"What matters more than traffic is the truth, and the judgment of right and wrong based on facts." On the evening of May 20, Nongfu Spring's official Weibo account published a summary of rumors spread since February 25 against Nongfu Spring and its founder Zhong Shanshan, including those about its relationship with Wahaha, product packaging materials, water source standards, and tax evasion. Nongfu Spring summarized and clarified the following twenty rumors:
Rumor 1: Zhong Shanshan was a distributor for Wahaha and engaged in channel diversion, and was fired by Wahaha; Truth: Zhong Shanshan never received a salary from Wahaha, and there is no such thing as being fired for channel diversion.
Rumor 2: Zhong Shanshan founded Nongfu Spring to target Wahaha, repaying kindness with enmity, like the 'farmer and the snake'; Truth: Zhong Shanshan founded Nongfu Spring entirely on a whim, not targeting any person or company. In 1996, while in the health products business, he went to Qiandao Lake to inspect the acquisition of a century-old medicinal wine factory. At lunch by the Xin'an River, he was attracted by the dark green waters of Qiandao Lake and immediately decided to abandon the acquisition. After lunch, he arranged to find a suitable plot by the Xin'an River to set up a bottled water plant.
Rumor 3: Nongfu Spring was fined 200,000 yuan in 2000 for unfair competition with Wahaha; Truth: Since its founding, Nongfu Spring has never been fined for any competition with Wahaha.
Rumor 4: Nongfu Spring promoted the acid-base body constitution theory and was named by CCTV's 3.15 program; Truth: Nongfu Spring promoted that 'drinking water containing mineral elements is usually weakly alkaline' and that 'water containing mineral elements is more suitable for long-term drinking.' We have never published the acid-base body constitution theory, nor have we been named by CCTV's 3.15 program.
Rumor 5: Nongfu Spring is not a Chinese company, is registered in the Cayman Islands, is controlled by foreign capital, and every bottle purchased becomes a bullet fired at China by the US; Truth: Nongfu Spring Co., Ltd. (the listed entity) is a joint-stock company established under Chinese law and registered in Xihu District, Hangzhou, China. The competent authority is the Zhejiang Provincial Administration for Market Regulation. To date, no company within Nongfu Spring or the Yangshengtang Group is registered in the Cayman Islands or controlled by foreign capital. Nongfu Spring was listed in Hong Kong in 2020. Before listing, there was no foreign capital. After listing, the circulating shares are freely tradable on the Hong Kong stock market, but the proportion is small. Nongfu Spring is entirely a private enterprise of the People's Republic of China.
Rumor 6: Nongfu Spring evades taxes; Truth: Since its founding, Nongfu Spring has never evaded taxes. Paying taxes is an enterprise's obligation, not a promotional tool. Before 2024, Nongfu Spring only disclosed corporate income tax as required by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, not the total tax amount. Some self-media took concepts out of context, comparing the total tax amount (including corporate income tax) of another company with Nongfu Spring's corporate income tax, leading to the erroneous conclusion that Nongfu Spring's tax rate is low. This year, Nongfu Spring disclosed in its ESG report that its full-caliber tax payment for 2023 was 6.8 billion RMB.
Rumor 7: Nongfu Spring's Danjiangkou water source is polluted and full of garbage; Truth: According to the 2021 environmental bulletin of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People's Republic of China, the water quality of Danjiangkou is excellent. A media outlet that falsely reported garbage in Danjiangkou in the past was shut down in 2014 for news extortion and false news. That year, the outlet published 19 articles smearing Nongfu Spring, including claims of water source pollution. Ministry of Ecology and Environment official website: Ministry of Ecology and Environment reports on national surface water and ambient air quality in March and January-March https://www.mee.gov.cn/xxgk2018/xxgk/xxgk15/202104/t20210417_829130.html Jimu News: Shiyan unswervingly protects water, Danjiangkou Reservoir water supply quality reaches Class I standard https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1792295157099755427&wfr=spider&for=pc Xinhua News Agency: A newspaper group admits to news extortion: violating journalistic ethics https://china.huanqiu.com/article/9CaKrnJFD9e
Rumor 8: Nongfu Spring's enterprise standard is lower than tap water standard; Truth: This false message originated from a false news report in 2013, and the incident was already clarified through Nongfu Spring's press conference and official media. The enterprise standard marked on Nongfu Spring bottles is Q/NFS 00018-2021. Enterprise standards are formulated on the basis of implementing national, local, and industry standards. Generally, enterprise standards are higher than industry standards, industry standards are higher than national standards, and national standards are the most basic. Nongfu Spring's natural water enterprise standard is formulated on the basis of implementing GB 5749 'Standards for Drinking Water Quality' and GB 19298 'National Food Safety Standard for Packaged Drinking Water'. 28 indicators, including arsenic and cadmium, are stricter than relevant national standards. No indicator is lower than the national standard. Observer Network: Beijing Times reporter Li Bin taken away by police; had reported on Nongfu Spring incident https://m.guancha.cn/society/2014_04_10_221130_s.shtml Zhejiang Provincial Health Department and Quality Supervision Bureau respond: Nongfu Spring sampling pass rate 100% https://www.gov.cn/jrzg/2013-05/09/content_2398732.htm
Rumor 9: Nongfu Spring does not do public welfare, only donated 24,000 bottles of water for the Jishishan earthquake in Gansu; Truth: As of the end of March 2024, the total social donations of Nongfu Spring and the Yangshengtang Group exceeded 900 million RMB. At 23:59 on December 18, 2023, when a 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck Jishishan, Gansu, employees and distributors of Nongfu Spring's Gansu-Qinghai-Ningxia region immediately organized allocation and transportation. Two and a half hours later, the first batch of water was delivered to the disaster victims' resettlement point, which was also the first batch of disaster relief materials received at the disaster site. Over the next five days, regional employees and distributors braved aftershocks to travel to various disaster points, delivering a total of more than 200,000 bottles/barrels of water to victims without water. Water is the most urgently needed relief material, and the transportation process is very difficult. Every donation of drinking water for disaster relief by Nongfu Spring is delivered by employees at risk to the front line or the disaster site.
Rumor 10: Donated 50 million to Japan and 100 million to Harvard University; Truth: This message is purely fabricated.
Rumor 11: Nongfu Spring hired paid internet trolls to smear Wahaha, prohibited stores from selling Wahaha, and maliciously lowered prices to suppress Wahaha; Truth: Nongfu Spring has never hired trolls to frame Wahaha, never asked stores to stop selling Wahaha, and never lowered prices to attack Wahaha.
Rumor 12: Nongfu Spring flatters Japan, with labels of red bottle water, Oriental Leaf, and Chia Pai promoting Japanese culture; Truth: The cap of Nongfu Spring's red bottle uses Chinese flag red, symbolizing national confidence. The so-called implied Japanese flag is completely a rumor. The Oriental Leaf green tea label story is written based on the history of Jingshan Temple in China, showcasing the cultural power of Chinese tea influencing the world. The pagoda pattern on the label is based on the image of an ancient pagoda from the Southern Dynasties. Other claims of flattering Japan on packaging are also false.
Rumor 13: Nongfu Spring's packaging materials are inferior and materials are skimped; Truth: Nongfu Spring uses the same bottle raw materials as other beverage companies, with the same industry standards, the same quality requirements, and overlapping suppliers. The rumor-mongers deliberately used different burning methods to subjectively mislead the public into thinking there are quality differences in bottle raw materials, causing harm to Nongfu Spring.
Rumor 14: Nongfu Spring uses inferior reservoir surface water, and Nongfu Spring is not spring water; Truth: Nongfu Spring currently has twelve major water sources, of which nine are spring-type: Changbai Mountain in Jilin, Mohe Daxing'anling in Heilongjiang, Wuling Mountain in Guizhou, Wuyi Mountain in Fujian, Taibai Mountain in Shaanxi, Emei Mountain in Sichuan, Daming Mountain in Guangxi, Manas in Tianshan, Xinjiang, and Huangshan in Anhui; three are deep water from alpine lakes: Danjiangkou, Qiandao Lake, and Wanlv Lake. All the above water sources are high-quality natural water sources.
Rumor 15: Zhong Shanshan visited Japan during May Day, went to Japan to worship ancestors, and immigrated to Japan; Truth: See the official statement 'Blackening entrepreneurs has become the biggest traffic, and rumor-mongering has become the job of some internet celebrities' https://www.toutiao.com/article/7365743278635483675/?log_from=d7ac76b61b319_1715437343086
Rumor 16: Nongfu Spring uses tea leaves contaminated by Japan's nuclear pollution; Truth: The vast majority of Oriental Leaf's raw materials are domestically produced, with a small amount from Sri Lanka and other places, and no Japanese tea is used.
Rumor 17: Nongfu Spring transports Japanese nuclear waste/contaminated water; Truth: All of Nongfu Spring's water sources are high-quality natural water sources in China.
Rumor 18: The 1588 on the Changbaixue label refers to the year Toyotomi Hideyoshi unified Japan; Truth: The number 1588 on the Changbaixue bottle represents 'as many as 1588 species of wild animals live in the Changbai Mountain area,' based on data from the Baishan Municipal People's Government official website and the Changbai Mountain Management Committee, and has nothing to do with Japan.
Rumor 19: There are insect eggs in Nongfu Spring water; Truth: Nongfu Spring's production process is continuous, all raw water undergoes strict filtration and sterilization, and packaging containers are also strictly sterilized. It is impossible for insect eggs to enter during the manufacturing process. This incident is old news from 2021, a typical case of recycling old news. The media outlet that first reported it has long since deleted the relevant report.
Rumor 20: Zhong Shanshan stepped down as legal representative and fled; Truth: Zhejiang Nongfu Industrial Development Co., Ltd. is only a subsidiary of Nongfu Spring. Nongfu Spring submitted an application to the industrial and commercial authorities on February 23, 2024, to change the legal representative of the subsidiary, which was approved on February 27. This is a normal personnel adjustment. The so-called 'escape' and other claims are pure rumors. Currently, Zhong Shanshan remains the legal representative of Nongfu Spring Co., Ltd.
Finally, Nongfu Spring officially stated that it has initiated the process of reporting to public security authorities and filing lawsuits with people's courts, and will pursue the legal responsibility of malicious rumor-mongers.