---
title: "Master Kong Instant Noodles: Aerospace Quality as Standard, Making Distributors Profitable is the Real Deal"
description: "When an industry is about to hit rock bottom, the resilience of its leader often determines the industry's ability to rebound. In 2013, the instant noodle industry reached a historical peak with sales of 45.17 billion units, then declined year by year, hitting a trough of 38.03 billion units in 2016. In 2017, sales slightly recovered to 38.52 billion units. Although still far from the peak, halting the decline in such a short time is commendable. The 2018 sales figures are not yet out, but based on feedback from various companies, sales will not be lower than 38.52 billion units."
author: "周朝磊"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2018-12-16"
language: "en"
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# Master Kong Instant Noodles: Aerospace Quality as Standard, Making Distributors Profitable is the Real Deal

> When an industry is about to hit rock bottom, the resilience of its leader often determines the industry's ability to rebound. In 2013, the instant noodle industry reached a historical peak with sales of 45.17 billion units, then declined year by year, hitting a trough of 38.03 billion units in 2016. In 2017, sales slightly recovered to 38.52 billion units. Although still far from the peak, halting the decline in such a short time is commendable. The 2018 sales figures are not yet out, but based on feedback from various companies, sales will not be lower than 38.52 billion units.

**When an industry is about to hit rock bottom, the resilience of its leader often determines the industry's ability to rebound.** In 2013, the instant noodle industry reached a historical peak with sales of 45.17 billion units, then declined year by year, hitting a trough of 38.03 billion units in 2016. In 2017, sales slightly recovered to 38.52 billion units. Although still far from the peak, halting the decline in such a short time is commendable. The 2018 sales figures are not yet out, but based on feedback from various companies, sales will not be lower than 38.52 billion units.
The instant noodle industry took 3 years to stop the decline and then 2 years to recover. At the same time, we can observe that the sales proportion of cup noodles is rising, and the sales of premium noodles are increasing. The overall sales revenue of the instant noodle industry is not much different from 2013.
Behind these figures is the result of countless efforts by the instant noodle industry, and as the industry leader, Master Kong has played a leading role. Master Kong's marketing strategy over the past five years can be simply summarized as "looking up at the stars while keeping feet on the ground."
01**Marketing Innovation: Master Kong Benchmarks Aerospace Quality**
When mentioning Master Kong's "looking up at the stars," many might think of its recent partnership with the aerospace industry and the "Aerospace Spirit China Tour and Master Kong Food Safety Science Exhibition" being held across the northwest.
What I mean by "looking up at the stars" refers to a series of marketing strategies that guide Master Kong people forward. To achieve "reaching for the stars," we see Master Kong at events like the Rio and Pyeongchang noodle shops, marathons, NBA, and other domestic and international competitions. Through continuous cooperation with Lang Ping and Zhu Ting's "Safe Companionship Plan," Master Kong's brand health image has been greatly enhanced.
When other companies began to imitate Master Kong's sports marketing, Master Kong turned its attention to aerospace cooperation with higher strategic significance. If sports marketing broke consumers' perception that instant noodles are "unhealthy," then the aerospace cooperation reconstructs the public's perception of instant noodles from a food safety perspective.
From October 22 to mid-to-late December, the "Aerospace Spirit China Tour and Master Kong Food Safety Science Exhibition" has been held in Xi'an, Yulin, Ankang, Datong, Taiyuan, and other places. It is reported that this exhibition will last three years, and the first stop of the science exhibition will be held in Chengdu, Sichuan, at the end of this month.
△Aerospace Spirit China Tour and Master Kong Food Safety Science Exhibition · Taiyuan Station
At the exhibition, Master Kong used high-tech to highly restore the production process of instant noodles, allowing visitors to experience "aerospace-grade" product quality through interactive experiences. In fact, as early as 2015, Master Kong invested 300 million yuan to build a large-scale FD freeze-drying factory, using aerospace technology to lock in the nutrition of vegetables and meat. Additionally, Master Kong introduced the HACCP food safety management system used by NASA to provide food for astronauts, setting up aerospace full-process protection for product safety and quality. Furthermore, Master Kong established the Kangbannuoer Aerospace Breeding Demonstration Base at the source of the industry chain, hoping to learn from aerospace breeding and planting technology to build the base into a comprehensive aerospace breeding industrialization base integrating improved variety breeding, planting and breeding combination, research and innovation, product development, science education, demonstration and promotion.
△Children at the Taiyuan Station of the Science Exhibition Listening Carefully to the Explanation
Zhu Danpeng, a Chinese food industry analyst, commented on Master Kong's "aerospace strategy": "The fact that a food company can cooperate with the aerospace industry shows that the company has a certain brand height. Not every brand can be linked to the aerospace industry. This also shows that Master Kong has reached a certain height in food safety and brand endorsement."
02**Increased Rebates: Distributors Look to the Future with Optimism**
On December 8, 2018, when Chang'e-4 successfully launched, the official Weibo of China Aerospace posted a photo with the caption: "Signing your name means making a commitment to the country, to the unit, and to yourself."
Similarly, as an enterprise, the meaning of existence is to bring benefits to society, employees, and especially distributors. When the entire FMCG industry is cooling down, the impact on distributors is undoubtedly the greatest. Today, Chinese distributors are facing aging teams, no successors, rising marketing costs, and sharp profit declines. This is an era of anxiety. Enterprises know how to "solve" the "anxiety" created by others due to talent reserves and future planning, but distributors, whether in learning ability or innovation ability, cannot better find new directions in the "anxiety," so they rely more on the guidance of enterprises.
Ensuring distributor profits is the foundation for stabilizing the entire industry. How to ensure profits?
1. Innovative products. Starting in 2016, Master Kong focused on the development of premium noodles, launching new flavors such as "Tengjiao" (Sichuan pepper) and "Jintang" (golden soup), followed by the slow-cooked broth series, pot-cooked ramen, and fresh vegetable noodles, which were well received by many consumers.
Especially with this cooperation with the aerospace industry, Master Kong's path to high-end noodles will be smoother. Only when product quality improves can prices rise, and distributors can have more profits.
2. Flat management. In 2017, Master Kong's policy can be summarized as "small headquarters, large branches; remove large regions, establish provincial regions; intensively cultivate cities, jointly sell in counties; protect profits, focus on execution." The so-called small headquarters, large branches means simplifying headquarters functional departments and increasing the authority of professional departments; abolishing the original large regions and changing to provincial regions directly responsible to the headquarters, reducing communication levels and costs, allowing distributors' opinions to be resolved faster.
"Intensively cultivate cities, jointly sell in counties" - although channel control has always been Master Kong's strength, in recent years, with targeted investment from competitors, Master Kong's channels have shown signs of being eroded. To this end, Master Kong requires business personnel to intensively cultivate prefecture-level cities, keep the channels in their own hands, and regain the courage of pioneering the market; for the county level, Master Kong personnel lead distributor personnel to intensively cultivate the region, opening up county-level channels and village-level networks. Of course, the most important thing is to reduce distributor advance costs, increase distributor capital turnover speed, give rebates to distributors, and seek sales and profits from execution. Fully introduce the SAAS series to achieve channel digitalization and scientifically plan business visit routes.
3. Increased rebates. At the end of 2018, Master Kong instant noodles sent another wave of benefits, increasing distributor profit margins. The rebate per carton increased by 2 yuan, equivalent to an 80% increase in gross profit. As we all know, the profit in the instant noodle industry is very low. Some companies have a profit of no more than 1 yuan per carton. Master Kong's 2.5 yuan per carton profit is already a relatively high level. Now with an additional 2 yuan rebate, the impact on distributors and small terminal stores is enormous.
According to insiders in the instant noodle industry, "Such a large rebate greatly boosts the morale and confidence of the entire distributor team, alleviating their anxiety. Of course, this is not good news for competitors. As a product with the highest market share, every Master Kong product is a mainstream product, and its every move has a huge impact on the entire industry. With such a large rebate, competitors will naturally worry that their already small share will be further eroded."
For everyone who has walked with Master Kong, Master Kong is everyone's Master Kong, jointly achieved by every Master Kong person, distributor, and supplier. The difference between a good company and a great company is that a good company ensures its own profits, while a great company ensures that every link makes money.
On December 12, Chang'e-4 successfully completed its space braking, moving one step closer to success. There is a kind of success called "braking"; Iron Man said in "Avengers: Endgame," "Drifting in space with no hope of rescue, this experience is actually more interesting than it sounds." There is a kind of success that requires "lonely drifting."
All rebirths must go through some twists and turns that are not understood, but if you persist, success is not far away. Although we don't know how long it will take to return to the 2013 peak or even surpass 2013 sales, every Master Kong person will take surpassing 2013 as their mission...
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