How much can a fresh corn cob sell for? At a street stall in the market, it's only 2 yuan; With some careful packaging, it can sell for 3 to 4 yuan; With further processing, like making it into drinks or snacks, it can sell for a bit more. But in the end, these sales methods are at best a small retail business. On e-commerce platforms, with proper branding, this single product can sell at least 100 million yuan. In the entire corn category, from January to May 2024, sales on Douyin alone reached nearly 1 billion yuan, and October Rice Field, with just one corn product, captured almost half of that market. How did they do it? Clearly, October Rice Field is not on the same path as many agricultural product manufacturers. Too many agricultural enterprises are accustomed to B2B business, but they fail to realize that B2C operates on completely different logic, and the cognition of their respective customer groups is entirely different. Consumers don't care about seed quality or the strength of the production unit; they recognize channels and brands. While product performance is one aspect, how you use the product to express what consumers have in mind is the key to whether it sells. We recently had some exchanges with Wang Bing, co-founder of October Rice Field, and it's evident that their views on agricultural product branding lack the common flaws of traditional agricultural enterprises. For them, studying consumers is equally important as researching agricultural product development. Sales ranking of corn products on Douyin e-commerce from January to May 2024 Nowadays, when selling agricultural products, everyone is willing to use "health" as the primary selling point. But most brands misunderstand this. They think that by showcasing their origin and variety, and plastering labels like "healthy" and "wellness" across all promotional materials, they are expressing "I am healthy." But what consumers want from "health" is a choice of lifestyle. Without any labels, what is corn? It's a staple food, just like rice and flour; but now, corn has broken the limits of staple food categories and has become a new option for "light meals" and "snacks." Most consumers have their own preferences, but their attitude towards staple foods is always fixed in time, quantity, and place. Even if your product is favored, it remains indistinct among a pile of staple foods, and no one remembers you. So why does October Rice Field's corn sell well? First, it breaks this category limitation, steering corn towards light meals and snacks, switching to a completely new FMCG track. By the way, popcorn is a successful example of corn's previous snack transformation. Back to fresh corn, its characteristics—"high freshness," "easy to eat," "low fat and high fiber," "strong satiety"—aren't these exactly what women with body image concerns, meticulous moms with kids, and fitness enthusiasts need? Indeed, "women's and children's money is the easiest to earn," and October Rice Field's corn perfectly meets the needs of these user groups. Of course, there's a big gap between "knowing" and "doing," otherwise there wouldn't be so many brands failing. October Rice Field succeeded because it implemented this core principle in every detail, from product positioning to packaging and design. October Rice Field yellow waxy corn product (Image source: Internet) In terms of unit price, October Rice Field's corn is about 8-9 yuan per jin, priced at the mid-to-upper range, winning on quality rather than price. The consumption habit of fresh corn has always had the difference of "sweet in the south, waxy in the north." In product selection, this corn combines the strengths of both tastes, catering to the widest range of consumer needs. The vacuum packaging requires no cooking or processing; just boil it in a pot or microwave for a few minutes, which is very friendly for busy office workers and refined moms who pursue quality of life. Convenient and delicious, plus the basic "coarse grain" setting of corn, what you eat is not just corn but health, making everyone happy. Also, the packaging specification of about 3 jin per bag is basically enough for 1-2 meals for a family, or at most two days for a single corn lover, so there's no worry about hoarding. Small packaging allows consumers to finish the product quickly, preserving the food's natural flavor and nutrition to the greatest extent; good quality ensures sufficient repurchase, ensuring fast product turnover, and thus achieving a positive feedback loop throughout the entire process. If it tastes good, they'll order again, solving the repurchase problem. October Rice Field yellow waxy corn product poster (Image source: Internet) Compared to other FMCG products, agricultural product categories naturally have higher requirements for the supply chain. Building a supply chain and branding inevitably raises the final selling price. Although quality and stability improve, in the matter of "eating," consumers are highly price-sensitive. If the value isn't reflected, it can actually harm the brand. The worst case is when prices go up but quality doesn't follow, leaving a mess after the hype. Many brands and merchants have fallen into this trap—in the corn category alone, a certain selection is a cautionary tale. To be fair, neither germplasm resources, planting technology, nor warehousing and logistics constitute absolute barriers; the key is how much the brand is willing to invest in this dimension. How does October Rice Field solve this problem? On the production side, it intervenes in every link, not only with reliable and strict rules for quality control in product selection, but also by using technology to directly help farmers improve production efficiency and standards. In the circulation link, October Rice Field has built its own logistics centers, taking control of the agricultural product circulation process. On the sales side, it maintains high sensitivity to channels—especially e-commerce—entering early and developing effective strategies for different e-commerce platforms. You can find many objective reasons, such as October Rice Field starting in the agricultural product processing industry and being located in Northeast China, making it more familiar with production, sales, origin, and products. But these factors are not exclusive; the core reason is still one sentence: Compared to simply doing branding and marketing, building a supply chain is an unadulterated "heavy task." If you only want to do short-term business, agricultural products naturally have a higher probability of "failure." Doing a good job in the supply chain is an unavoidable issue for any agricultural product brand aiming for long-term operation. October Rice Field supply chain side (swipe left) (Image source: October Rice Field brand) Agricultural products possess all the traits of FMCG: enough categories, rigid market demand, no educational barriers, and it's hard for any giant to dominate the mindshare of a specific segment. Not to mention, the market size of agricultural products can reach trillions of yuan, making it a rich mine. For any brand wanting to enter this industry, it's a hotbed for entrepreneurship. On the flip side, precisely because there are too many categories and too many choices for consumers, creating sufficient brand effect is also extremely difficult. October Rice Field started as an ordinary grain processing factory, and now it's listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with annual revenue in the tens of billions of yuan, reaching TOP1 in agricultural product categories on major e-commerce platforms. It's truly a dark horse, and this is the reward for doing "hard" things. Doing a good job in the supply chain is a prerequisite for building a strong agricultural product brand. Additionally, the "snackification" approach is also applicable to many categories that can be eaten without much processing. When you can achieve sustained, high-quality, and stable service and output to the market, it's hard not to build a good brand. From August 20-22, 2024, the "2024 6th China FMCG Conference" with the theme "Crossing the Era of Shrinkage," along with the "3rd China FMCG Hard Discount Conference" and the "3rd China FMCG Distributor Conference," will be grandly held in Shanghai. At this conference, all roles in the FMCG industry chain will gather, allowing you to grasp industry trends at a glance, understand hot track directions, penetrate industry resources, and precisely connect with leading brand owners, top retail platforms, and national excellent distributors with over 100 million in sales, providing you with precise decision-making, efficient cooperation opportunities, and on-site learning of exclusive methodologies from FMCG giants! Keynote speeches, roundtable dialogues, report interpretations, closed-door salons, and networking dinners—this thousand-person event has something for you! 🔺Scan for ticket inquiries🔺 Recommended reading