Source | Zebra Consumption ID | banmaxiaofei Author | Chen Xiaojing
With the resignations of General Manager Zhao Ping and Deputy General Manager He Yunchuan, the early entrepreneurs of Fuling Zhacai have gradually exited the company's management. Prior to this, Zhou Binquan led Fuling Zhacai for over 20 years, laying a solid foundation for the company. Now, Gao Xiang, born in the 1980s, holds both chairman and general manager roles, fully controlling this 'pickled mustard kingdom.' The outside world is most concerned about how he will lead Fuling Zhacai to break through current bottlenecks and achieve the 'Billion-Yuan Wujiang' blueprint. Old veterans gradually exit Last Friday, Fuling Zhacai (002507.SZ) once again underwent a major executive reshuffle, with two of the company's early entrepreneurs submitting their resignations. Director and General Manager Zhao Ping resigned due to work adjustments. After leaving his post, he will serve as a first-level senior manager. At 59 years old, he is also approaching the statutory retirement age. Zhao Ping is a 'veteran' of Fuling Zhacai. He joined the company in 1995, starting from a grassroots employee and gradually rising to become the helm of overall operations. According to his resume, after working at Fuling Zhacai for ten years, he became deputy general manager and entered the senior management sequence. In 2009, he became director and executive deputy general manager. Since 2011, he has served as director and general manager. He is not only an executive of Fuling Zhacai but also an intangible cultural heritage inheritor of pickled mustard. Related media reports indicate that Zhao Ping has been dedicated to researching the history, culture, and traditional production techniques of Fuling Zhacai, and has long been committed to the rescue and protection of Fuling Zhacai's production techniques. Through mentoring and teaching, he has trained over 50 successors cumulatively, and each year he selects 10 technical backbone employees from the company as key cultivation targets for succession, personally teaching them traditional Fuling Zhacai processing skills in a one-on-one mentorship model. In the announcement of Zhao Ping's resignation, Fuling Zhacai gave him high praise: With the joint efforts of him and the management team, the company achieved transformation and upgrading from a traditional handcraft workshop to a modern, intelligent production enterprise, developing from a local small enterprise into an industry leader. His professionalism, fighting spirit, dedication, and the persistence and responsibility of 'choosing one thing and dedicating a lifetime' are valuable assets for the company's future development. On the same day Zhao Ping submitted his resignation, Deputy General Manager He Yunchuan retired due to age and no longer holds any position in the company. He Yunchuan joined the company in 1998, starting as a technician, then successively serving as deputy factory director of production enterprises, deputy manager and manager of the product management department. From March 2007 to June 2014, he served as assistant to the general manager, and thereafter, he served as deputy general manager. Since the end of 2023, when former Chairman Zhou Binquan and Deputy General Manager Chen Lin successively retired due to age, there are now few early entrepreneurs left in the company's senior management. On September 26, the board of directors of Fuling Zhacai approved several executive appointment proposals. Chairman Gao Xiang concurrently serves as general manager; Dai Furong was appointed as executive deputy general manager. Before joining Fuling Zhacai, both of them had served in various administrative departments of Fuling District. In addition, Wu Yan, born in 1984, was appointed as deputy general manager. She joined the company in 2005 and has held positions including director of the Lidu Park Management Office, director of the Logistics Management Center of the Comprehensive Management Department, deputy manager of the Comprehensive Management Department, and minister of the Quality Management Department. Entrepreneurs lay the foundation Turning a company on the verge of bankruptcy into a 'pickled mustard kingdom' with annual revenue of over 2 billion yuan, Zhou Binquan and the group of entrepreneurs he led are truly meritorious contributors. In 2000, when Zhou Binquan, then 37, was transferred to Fuling Zhacai, the company's annual production capacity was only 10,000 tons, still at the stage of handcraft workshop production. The company was losing over 5 million yuan annually, and even paying employee wages was difficult. After Zhou Binquan took office, he overcame technical difficulties despite opposition and launched an automated production line for pickled mustard. That year, the company turned losses into profits. In 2010, Fuling Zhacai was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, becoming the 'first pickled mustard stock.' By the time Zhou Binquan retired in 2023, Fuling Zhacai's annual operating revenue exceeded 2.5 billion yuan, and net profit attributable to the parent company exceeded 800 million yuan. The company's total assets were over 9 billion yuan, with an extremely low debt-to-asset ratio. It held over 3 billion yuan in cash alone, with annual financial income exceeding 100 million yuan. This laid a solid foundation for the company's subsequent development. A key reason for Fuling Zhacai's stable growth is its adherence to its main business, resolutely avoiding unfamiliar industries. Beyond pickled mustard, the company implemented its first acquisition in 2015, acquiring Huitong Food for 130 million yuan to extend its business into pickled vegetables. During Zhou Binquan's tenure at Fuling Zhacai, the management team was stable, ensuring that development strategies could be consistently implemented. Moreover, Fuling Zhacai implemented management shareholding early on, deeply binding the company's development with the interests of management. When the company went public, those early entrepreneurs held varying amounts of shares. When Zhou Binquan retired, he held 10.3127 million shares of the listed company, accounting for 0.89% of total share capital, making him the fourth largest shareholder with a net worth exceeding 100 million yuan. In the second quarter of 2024, Zhou Binquan reduced his holdings by 2.5782 million shares, cashing out tens of millions of yuan. By the third quarter of that year, he had disappeared from the list of top ten shareholders. Gao Xiang's mission Replacing Zhou Binquan to lead Fuling Zhacai is Gao Xiang, born in 1981. Before taking office at the listed company, his position was director of the Fuling District Economic and Information Commission. Currently, Fuling Zhacai is at a bottleneck period in its development, so Gao Xiang's burden is not light. Pickled mustard is the absolute core business of the listed company, contributing over 80% of operating revenue. In 2020, the company's annual sales volume of pickled mustard reached 135,600 tons, hitting its peak. At the end of 2021, the company raised ex-factory prices for some products by 3%-19%, which quickly triggered significant reactions at the sales end. In 2022, annual sales volume of pickled mustard plummeted to 117,800 tons. To address this major change, in 2023, after market research, the company launched 60g products to position in the 2-yuan price band, stabilizing the low-price competition situation for terminal products. In 2024, it lifted restrictions on ordering 60g products to further consolidate the 2-yuan price band market. Since this year, it has launched 80g products with 'more quantity at the same price' promotional measures to compete in the market. After a series of market measures, the collapse in pickled mustard product sales was curbed, but overall, it still shows a slow downward trend. By 2024, annual sales volume of pickled mustard had dropped to 111,400 tons. 2024 was the first complete fiscal year under Gao Xiang's leadership at Fuling Zhacai. That year, the company achieved operating revenue of 2.387 billion yuan and net profit attributable to the parent company of 799 million yuan, down 2.56% and 3.29% year-on-year respectively, which is hardly satisfactory to investors. Since this year, Fuling Zhacai has made frequent major moves, attempting to improve performance through adjustments in business layout. In March, the company decided to change the use of raised funds, reducing the pickled mustard production capacity in the production base construction project from 200,000 tons to 160,000 tons, while adding 50,000 tons per year of Sichuan-style seasoning production capacity. Fuling Zhacai is well aware that in the current market environment, consumers have more choices, which has impacted the pickled mustard market, with market share being diverted. The company can no longer rely solely on large-scale production to increase market share; it can only consolidate its market position by improving product quality and optimizing product structure. At the same time, the company is advancing external merger and acquisition expansion. It plans to acquire a 51% stake in Weizimei Company through issuing shares and paying cash, aiming to quickly cover the larger compound seasoning market. This year, Fuling Zhacai has still failed to break through its operational bottleneck. In the first half of the year, the company's revenue increased slightly by 0.51% year-on-year, while net profit attributable to the parent company decreased by 1.66% year-on-year.