses no drugs or antibiotics throughout the process, and actively guides the healthy development of the entire industry.

Third, Place

Originally, Evergreen mainly served foreign supermarkets, domestic supermarkets, and catering. The catering fixed rate is high, but there was not much awareness of individual consumer products or brands. The current logistics conditions give Evergreen the foundation to reach consumers, making it possible for consumers to learn about Evergreen from the packaging of the shrimp and fish products they eat.

To achieve this goal, Evergreen has been diligently improving its internal capabilities: in refined management, striving to study how to reduce costs and increase efficiency, building stronger core competitiveness. Because if your product cost is higher than the industry level, your yield rate is lower than competitors, and your terminal price is higher than competing products, you will inevitably be eliminated by the market.

To this end, Evergreen actively embraces the times, transforming externally and optimizing internally, strengthening foundations and making up for shortcomings. Corporate competition is competition in talent, technology, application models, and operational efficiency. Only by embracing change and actively innovating can one remain invincible.