---
title: "Wan Long, hailed as the 'Steve Jobs of the slaughter industry', how did he create the Shuanghui myth?"
description: "Wan Long, once named 'God of Food' by Time magazine, is also known as the 'Steve Jobs of the slaughter industry'. Under his leadership, Shuanghui grew from a struggling Luohe meat processing plant with assets under 5 million yuan into a global meat empire with a market value approaching 100 billion yuan, now firmly holding the industry's top position."
author: "金梅"
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published: "2019-04-11"
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# Wan Long, hailed as the 'Steve Jobs of the slaughter industry', how did he create the Shuanghui myth?

> Wan Long, once named 'God of Food' by Time magazine, is also known as the 'Steve Jobs of the slaughter industry'. Under his leadership, Shuanghui grew from a struggling Luohe meat processing plant with assets under 5 million yuan into a global meat empire with a market value approaching 100 billion yuan, now firmly holding the industry's top position.

Source: Lishi Business Review (libusiness)
Wan Long was once named 'God of Food' by Time magazine, and he is also known as the 'Steve Jobs of the slaughter industry'. It was under his leadership that Shuanghui transformed from a muddy, weed-filled Luohe meat processing plant with total assets of less than 5 million yuan into a 'meat empire' with a market value approaching 100 billion yuan and the world's largest scale, now firmly holding the industry's dominant position.
Among the few entrepreneurs born in the 1940s in China, Wan Long stands out. Wan Long's relationship to Shuanghui is like Ren Zhengfei's to Huawei, or Zong Qinghou's to Wahaha. In public reports, Wan Long has fired a number of deputy factory directors and even the niece of a deputy mayor, but he handles government relations with finesse. Wan Long himself once said that if it had been anyone else, they would have been out long ago. At every critical juncture for Shuanghui, Wan Long demonstrated his authority and control.
Wan Long boldly cooperated with shrewd capital like Goldman Sachs, neither falling into the trap of state asset loss nor failing to complete the MBO. Since its listing in 1998, Shuanghui Development has distributed cumulative dividends of 11.4 billion yuan, 13 times the amount it raised on the public market. During this period, it weathered the 1998 Asian financial crisis, the 2003 SARS outbreak, the 2008 global financial crisis, the 2011 3·15 incident, and the 2015 A-share market crash that shocked the world, yet Shuanghui Development's average returns still outperformed Warren Buffett.
Shuanghui's controlling parent company, WH Group (formerly Shuanghui International), is the world's largest pork food company, with operations spanning more than 20 countries and regions, and owns popular products and brands such as China's 'Shuanghui' and America's 'Smithfield'. Shuanghui brand chilled fresh meat and Shuanghui Wangzhongwang are household names in China, while the Smithfield brand is well-known in European and American markets. WH Group ranks first globally in the three major areas of meat products, fresh products, and hog farming, making it the world's largest, most widely distributed, most complete in industry chain, and most competitive pork company.
****01 Shuanghui becomes the 'King of Kings' in the ham sausage industry****
The predecessor of Shuanghui Group was a nearly bankrupt meat processing plant in Luohe City, Henan Province, established in July 1958. Due to institutional and market reasons, until 1984, this small state-owned factory had been loss-making for 26 consecutive years, not only failing to contribute a single cent to the state but also accumulating a debt burden of 5.34 million yuan.
In July 1984, Wan Long was elected factory director. As a 'popularly elected' entrepreneur, he secured management control over 'personnel, finances, materials, production, supply, and sales' and carried out bold reforms. Under his iron fist, within less than five years, Shuanghui, which continuously innovated in management, product development, marketing, distribution mechanisms, and cadre systems, had exported products to the Soviet Union, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and Macau, becoming China's largest meat export base at the time.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Shuanghui lost its important export market, and Wan Long was deeply anxious. Once on a train, he saw a passenger across from him eating a ham sausage, which was still a novelty at the time. After returning to the factory, Wan Long bet his years of savings and fully entered the ham sausage market. In February 1992, the first 'Shuanghui' brand ham sausage was launched.
When Shuanghui wanted to enter the ham business, Chundu became a 'roadblock'. Chundu was not only the pioneer of the ham sausage category but also an unshakable monopoly before 1997, achieving a market share as high as 70% in its first decade. The competition between Shuanghui and Chundu then began.
Shuanghui adopted a strategy of 'lowering standards + lowering prices' to engage in differentiated competition. Shuanghui reduced the pork content in its 100-gram ham sausages from 85% to 70%, and the price correspondingly dropped from 1.1 yuan per stick to 0.9 yuan. To counter competitors like 'Shuanghui' and 'Jinluo', Chundu immediately lowered its own pork ratio and prices.
Seeing Chundu take the bait, Shuanghui lowered further, eventually dropping to 0.5 yuan per sausage! Every time Shuanghui adjusted, Chundu hurriedly followed. The pork ratio also dropped in sync: 60%, 50%, 40%... all the way down to 10%. It was wittily remarked that the ham sausage was selling not meat but flour, and Chundu's reputation suffered. Moreover, due to Chundu's diversified expansion and excessive internal friction, the company was already battered.
In 1996, as business expanded, Shuanghui introduced a round of capital. Foreign investment injected new blood into Shuanghui. In 1997, when the Asian financial crisis broke out and the ham sausage industry was in dire straits, Shuanghui went against the initial price war and took the lead in launching the high-end product 'Shuanghui Wangzhongwang', featuring large lean meat chunks as a selling point, using the popular 'Lion King' as a mascot, and later inviting Ge You and Feng Gong as endorsers. It rose abruptly in the price war and became synonymous with high-end Chinese ham sausages.
In December 1998, 'Shuanghui Industrial' was listed on the A-share market. The company raised over 700 million yuan through the listing, beginning a new phase of rapid development. After several years, Shuanghui Group gradually expanded its industrial layout nationwide, becoming a well-known enterprise in the domestic meat processing field.
**02 From 'China's biggest butcher' to 'the world's number one butcher'**
China is the world's largest pork producer and consumer, and the largest hog slaughter market. In recent years, over 70% of the global increase in pork consumption has come from China. However, pork consumption levels have remained primitive for many years; many places prefer hot fresh meat slaughtered and sold on the spot, with worrying nutritional and sanitary conditions. Moreover, each locality has one or several slaughterhouses, making cross-regional sales extremely difficult, and national brands are rare.
After winning the ham sausage battle, Wan Long resolutely led Shuanghui into the chilled fresh meat market. At the end of 1999, Wan Long introduced the first modern, large-scale, standardized slaughter and cold-cut production line, pioneering the 'cold chain production, cold chain sales, cold chain distribution, chain operation' model for chilled fresh meat in China, implementing brand management. This ended the history of selling meat without brands in China and changed the traditional street-vendor model.
Through the 'six major regional development strategies', the Shuanghui brand was rapidly promoted nationwide, and the benefits of industrial clustering greatly improved. By 2005, Shuanghui's revenue had surged to over 20 billion yuan. To push meat product output into the world's top three, Wan Long felt that restructuring was urgent.
Thus, in 2006, Shuanghui introduced international private equity funds. Goldman Sachs and CDH Investments acquired the state-owned shares held by local government in Shuanghui for $250 million. This led the exit of state assets and successfully completed Shuanghui's restructuring. Starting in 2007, through a series of equity changes, the management and employees led by Wan Long ultimately became the actual controllers of Shuanghui Development. After the restructuring, Shuanghui's accumulated energy burst forth; from 2006 to 2010, group sales jumped from 20 billion to 50 billion yuan.
In 2012, the company underwent asset restructuring, injecting all assets related to meat processing into the listed company, integrating the industry chain, achieving overall listing of the main business, and completing the domestic layout for Shuanghui Group's internationalization. Wan Long left Shuanghui with a sound corporate governance structure; the management buyout provided sufficient incentives for management, and the exit mechanism could select and cultivate excellent successors for Shuanghui. At the same time, the overall listing made Shuanghui's industrial layout more complete, further expanded the industry chain, and highlighted scale effects.
Particularly rare, after the domestic market took shape, Wan Long boldly took the plunge. On September 26, 2013, he borrowed billions of dollars to acquire Smithfield, the largest U.S. hog breeding, slaughtering, processing, and sales company, which was also the second-largest meat producer in the U.S. After the successful overseas acquisition, Shuanghui International leaped to become the world's largest pork processing enterprise, with production bases spread across more than a dozen countries in Europe, America, and Asia, truly bringing the Shuanghui brand to the world.
The overseas acquisition not only brought market opportunities but also injected technology, creating greater possibilities for Shuanghui. Hog farming is a crucial link in the pork industry chain, but due to imperfect institutional systems and insufficient funds in China, Shuanghui International's development in large-scale farming was constrained. The overseas acquisition provided an opportunity to solve this industry chain problem; Smithfield's advanced technology in food and management experience in sales models laid the foundation for Shuanghui's future product structure adjustment.
The 2013 annual report of Shuanghui Development showed that its cold chain construction was fully completed. Shuanghui has built over 30 modern meat processing bases and supporting industries in 18 provinces (cities) across the country, forming a complete industry chain including breeding, slaughtering, meat processing, new material packaging, cold chain logistics, and chain retail. It produces and sells over 3 million tons of meat products annually, with nearly one million sales terminals. Except for Xinjiang and Tibet, Shuanghui products can be delivered from morning to evening nationwide.
In 2014, WH Group integrated over 100 companies in China, the U.S., and Europe and listed in Hong Kong, becoming the world's largest pork food company. In 2017, WH Group was included in the Hang Seng Index constituents, becoming the only meat processing enterprise listed, highlighting its status and influence in international capital markets. Shuanghui Group Chairman Wan Long was also named 'Leader in Sino-U.S. Economic and Trade Development'. In 2018, even under the attack of African swine fever, Shuanghui's net profit still grew strongly, up 13.78% year-on-year.
**03 Rather die from inspection than be investigated to death**
In the food industry, quality is life, and Shuanghui has learned this through blood. On March 15, 2011, CCTV News Channel's 3·15 special program 'The Truth about 'Fitness Pigs'' revealed that pigs fed with clenbuterol were suspected of flowing into Jiyuan Shuanghui Food Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Shuanghui Group. As soon as the news broke, Shuanghui Development's stock price fell and eventually hit the limit down, with market value evaporating by 5.2 billion yuan in just a few hours.
Because the proportion of self-bred pigs was low, relying mainly on external procurement, including purchases from ordinary farmers, if the raw material procurement inspection was not strict and the 'firewall' for pig source safety was not built, food safety problems could occur. So Wan Long made a harsh statement: 'Rather die from inspection than be investigated to death.' Shuanghui raised the testing for clenbuterol above national standards. Instead of random sampling, they tested every pig, increasing annual costs by over 300 million yuan.
In raw material procurement, Shuanghui learned from the 'clenbuterol' incident and tightened control over the upstream industry chain, spending heavily to expand green feed production bases and pig breeding bases, dispatching dedicated personnel to test at pig origins, implementing measures such as 'batch-by-batch inspection of raw materials and head-by-head inspection of pigs', strengthening control over the connection between breeding and processing, and ensuring product quality from the source.
The entire process of chilled fresh meat, from raw material quarantine, slaughtering, quick cold cutting, deboning, packaging, transportation, storage, to sales, is under strict monitoring to prevent contamination. Shuanghui also took the lead in introducing the 'cold chain production, cold chain distribution, cold chain sales, chain operation' model for chilled fresh meat, achieving the transformation from hot fresh meat and frozen meat to chilled fresh meat. After slaughter, products are kept at a low temperature of 0-4 degrees Celsius, which not only greatly reduces initial bacterial counts but also significantly improves hygienic quality.
In food safety monitoring, the company established and improved its control system. It introduced internationally advanced certification standards such as ISO9001, HACCP, ISO22000, and GAP, and standardized and normalized management of production processes, supply chains, and logistics distribution. It set up a three-level management committee, implemented a one-vote veto system, and effectively separated management and supervision rights to achieve optimal supervision results. At the same time, full tracking is implemented. Shuanghui equips self-bred pigs with individual archive cards, with records kept by breeders; key production processes are monitored in real-time via video; the data collection system manages and controls all links of the industry chain from raw material receipt, achieving process control and batch management.
Shuanghui has opened up the green industry chain from upstream to downstream, creating 'Digital Shuanghui'. From meat sources, production and processing, logistics distribution, to terminal sales, it implements traceable and transparent monitoring management to ensure the health of food on people's tables. The construction of a 'standardized' and 'informationized' full-industry-chain supply network has also helped Shuanghui Group enter the 'Internet+' era.
**04 The times created Shuanghui, and Shuanghui is worthy of the times**
Wan Long said, 'The times created Shuanghui, and Shuanghui is worthy of the times.' It was precisely because Shuanghui took the lead in breaking the shackles of the planned economy and daring to venture into the market that it was tempered in the tide of the market economy and achieved great development in the wave of reform and opening up. The introduction of internal management levels and modern enterprise management mechanisms is a strong driving force for Shuanghui's great development. Standing at the forefront of the times, Shuanghui's continuous self-innovation is an important reason for seizing opportunities. Today, facing internetization and e-commerce business, we still see Shuanghui's transformation and participation.
Wan Long has always adhered to a focused single-business strategy, using the core industry as the basis for diversification to clarify development goals, concentrate resources and technology to improve core competitiveness, and avoid resource waste from blind expansion. While ensuring the main business becomes the industry's first brand and maintains a stable market position, it drives the development of related upstream and downstream industries, which in turn feed back into the main business, supporting it in market competition, thereby strengthening its core competitiveness.
As an international company, Shuanghui and its parent company WH Group can achieve synergistic development, with stronger ability to resist internal and external risks. In chilled fresh meat, it lays out markets outside the U.S.; in meat products, it lays out markets outside China and the U.S. To this end, WH Group has made numerous acquisitions in the U.S., Mexico, Poland, Romania, and other countries. Today's Shuanghui is also leveraging international and domestic technological, resource, and capital advantages to write new possibilities in domestic and international markets.
In March 2018, the 'BrandZTM 2018 Top 100 Most Valuable Chinese Brands' list included Shuanghui Development, ranking 40th, and it was the only Chinese meat food enterprise on the list. Stabilize high-temperature products and increase low-temperature products is Shuanghui's core strategy. In the past two years, its focus has been mainly on low-temperature chilled fresh meat business. From developed markets, low-temperature chilled fresh meat accounts for up to 90%, while domestic market penetration is only 30%, indicating huge growth space. Wan Long has undoubtedly chosen the right track.
Under the general trend of consumption upgrading, Wan Long, as always, stays ahead of the times, strongly promoting American-style meat products, consistent with his previous approach to promoting chilled fresh meat. Low-temperature meat products like bacon and sausages have high requirements for storage and cold chain transportation. In China, the main consumption scenarios are hotels, restaurants, and high-end dining venues, a niche market with limited scale. Bringing these products to ordinary households is Wan Long's next attempt. If he bets correctly, creating another Shuanghui is not impossible. We look forward to this 'Steve Jobs of the slaughter industry' creating another business myth.
**-END-**


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