Word: tingyi
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...COMPANY: Tingyi SECTOR: Food REVENUE IN 2008: $4.27 billion THE LESSON: Cultivate the grass roots...
...land famed for its elaborate culinary arts, the best-known chef is a chubby, smiling cartoon character. Master Kong (Kang Shifu) has been gracing the packets of instant noodles since the early 1990s, and is the creation of Tingyi, a company that chairman Wei Ing-chou built out of his parents' edible-oils firm in Taiwan's rural Changhua county. Thinking that mainland China's rapid development would boost demand for the kind of quick, cheap meals that workers would fill up on during factory breaks or after a punishing shift, he decided to cross the Taiwan Strait...
...Tingyi's growth is the result of laborious distribution work. Rather than rely on wholesalers, Tingyi hired specialized staff to ensure that its products were being sold not just in large supermarkets and convenience stores but in the tiny xiaomaibu, or corner grocers, where Chinese consumers still make a large share of incidental purchases. "Control over end distribution channels is one of Tingyi's key competitive advantages," according to the China Brands Index from Hong Kong brokerage CLSA...
...Master Kong has to stay humble. "If you tell people Kang Shifu is a company that makes good coffee, they will never believe it," he says (coffee being too foreign and expensive-sounding). "So our brand extension is limited by our customers." But those customers have been great for Tingyi, especially amid the uncertain economy of 2009, when it was a distinct advantage to be dealing in low-cost goods. For the first nine months of the year, Tingyi's revenues climbed 20% to more than $4 billion. (See portraits of Chinese workers...
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