Brand weakening capacity shrinking Xinglong Coffee is in trouble

According to Hainan Daily, reporter Sun Hui

This used to be a brand that could break a hole even if it was thrown on the ground.

The Sun River Coffee Factory, the first coffee processing factory in New China, was born here. After many party and state leaders tasted it, Premier Zhou Enlai left a sigh of "Xinglong Coffee, first-class in the world". Xinglong Coffee, once a household name, is the darling of supermarkets and specialty stores.

However, today, with the ups and downs of the market, Xinglong Coffee, which was once popular, is facing the market bottleneck of sharp decline in planting area, shrinking production capacity, mixed product quality and weakening brand influence.

On the side of the bed, local Fushan Coffee and Houchen Coffee are advancing by leaps and bounds, urban and rural chain stores and highway chains are springing up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, and foreign brands such as Starbucks have also rapidly completed their expansion and nibbling away.

"if we don't wake up and look at the changes in the world, we're really going to fall!" In the face of Tuyang multi-brand attack, Xinglong people are extremely lonely for a while.

It is no exaggeration to say that Xinglong Coffee has reached a precarious stage, to the brink of life and death.

In November 1959, Chairman Liu Shaoqi inspected the cultivation of high-yield coffee in the coffee garden of Xinglong Farm. Hainan Daily reporter Yu Weihui remade

In 1960, Comrade Zhou Enlai inspected coffee cultivation in Xinglong overseas Chinese Farm in Hainan. Hainan Daily reporter Wang Kai made a remake.

In January 1958, Comrade Zhu de inspected the Xinglong overseas Chinese Farm in Hainan to inspect the coffee garden. Hainan Daily reporter Wang Kai made a remake.

In the winter of 1961, Deng Xiaoping picked coffee beans at Xinglong Farm during his inspection in Hainan. (data map)

The planting benefit has dropped sharply, and yesterday's glory is difficult to continue.

The rise and fall history of a brand is also the rise and fall history of a region.

Xinglong overseas Chinese Farm, the largest overseas Chinese farm in the country, has successively settled more than 10,000 overseas Chinese from 21 countries and regions. In the 1990s, Xinglong was the core area of tropical tourism in Hainan, famous at home and abroad for its unique customs of returned overseas Chinese, hot spring vacations and Xinglong coffee.

Go to Xinglong to see special performances, enjoy tropical plants and taste Xinglong coffee, which has been a tourism preservation project on the eastern route of Hainan for many years. As the first domestic raw coffee, Xinglong Coffee was once the flag product of Hainan local brand. Today, on Xinglong Farm, there is also a stone tablet to commemorate Premier Zhou Enlai's visit to Xinglong Cafe Garden.

Fifty-five years later, the monument is still erected and the story is still circulating, but the coffee garden has disappeared and has been replaced by a lush rubber forest.

"there is no money for growing coffee. The planting area of coffee on the farm has been decreasing since the 1990s. In recent years, the government has called for the expansion of the planting area, but the economic benefit is not high, and people's enthusiasm for planting is not very high." Du Yansheng, a veteran worker of Xinglong Farm, said.

Qiu Xiaofeng, who grew up in Xinglong, recalled the scene at that time and still sighed: "at that time, every household planted coffee trees on the overseas Chinese farm. During the harvest season, the whole family went to pick coffee beans, and the students had to go home during the holiday to help pick them. "

The decline is not only the enthusiasm of growers, but also the economic benefits of the entire local industrial chain are also shrinking. Taiyang River Coffee Factory is the first coffee processing plant in China. At its peak in the 1990s, the planting area of coffee is over 1000 mu, and the output can reach about 1000 tons. Today, the Sun River has its own coffee garden of only 30 mu, plus 100 mu of cooperative growers, the annual processing capacity of raw materials is not more than 100 tons, and the output value is only between 4 million yuan and 5 million yuan.

"although there are more Xinglong coffee products and the share of market expansion is also increasing, our economic benefits are lower than before." Huang Haiwen, deputy director of the Sun River processing plant, said that the market demand for Xinglong coffee is increasing, but due to the impact of foreign brands such as local private workshops and processing enterprises, the proportion of Sun River in the Xinglong coffee market and brand influence are declining sharply.

The picture shows tourists buying Xinglong coffee in the mall. Photo taken by Hainan Daily reporter Sun Hui

The picture shows a demonstration site for coffee planting in Wanning Xinglong. Photo taken by Hainan Daily reporter Sun Hui

The good and bad products are intermingled, and the brand influence is weakened.

Laojia Street is the busiest street in Xinglong town where people come and drive. There are more than a dozen Xinglong cafes on this 100-meter-long street. Every morning, the residents of the town like to come to the cafe, have a cup of rich Xinglong coffee and eat an Indonesian pastry, and the leisurely day begins with this rich cup of coffee.

"Vassili" is the busiest coffee shop on Laojia Street. Despite the heavy passenger flow every day, Wu Chunguang, the boss, frowns. "despite the fact that there is a lot of traffic in my cafe every day, the pressure to operate is actually increasing."

Why does the business pressure increase because of a large number of guests? Wu Chunguang showed the reporter the menu in his own store: it turns out that the price of a cup of Xinglong coffee here is only 5 yuan to 6 yuan, which is two or three times lower than that of local brands such as Hainan Fushan coffee and Houchen coffee.

"this is the result of competition within the industry. The taste quality of our coffee is not worse than that of other brands, but we are facing a small market and weak brand power, so we can only find a way out from the price. " Wu Chunguang said.

The difference in price reflects the difference in market influence between Xinglong Coffee and other local brands. Wu Chunguang said that due to the limitations of raw material supply and baking skills, it is very difficult to find Xinglong coffee in cafes in other cities and counties in Hainan except Xinglong town. Even if you can drink Xinglong coffee, it is difficult to guarantee that it is authentic Xinglong coffee.

Since the late 1990s, due to the increase in labor and planting costs, the economic benefits of coffee cultivation have declined sharply, coupled with the stagnant concept of brand development, Xinglong Coffee, which has been relying on the consumption model of local sightseeing tours, has been immersed in the satisfaction of the local market. Missed the opportunity to go out, the domestic coffee market was quickly seized by Nestle, Blue Mountain, Starbucks and other foreign brands.

Xinglong people not only miss the opportunity to expand the domestic market, Hainan's local market share has also been grabbed by other brands, in Haikou, Sanya and other cities, Xinglong coffee cafes have been difficult to find.

In many large supermarkets in Hainan, we can often see various brands of Xinglong coffee: Xinglong Mountain Coffee, Xinglong authentic Coffee, Xinglong charcoal roasted Coffee, Xinglong Pure Coffee. Take a closer look at the product introduction, but the origin is Haikou, Qionghai, Wenchang and other places.

"strictly speaking, these products are fake Xinglong products, and if the government does not stop them, the brand of Xinglong Coffee will be destroyed sooner or later." Qiu Xiaofeng, president of the Xinglong Coffee Industry Association, said that due to the limited output, many products under the Xinglong coffee brand use foreign coffee beans from Yunnan, Vietnam, and other places as raw materials, and such products are not as good as authentic Xinglong coffee in terms of taste and quality, but it has affected the reputation of Xinglong coffee.

The demand of production and marketing is out of line, and the development of industry is weak.

Since Xinglong coffee counterfeit products emerge one after another, grabbing market share and reducing product reputation, why don't the local government and relevant enterprises fight against counterfeiting?

Speaking of such a thing, Qiu Xiaofeng is full of grievances. He told reporters that although Xinglong Coffee of Xinglong Farm is famous, it has not yet obtained the trademark registration of Xinglong Coffee, and the geographical indication applied for by the Wanning Municipal Government with Xinglong Coffee has not yet formulated a complete industry standard. nor does it protect the Xinglong coffee industry.

Today, there are still a large number of enterprises making money under the name of "Xinglong Coffee", while growers and producers of Xinglong's origin are struggling because of the increasingly meagre profits of coffee. They hope that the relevant departments will step up efforts to crack down on counterfeiting to protect the real Xinglong coffee.

"if you want to crack down on fakes, you can prove how they are fake, but now we haven't even made it clear what is real. What are we going to do after the fight against fakes?" Ding Ruirong, a section member of the Wanning Municipal Government's Bureau of Industry and Science and Technology Information Industry, said that the Wanning municipal party committee and municipal government applied for the protection of national geographical indications in order to protect the gold-lettered signboard "Xinglong Coffee." However, in the current situation, once counterfeiting is cracked down on the market, due to the lack of supply of authentic Xinglong coffee raw materials, the industrial chain of the entire Hainan Xinglong coffee brand will collapse, on the contrary, the authentic Xinglong coffee will also be affected, and the protection of geographical indications will also lose its meaning.

"the surest way is to first consolidate the foundation of the local industry, formulate corresponding industry standards, form a complete industrial chain from planting, processing, packaging and sales, and improve industrial profits in order to make the Xinglong coffee market break the ice."

The disconnection between production and marketing demand is the biggest bottleneck in the development of Xinglong coffee brand. According to the Wanning Municipal Government, in the late 1980s, Xinglong Coffee reached more than 10,000 mu at its peak. Due to the decline of economic benefits year by year, the planting area has gradually decreased, to 2009 has been less than 500 mu.

With the support of the government, the planting area of Xinglong coffee has rebounded in recent years, and now it has increased to 5000 mu. However, as it takes at least 3 years for coffee trees to hang fruit, the actual hanging area is less than 2000 mu.

The shortage of raw materials for coffee beans has also deterred local companies from making big strides forward. In order to keep authentic brands, most enterprises still adopt local sales and counter marketing on the island, which is difficult to resist the fierce competition and oppression of other brands.

"We have also set up a direct coffee post station, but the management is not very ideal, so we finally get rid of the post station and keep the original traditional sales model of specialty products." Wu Niansen, production manager of Xinglong Yiran coffee processing plant, introduced.

It is not fully understood that the current Xinglong origin enterprises, with the exception of Taiyang River Coffee in Haikou and Wanning and other areas with four direct stores in other places, the rest are stationed locally. There are about a hundred brand enterprises in the whole Xinglong country of origin, but very few of them rush out of Xinglong to expand the market.

The market is under a lot of pressure, and there is an urgent need to make a fist.

The smell of wine is also afraid of the depth of the alley. Xinglong Coffee, which is stationed in the local market, watched helplessly as Fushan Coffee, which started at the same time, grew rapidly, and its brand influence quickly covered the whole island and even the whole country. The coffee industry led the development of a small town with amorous feelings, and was even designated as a state banquet drink by the Great Hall of the people.

"there are similarities and differences between the development of Fushan Coffee and ours, but there are indeed many things we can learn from." Since Zeng Weimao, the head of Xinglong Organic Coffee Garden, took over the coffee farm from his father Zeng Xiangzheng three years ago, he went to study at his own expense in local brands such as Fushan Coffee and Houchen Coffee.

At the gate of Zeng Weimao's organic coffee farm, there is a demonstration park for the standardized production of hot crops by the Ministry of Agriculture. Standardization is one of the lessons Zeng Weimao learned from the Fushan coffee brand. In his estate, there are strict process standards for planting management, coffee bean roasting and coffee cooking. "Coffee is a high-quality drink, and the taste must be stable, which requires strict and detailed production standards throughout the production process."

While stabilizing the product quality, Yiran Coffee also finds a correct position in the market, specializing in the instant coffee specialty market. Wu Niansen told reporters that this year, Yiran Coffee will continue to research and develop the packaging and taste of the products, so as to win the market with product quality. The Sun River, which also specializes in specialty products, has recently introduced new production equipment and is developing new instant products.

Although the enterprises in the whole industry began to awaken and tried their best to "save themselves", after all, they were restricted by funds, talents, policies, and so on, and the development of the whole Xinglong coffee industry was very weak. "to develop a variety of flavors, we don't even have a barista; to expand the influence, who will make the brand marketing plan? Who will provide the funds and who will provide the propaganda platform? " Zeng Weimao sent out such a feeling.

"the whole industry is still developing in a loose way, with everyone doing their own things and not working together." Wu Chunguang said: compared with brands such as Fushan Coffee, all aspects of the Xinglong coffee industry are disjointed, and for their own benefit, or even vicious competition, it is naturally difficult to resist the market oppression of other brands.

At the end of 2014, the Xinglong Coffee Industry Association was established, and more than 30 local enterprises joined the association. It is urgent for the association to provide a cooperation platform and government policies to support and guide leading enterprises, so that enterprises in all aspects of Xinglong coffee industry can "clench their fists".

Qiu Xiaofeng, president of the association, said that the integration of coffee industry and resources has become a general trend. In the future, the association will formulate a series of norms and standards from the cultivation, processing, and sale of Xinglong Coffee, and at the same time expand the influence of Xinglong Coffee through personnel training and the introduction of competitions to enhance the overall brand competitiveness of Xinglong Coffee.

Lin Qiefu, director of the Brand examination and approval Office of the Wanning Municipal Bureau of Commerce, who has studied the Xinglong coffee brand for many years, believes that if Xinglong Coffee can start the use of geographical indications, it will guide the whole industry towards standardized development. First, the government should find out the "family background" of Xinglong coffee brand, formulate a policy on the paid use of Xinglong coffee geographical indications, and promote the standardized development of the market by monopolizing the right to use the brand. The second is to start the protection of geographical indications, jointly with a number of functional departments to formulate Xinglong coffee industry management regulations, from the planting, processing, packaging and sales of Xinglong coffee to formulate industry standards, enterprise products are graded according to quality marks, standardize the development of the whole industry; the third is to support leading enterprises to make Xinglong coffee brand bigger and stronger.

The core of the national brand is not only the product, but also the inheritance and dissemination of the local culture. Walking in Xinglong town, the reporter found that the LOGO of "Xinglong Coffee Alliance" appeared prominently in every prosperous cafe. In fact, many Xinglong people are confident that they will gather together to relive the glory of Xinglong Coffee. Of course, everything takes time, courage, courage and wisdom.