---
title: "Quiet Exploration: How This Beijing Time-Honored Braised Food Brand Stays True to Its Roots While Expanding Sales"
description: "Chinese people love to eat, especially spicy and savory braised foods, which can be called national foods. When it comes to braised food brands, many may first think of Zhou Hei Ya and Juewei, as both companies were listed on the A-share market thanks to foodies. In fact, these brands also started in a small area, relying on unique flavors and word-of-mouth from local consumers, such as Zhou Hei Ya in Wuhan and Juewei in Changsha, before expanding nationwide. In Beijing, there is also such a braised food brand called Hahajing, which rarely publicizes itself and has a pragmatic, low-key corporate culture. This time, New Distribution had the opportunity to visit Hahajing's Beijing headquarters and had in-depth exchanges with COO Ren Peng and Operations Director Ma Meng, attempting to reveal some of the stories behind Hahajing."
author: "澄韵"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2020-12-17"
language: "en"
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---

# Quiet Exploration: How This Beijing Time-Honored Braised Food Brand Stays True to Its Roots While Expanding Sales

> Chinese people love to eat, especially spicy and savory braised foods, which can be called national foods. When it comes to braised food brands, many may first think of Zhou Hei Ya and Juewei, as both companies were listed on the A-share market thanks to foodies. In fact, these brands also started in a small area, relying on unique flavors and word-of-mouth from local consumers, such as Zhou Hei Ya in Wuhan and Juewei in Changsha, before expanding nationwide. In Beijing, there is also such a braised food brand called Hahajing, which rarely publicizes itself and has a pragmatic, low-key corporate culture. This time, New Distribution had the opportunity to visit Hahajing's Beijing headquarters and had in-depth exchanges with COO Ren Peng and Operations Director Ma Meng, attempting to reveal some of the stories behind Hahajing.

Chinese people love to eat, especially spicy and savory braised foods, which can be called national foods. When it comes to braised food brands, many may first think of Zhou Hei Ya and Juewei, as both companies were listed on the A-share market thanks to foodies. It is said that the duck necks consumed by Chinese people in a year could circle the Earth several times.

In fact, these brands also started in a small area, relying on unique flavors and word-of-mouth from local consumers, such as Zhou Hei Ya in Wuhan and Juewei in Changsha, before expanding nationwide.

In Beijing, there is also such a braised food brand called Hahajing. This company rarely publicizes itself, and its corporate culture is very pragmatic and low-key. This time, New Distribution had the opportunity to visit Hahajing's Beijing headquarters and had in-depth exchanges with COO Ren Peng and Operations Director Ma Meng, attempting to reveal some of the stories behind Hahajing.

**-01-**
**Hahajing's Persistence: Slow and Steady is the Original Intention and Sincerity**

Hahajing's headquarters is located on Dongzhimen Inner Street in Beijing. The brand was founded in 2003, even two years earlier than Zhou Hei Ya, and has a history of 17 years, deeply loved by Beijing residents. Initially, it was a small store of a few square meters. The founder, who loves traveling, attended an international packaging exhibition by chance and saw a new type of packaging, which he introduced to China. This is the nitrogen fresh-keeping packaging that Hahajing uses now.

At first glance, it is just an ordinary box, but in fact, it is filled with inert gas. This fresh-keeping technology can put all bacteria into a dormant state, achieving a fresh-keeping effect. This was a huge boon for braised products that were previously sold in bulk, solving food safety issues, and Hahajing gradually developed because of it.

Unlike the rapid expansion of Zhou Hei Ya and Juewei, Hahajing's boss is extremely low-key. Ten years ago, many companies approached him to push Hahajing to go public, but he was unmoved. He adheres to the philosophy of taking one step at a time and not rushing for success. **He invested profits into factories and products, building a large modern factory according to pharmaceutical standards,** and continuously upgraded and optimized it. Not only does it produce braised duck products and seafood, but now it also has production lines for soy milk, rice noodles, and hot dry noodles, and even a dedicated kimchi factory.

The boss is not idle either; he still likes to go out and personally purchase raw materials. For example, for Sichuan peppercorns, if the boss does not directly purchase them, ordinary people would need to know the origin and the yin-yang side of the mountain to buy the best Chinese peppercorns. For Chinese herbal medicines, the boss visits many herbal medicine markets every year before selecting products. For spices, which are like a book from heaven to ordinary people, Hahajing's boss studies them with great interest.

**It can be seen that this company's genes are destined to be product-based, crafting good products with ingenuity.**

**-02-**
**Hahajing's Model: A Combination of Traditional Advantages and New Concepts**

Hahajing's full name is Beijing Hahajing E-commerce Co., Ltd. Unlike traditional brands that develop from offline stores, Hahajing has never been a traditional store operation model. Perhaps because the company started in Beijing and the boss has an open mind, Hahajing's business model is a combination of traditional advantages and new concepts. **It fully integrates new e-commerce concepts such as B2C, O2O, and F2C with the resource advantages of the traditional food processing industry and ground channel advantages, redefining products, services, costs, and logistics.**

Hahajing has made many attempts behind the scenes in various aspects, and one discussion may not cover everything. From a marketing perspective, Hahajing is one of the earliest braised food brands in China to attempt integrated online and offline operations.

**Offline, Hahajing's ground channel layout is very complete, with distributor cooperation nationwide except for Tibet and Taiwan. It also gives distributors the maximum profit, resulting in very high distributor loyalty, with some partnerships lasting over a decade.** Unlike other brands in the industry that use store models, Hahajing does not have bulk products. All products are packaged finished goods produced by its only self-built factory, air-freighted daily to distributors nationwide. Over the years, **Hahajing has had zero food safety incidents or complaints,** investing great effort in maintaining product safety.

It implements a make-to-order system for distributors, with daily quantities reported by distributors themselves. Distributors who have been in business for many years can make predictions that are more accurate than what big data might achieve, shipping exactly what is sold without overstocking.

This year, Hahajing innovated its sales channels. **It adopted a front-warehouse model, setting up a front warehouse every 5 kilometers. In Beijing, it cut the original 3,000+ stores by more than half, cooperating with mom-and-pop stores to sell products. In other cities, distributors and their outlets also serve as front warehouses.** This is also in line with product upgrades. This year, Hahajing innovatively developed the extreme frozen fresh series, using extreme freezing instantaneous fresh-keeping technology to make products fresher when eaten and extend their shelf life.

Online, unlike other brands in the industry that have gone digital, Hahajing had its own independently developed and operated APP before entering e-commerce platforms like Tmall and JD.com. Spending effort and cost on this shows that the boss observed market changes early on.

It is precisely because of the trial and operation of the APP that Hahajing, as one of the first enterprises to use mini-programs to play with integrated online and offline operations, has considerable experience.

**-03-**
**Hahajing's Development: From APP to Mini-Program, How to Increase Sales?**

The large-scale outbreak of the epidemic during the Spring Festival this year, including the second outbreak in Beijing, brought new thoughts to Hahajing's operations. Because the company already had an online operation layout and light management of offline channels (light management here refers to giving distributors sufficient profit and supporting their independent operations, with online traffic directed to offline distributors), after the epidemic, Hahajing accelerated the pace of online and offline integration.

**Online, Hahajing currently operates mainly through its own APP and mini-program.** The advantage of the APP is that it can push new messages to users in real-time, and old users who stay on the APP are easier to repurchase, but relatively speaking, attracting new users is more difficult. Therefore, Hahajing uses the mini-program more to carry the forward function. With tools in the Tencent ecosystem such as Moments ads, official account articles, and communities, Hahajing has gradually explored more new ways to play.

**Hahajing believes that the mini-program focuses on more precise users.** People who come through the mini-program either recognize the Hahajing brand or are willing to complete purchases through the mini-program's fission activities. Hahajing's strategy is to use such users to complete both new customer acquisition and repurchase. As long as the operational means are in place and the activity intensity is sufficient, giving users an irresistible temptation, users will definitely participate.

Mini-programs are used and left, and users often do not stay there. Hahajing's user activation method is completed through communities, retaining users in communities and reactivating the mini-program through various activities to complete repurchases. This includes plans to print mini-program QR codes on offline packaging, guiding offline users to online through discounts, and then using the official account to bring them into communities. As long as they are fans, they are definitely willing to join the community because they want to know what activities they can participate in as soon as possible.

**So we see that the huge system within WeChat builds a complete chain.** Including the recently updated Channels feature, which can link to stores and official accounts. Therefore, Hahajing is also recently trying to create some interesting video content as a traffic generation plan. **Channels, official accounts, communities, and mini-programs, when connected together, can achieve a good conversion.**

According to Hahajing, currently, through Moments ads, the actual daily registered users can reach 500-700, with about 250 orders, and the ROI value can basically stay above 1.

**So, how to balance the conflict between online and offline? For a company like Hahajing that values the value and profit of distributor partners, online should not disrupt offline, and should even empower offline.**

First, Hahajing stipulates that online activities cannot be lower than 50% off, and all online purchase channels support offline store pickup, with online delivery also completed by distributors. Hahajing's national front-warehouse model, together with distributors, opens a network point every 5 kilometers to achieve 1-hour delivery, which not only improves user experience but also helps distributors complete more sales and increase profits.

Hahajing believes that distributors must be guaranteed to earn the money they deserve. **After Hahajing's goods are delivered to distributors, everything from receiving goods to stocking stores to settling accounts is completed by distributors, and Hahajing does not participate.** Online users are also served by distributors, and only when everyone earns money together can this business continue.

**-04-**
**Hahajing's Future: Good Products + Good Marketing**

Although duck products are mainstream, unlike other braised food brands, Hahajing's factory is near the sea in the Bohai Bay area, with fishing boats arriving at the factory in 2-3 hours from shore. Seafood products have gradually become a major feature of Hahajing, and it is said they often sell out. At the same time, it is continuously expanding other product lines. In addition to soy milk, hot dry noodles, and rice noodles, it will also launch products like steamed buns in the future.

Due to long-term focus on quality and taste, although the way to attract new customers seems simple and crude with coupons, behind this is great confidence in the product. The boss believes that as long as consumers taste it once, they will feel it is really good. **Currently, Hahajing's repurchase rate far exceeds the average level of similar products.**

Also because the company focuses on product genes, in terms of brand communication, Hahajing rarely advertises and relies entirely on word of mouth. In fact, there are many aspects of this company that can be explored. In the past, it did too little promotion, all done spontaneously by users. It is said that it has never invited celebrity endorsements, but top celebrities like Guan Xiaotong have posted on Weibo mentioning Hahajing's products.

With changes in the market competition environment, Hahajing is gradually realizing its shortcomings. Currently, the main form of online advertising is coupons, but this is not sustainable. **In the future, it will expand in content marketing, scenario-based marketing, etc.,** and also use the WeChat ecosystem to first test more promotional forms, allowing more people to know and taste Hahajing's products.

Brand building is an aspect that Hahajing needs to strengthen in the future. I believe that Hahajing will explore more of its own business methods, go out of Beijing, and step onto a bigger stage.

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