---
title: "Shantou Taihao Zheng Qinfu: The Second Takeoff and Business Succession Wisdom of a 40-Year Veteran in the Alcohol Beverage Industry"
description: "Zheng Qinfu, born in 1962, was forced to succeed and earned his first million at 25. After partnering with Heineken and later China Resources Beer, he achieved a second high growth phase, with Heineken sales soaring from 1 million cases in 2019 to a projected 4.6 million in 2024. He shares his methodology for business succession, emphasizing early standardization, clear equity distribution, and early selection and training of successors."
author: "陈思廷"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2024-12-03"
language: "en"
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# Shantou Taihao Zheng Qinfu: The Second Takeoff and Business Succession Wisdom of a 40-Year Veteran in the Alcohol Beverage Industry

> Zheng Qinfu, born in 1962, was forced to succeed and earned his first million at 25. After partnering with Heineken and later China Resources Beer, he achieved a second high growth phase, with Heineken sales soaring from 1 million cases in 2019 to a projected 4.6 million in 2024. He shares his methodology for business succession, emphasizing early standardization, clear equity distribution, and early selection and training of successors.

**"Forced" to Succeed**
**Earning His First Million** Born in 1962, Zheng Qinfu lost the opportunity to study due to his family environment. He began to make a living independently at 13 and became a worker at a state-owned glass factory in Shantou at 18. One day, the gears of fate began to turn for Zheng Qinfu. Hearing the squad leader call the roll, he suddenly realized that if he wanted to be promoted, he first had to become a squad leader, but he couldn't read, so he couldn't call the roll. "If I can't even be a squad leader, let alone a workshop director, I can't work in the workshop all my life," he thought. At that moment, Zheng Qinfu's innate Chaozhou-Shantou spirit of striving burst forth: "I want to do business, be my own boss, at least fight for a chance." After trying to open two grocery stores, Zheng Qinfu resigned in 1983 to formally start his own business, beginning with beverage wholesale. As if a natural-born businessman, he went straight to Guangzhou to buy Coca-Cola and sell it in Shantou, earning over 100,000 yuan. In 1985, after signing with Jianlibao, he pioneered a move: **he spent 8,000 yuan on a 30-square-meter billboard in the most central area of Shantou and invested over 40,000 yuan in rotating TV advertisements, which quickly opened the Shantou market for Jianlibao, making it a hot product.** Thanks to this unprecedented move, he gained exclusive support from Jianlibao, with purchase prices 0.24 yuan cheaper than everyone else's. At that time, Jianlibao determined the supply for the peak season based on the distributor's off-season sales. Therefore, with the price advantage, Zheng Qinfu sold aggressively in the off-season and obtained the largest supply in the peak season. In this way, at just 25 years old in 1986, Zheng Qinfu earned his first million! From 1985 until Jianlibao's troubles in 2014, Zheng Qinfu remained a core customer, enjoying a harmonious partnership for 29 years. **Transitioning to Beer, Embarking on the Path of a Major Alcohol Distributor** In 1990, Zheng Qinfu founded Shengping Beverage Company (later renamed Taihao Beverage), starting his expansion. Besides domestic beverages, he ventured into imported alcohol and beverage business. Zheng Qinfu set his sights early on the promising beer industry. While doing imported alcohol business, he also began to act as an agent for local Guangdong beer brands and quickly became a well-known alcohol trading company in the industry. In 1995, Heineken, which had not yet established a factory in mainland China, approached the renowned Zheng Qinfu, and he began to introduce Heineken beer to the mainland market through imports. **"The first bottle of Heineken beer in the mainland China market was sold by me,"** Zheng Qinfu said with pride. In 1999, after Heineken's regional reform, he became the agent for five prefecture-level markets including Shantou and surrounding Huizhou, Meizhou, etc. Subsequently, **it took him only 4 years to break through 200 million yuan in Heineken sales.** From 1995 to today, Zheng Qinfu's cooperation with Heineken has lasted 29 years without interruption. In 2018, on the eve of the strategic cooperation between China Resources Beer and Heineken, Zheng Qinfu and his Taihao Beverage Company had become a well-known major alcohol distributor in the industry, holding agency rights for brands such as Uni-President, Heineken, Red Bull, and Watsons. But like many major distributors, as scale grew and brands matured, Zheng Qinfu's company also entered a stage of stagnation. Heineken beer sales in the five prefecture-level markets hovered around 1 million cases for a long time.
**Partnering with China Resources Beer**
**Embarking on a Second High Growth Phase** In March 2018, learning from the capital market that China Resources and Heineken were in talks for strategic cooperation, Zheng Qinfu proactively approached China Resources Beer leaders to communicate. In September of the same year, he began to act as an agent for Snow Beer. In 2019, China Resources Beer officially integrated Heineken's China market. **To align with the channel reform, Taihao Beverage's agency area was consolidated from the original five prefecture-level markets to the Shantou region.** For Zheng Qinfu and his Taihao Beverage, this challenge was enormous. The agency area for Heineken beer shrank several times—how could growth still be achieved? In fact, after cooperating with China Resources Beer, Taihao Beverage's Heineken beer sales entered a continuous high-growth trajectory. Taihao Beverage thus entered its second takeoff phase. In 2019, Heineken sales were about **1 million** cases, and then grew rapidly. In 2022, Heineken sales reached **2.8 million** cases, in 2023 **3.7 million** cases, and in 2024 it is expected to reach **4.6 million** cases. **In just a few years, Taihao Beverage has firmly held the position of the national sales champion for Heineken beer.** With a significantly reduced agency area, how did Taihao Beverage achieve nearly 5-fold growth in Heineken brand in 5 years? Zheng Qinfu believes the key reason is that China Resources Beer's leadership changed the fate of the Heineken brand in the Chinese market. In the beer field, China Resources is an extremely capable team that has created countless market miracles. Additionally, Zheng Qinfu believes that Taihao Beverage did several key things right, which led to the sustained high growth of the Heineken brand in recent years. **First, resolute strategic focus.** **After cooperating with China Resources Beer, Zheng Qinfu decisively abandoned other small brands and concentrated resources on the Heineken and Snow brands.** This decision seemed simple but was fraught with risk, extremely rare among distributors. Zheng Qinfu dared to do this because, despite the short cooperation time, he developed strong confidence and trust in China Resources Beer after in-depth understanding. Facts proved that strategic focus was correct. **After resource concentration, both Snow and Heineken not only significantly improved market coverage but also comprehensively enhanced brand competitiveness.** **Second, resolute strategic investment.** After strategic focus, resolute strategic investment is necessary. Zheng Qinfu's core strategy is: **hold firmly to advantageous regions, ensuring stability with slight growth; break through in weak regions, forming overwhelming advantages through strategic investment, thereby achieving breakthroughs in market position and sales.** For example, the Chaoyang market in Shantou was once a weak region for Heineken beer, with annual sales of only about 70,000 cases. In this region, Taihao Beverage made strategic investments, with Zheng Qinfu's second son, Zheng Sizhe, taking charge, and building a new direct sales team of over 70 people. The effect of focused breakthrough was significant. The next year, Chaoyang's sales surged from 70,000 cases to 400,000 cases; the third year, it continued to grow to 600,000 cases; 2024 is the fourth year, with expected growth to about 1 million cases. "Beer marketing is not complicated, but it's not simple either. On the basis of correct strategy and good brands, overwhelming strategic investment is the only way to achieve decisive victory," Zheng Qinfu said. "But this simple truth is often hard to stick to, because persisting with such large investments while losing money is painful." **Third, digital operations guided by China Resources Beer.** Many distributors often resist the manufacturer's CRM system, but Taihao Beverage is the opposite. Zheng Sizhe led the "Chaoyang Battle" for Heineken beer and praised the benefits of China Resources Beer's digital system: "CRM allows us to clearly understand venue coverage, terminal outlets, and the placement of sales staff, letting distributors see where the gaps are and how the market dynamics are changing." Additionally, Zheng Sizhe welcomes consumer activities launched by China Resources Beer through digital means, such as waiter scanning and consumer scanning, because **they bring actual product sales, and the actual sales data provide the most authentic feedback for market activities.** Therefore, in the "National Terminal Inventory" campaign initiated by China Resources Beer headquarters in 2023, the entire Taihao Beverage team, with a meticulous attitude, spent several months carefully completing the terminal inventory. "Terminal inventory may seem time-consuming, but it allows every salesperson to identify problems through the inventory, and identifying problems is a growth opportunity," Zheng Sizhe said. "After the big campaign, we didn't abandon the inventory but insisted on periodic terminal inventory because it's too useful for growth." "The total beer capacity in the Shantou region is about 20 million cases. Although we have grown rapidly in recent years, the future space is still huge," Zheng Qinfu said. "Taihao Beverage's second takeoff is far from needing a rest." **Zheng Qinfu's Methodology for Business Succession** How distributor companies, especially major ones, can achieve orderly succession has always been an "old, big, difficult" problem in the industry, but Zheng Qinfu has a unique methodology for this issue. Zheng Qinfu believes several key points are crucial for business succession: **First, the company must be standardized, and standardized as early as possible.** **Only a standardized and modern company can be passed down.** A non-standardized company is neither willing nor able for young people to take over. Since 1998, Taihao's standardization has begun. Today, with a team of over 300 people, the organization is healthy, management is orderly, and operations are smooth, making it possible for successors to take over and succeed. **Second, family members should settle accounts clearly; the greater the contribution, the greater the benefit.** Equity distribution is a sensitive topic in family business succession, and any slight misstep can lead to conflicts. This requires the founder to have enough determination and wisdom. Many major distributors have multiple children, but no matter who takes over, the founder must use serious legal forms to ensure the successor has absolute control and maximum benefit rights. Let the striver be willing to strive for their own future; only then will the successor inherit the enterprise with a mindset of starting anew. **Third, the selection and training of successors should be as early as possible.** **The target successor should start from the most difficult and basic frontline business.**
> At Taihao Beverage Company, in 2016, Zheng Qinfu sent his second son, Zheng Sizhe, to the Shenzhen market to run business and deliver goods;
>
> In 2020, he transferred Zheng Sizhe back to Shantou, leading a team from scratch to tackle blank markets;
>
> In 2022, he gradually arranged for Zheng Sizhe to get involved in finance, operations, and management, taking over the beer business, and announced his status as the informal successor.
In addition to the above points, Zheng Qinfu also emphasized one more point: "Business succession is a matter between two generations, and the generation gap can easily bring many problems. Therefore, **both the boss and the successor must insist on patience and trust, communication and understanding, to jointly pass on the business well.**" The video features Zheng Qinfu's second son, Zheng Sizhe (currently Deputy General Manager/Successor of Shantou Taihao Beverage).


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