Chapter 166: Layout and Stalemate

Chapter 166: Layout and Stalemate

Chapter 166: Layout and Stalemate (Medium Cup)
6 month 6 day.

After spending the night in a local hotel in Luling, Jiang Miao and his team quietly went to the office of the Gannan branch, which is Fenghuang Town, south of Luling City.

When passing by the Shixi Tou freight terminal of Luling Port, he saw many large trucks pulling a large pile of square bales of hay, waiting to be loaded onto the transport ships at the dock.

Soon, the temporarily rented convoy arrived at Fenghuang Town.

He did not go to the branch office building immediately, but found a breakfast shop nearby and chatted with the owner of the breakfast shop while eating.

Each person had a bowl of wonton soup, a fried dough stick and a cup of soy milk. The breakfast shop owner was very talkative, and Jiang Miao asked her about it in a roundabout way for a while, and then he learned some information about the Gannan branch.

Combining the information he had collected through the Internet with the report from the Supervisory Department team, he felt a little relieved.

Had breakfast.

Jiang Miao went straight to the door.

Liu Changqing, who was looking at a report in the office, heard the report from the front desk. He immediately jumped up from his chair and hurried downstairs to greet them.

As soon as he arrived at the lobby on the first floor, Liu Changqing saw Jiang Miao. Although he felt a little uneasy, he immediately greeted him with a smile: "Boss, welcome to the Gannan branch."

"Chang Qing, where is Lao Kong?"

"Manager Kong went to Gannan City to handle some matters. He will be back the day after tomorrow. I will notify you immediately..."

Jiang Miao waved his hand: "No need, I'm just passing by, don't tell anyone that I'm here, or they'll start a formality."

"Okay then! Boss, the third floor please."

Led by Liu Changqing, the group came to the reception meeting room next to the manager's office of the branch.

Liu Changqing's assistant has already made the tea.

"Chang Qing, I just saw a lot of trucks transporting bales of straw at Luling Port. Those bales of straw should be our company's products, right?"

While pouring tea for Jiang Miao, Liu Changqing nodded and replied, "Yes, boss, those hay bales are our company's products. Since May, we have harvested alfalfa and white clover after flowering and made them into hay bales. Except for a small part sold to Yingxiong Dairy, the rest are sold to large dairy farms along the Yangtze River."

Jiang Miao leaned back on the sofa chair: "How many tons of hay can be produced each month at present, and what is the price?"

Putting down the teapot, Liu Changqing introduced the details: "Currently, among the 21.4 mu of tea oil plantations in Gannan Branch, about 16.4 mu of various forage grasses are planted in the understory space. Every month, about 8 tons of fresh grass can be harvested, and 2.6 tons of hay can be produced."

"In terms of price, white clover hay is 1800 yuan per ton; corn hay and ryegrass hay are both 1400 yuan per ton; the best-priced is alfalfa. The protein content of our company's first crop of alfalfa is about 24.3%, and it is currently around 2200 yuan per ton. These prices do not include freight."

Jiang Miao tapped the table with his fingers: "Oh? How much is the company's internal consumption at present?"

"Our company's internal consumption is mainly the 1.2 tons of hay supplied to Hero Dairy every month. As for fresh grass, Hero Dairy has its own forage production base and can supply part of it itself. At the two newly built large-scale dairy cattle breeding bases nearby, we need to purchase 1.2 tons of fresh grass from the Gannan branch every month."

Jiang Miao picked up the teacup, blew away the hot steam, and took a sip: "In other words, we are now selling more than 9,000 tons of hay every month?"

Liu Changqing smiled and nodded: "Yes, a few days ago, the Yangtze River Ecological Ranch purchased 2000 tons of hay from us to feed the cows. Last month, they sold nearly 9600 tons of hay to the outside world, with a revenue of more than million yuan."

As for the hay and fresh grass sold to Hero Dairy, the cost must also be calculated and they are not given to Hero Dairy for free.

Although they are sister companies, they keep their accounts clear to make it easier to calculate costs when the time comes.

As things stand, Hero Dairy's 4.2 dairy cows consume 1.2 tons of hay and 1.6 tons of fresh grass every month, plus 1.2 tons of concentrated feed such as corn and soybean meal.

On average, each dairy cow eats 32 kilograms of feed every day, and the feed cost is 47 yuan. Currently, each dairy cow of Yingxiong Dairy produces an average of 31 kilograms of raw milk every day, and the feed cost is calculated to be about 1.5 yuan per kilogram of raw milk.

What is the level of feed cost?
This is almost the lowest cost in the country.

It is almost the same as the cost of raw milk feed in the pastoral areas south of the desert.

The cost of raw milk feed in the Yangtze River Basin is around 1.8 to 2 yuan.

Of course, this also takes into account the profit from forage cultivation of the Gannan Branch, which is the cost calculated for Hero Dairy. In fact, this part of the profit is still the profit of Hailufeng Company.

"Chang Qing, what is the current cost of forage production for the Gannan Branch?"

Liu Changqing stood up, took out a document from the filing cabinet, flipped through it for a while, and replied: "The current comprehensive cost of fresh grass is about 157 yuan per ton, and hay is about 518 yuan per ton."

"Scaled and mechanized production is the way to go," Jiang Miao sighed.

"Indeed." Liu Changqing also deeply agreed.

He has been engaged in agriculture for so long in the Gannan Branch, and only then did he discover that the scale effect formed after large-scale and mechanized production in agriculture can effectively reduce many costs, thus forming strong competitiveness.

If the Gannan Branch supplies forage grass to Yingxiong Dairy at a non-profitable cost price, its feed cost per kilogram of raw milk will drop to 0.98 yuan.

The cost dropped by 0.52 yuan.

This was the case when Hailufeng Company's industrial chain had not yet been fully laid out, because concentrated feed requires soybean meal and corn, and the average cost of concentrated feed is about 2.5 yuan per kilogram.

That is to say, concentrated feed accounts for 0.76 yuan of the feed cost for every kilogram of raw milk.

In the future, when the Mo'nan Branch of Hailufeng Company completes its soybean industry layout, the cost of soybean meal can be greatly reduced.

Then there is hope of reducing the feed cost to around 0.6 yuan per kilogram.

This is the chain reaction formed by the industrial chain.

What's more, Jiang Miao did not focus on the feed formula and breeding of dairy cows. If he had made efforts in these two aspects simultaneously and increased the milk production per unit of feed, the cost could have been further reduced.

The fundamental reason for the high price of domestic dairy products is the insufficient supply of local feed, and large-scale imports are needed to fill the gap in feeding demand, which will further increase production costs.

For example, much of the forage grass in the south needs to be purchased from abroad, and soybean meal is also an indirectly imported raw material. This results in the cost of both concentrated feed and roughage being much higher than that in foreign countries.

In addition, the milk production capacity of local dairy cow breeds is not very good, which will also increase some costs.

The few areas in the southern desert, western regions and northeastern China that can obtain low-cost roughage are relatively far away from the core local consumption areas, and the cost of land transportation is obviously not as high as the cost of sea transportation.

The cost of transporting milk powder or roughage from the southern part of the desert to the Yangtze River Basin and the Pearl River Basin is higher than importing from New Zealand and Australia.

This is the general background against which domestic dairy product prices remain high.

There is no way to lower the price of dairy products without fundamentally changing the industrial layout.

...

We chatted for more than an hour.

Jiang Miao did not stay in the branch office building in Fenghuang Town, but asked Liu Changqing to take him to visit nearby farms, breeding farms and factories.

Their first stop was the Fenghuang Town Honey Processing Factory, located not far south of Fenghuang Town and west of Luling Huateng Vocational School.

When the director of the honey processing factory heard that the big boss was coming, he suddenly became nervous. He quickly ordered his subordinates to keep up the good work and he hurried out to greet him.

"boss."

"Jiahe, are you used to your work?"

Tian Jiahe scratched his head nervously: "It's a habit. The food in Gannan is too spicy. My colleagues and I can only eat in the factory cafeteria."

For people from the Lingnan region, Gannan cuisine is indeed very spicy.

Liu Changqing reminded: "Director Tian, ​​please introduce this factory to the boss!"

"No problem." Tian Jiahe also came back to his senses: "Boss, our factory covers an area of ​​350 acres. We currently have three steel structure workshops with a total area of ​​3 acres. The other supporting facilities add up to 150 acres."

Entering the factory area.

You can see many tank trucks specializing in transporting honey. The staff are operating the extraction equipment to extract the honey from the tank trucks and then inject it into large storage tanks for storing honey.

Then everyone came to the honey processing factory. In the inner corridor, they could see the production line running quickly through the transparent glass windows.

“Is honey selling well?”

Liu Changqing nodded: "It's OK. We mainly process and package the honey and then supply it to dealers in various places. There is relatively little retail business."

As for supplying to other factories, there is basically no need to consider it, because domestic factories rarely use honey as raw material, but use fructose syrup and the like. After all, the cost of fructose syrup is less than one-tenth of honey, and only fools use honey as raw material. Therefore, the core of the domestic honey market is personal consumption and high-end restaurants, snack shops, tea shops, etc. Few factories will purchase honey.

Come to the warehouse area.

Tian Jiahe used a paper cutter to cut open a carton, and Jiang Miao picked up a 100-gram glass bottle of honey, which contained uncrystallized alfalfa honey with a thick and shiny light purple color.

He unscrewed the bottle cap and tore off the aluminum foil. He poured a little sticky alfalfa honey onto the back of the bottle cap, then dipped his finger in it and tasted a little.

It has the unique natural aroma of alfalfa flowers, a sweet and palatable taste with a slight sour taste, and an aftertaste of refreshing and fresh alfalfa flower fragrance and a light clover flavor.

Through the identification panel, Jiang Miao saw that the degree of Baume of this bottle of alfalfa honey was about 42, as well as the types of honey, of which alfalfa honey accounted for 57%, white clover honey accounted for 28%, ryegrass honey accounted for 12%, and other wild flower honey accounted for 3%.

"Not bad." Jiang Miao tightened the lid again, then handed the bottle of honey to Li Zixuan for safekeeping.

Tian Jiahe secretly breathed a sigh of relief: "Boss, let's go take a look at other products!"

“Other products?”

Tian Jiahe explained: "It's propolis and beeswax, which are by-products of the honey concentration process."

Hearing the name of beeswax and propolis, Jiang Miao quickly searched for relevant information from his memory. He calmly asked, "How do you process propolis and beeswax?"

Tian Jiahe quickly replied: "At present, we can only wholesale it to some companies in need as raw materials. Our factory can produce about 5 to 6 tons of beeswax and 200 to 300 kilograms of propolis every month."

Hearing this, Jiang Miao's eyes flashed with a hint of thought.

After a while, he looked at Liu Changqing and Tian Jiahe and said, "This is how we process propolis and beeswax for now. I will try to find new uses for it later."

"Ok."

In fact, Jiang Miao already had a draft in mind.

Propolis is a traditional Chinese medicine that can enhance the body's immunity. It is not only effective for humans, but also for some animals, such as cows.

As long as the dosage is appropriate, it can be fed to dairy cows, and then other nutrients can be added to enhance the immunity of dairy cows and reduce the frequency of veterinary drug use.

Beeswax, in addition to being used as a pill-making aid for traditional Chinese medicine pills, can also be used for fruit preservation, candles, cosmetics, dental materials, and wood and leather processing.

Generally, cosmetics manufacturers purchase beeswax and propolis as raw materials, so there is no need to worry about selling them.

Of course, if the beeswax production capacity is too large, you can also add a candle production line to directly produce a batch of candles.

However, in the short term, there is a high probability that there is no need to consider producing candles. After all, with the current beeswax output of Hailufeng Company, it is only two to three hundred tons per year. Compared with the national annual production capacity of tens of thousands of tons, it is only about one percent, which cannot affect the beeswax market at all.

After inspecting the honey processing factory in Fenghuang Town.

Liu Changqing continued to take Jiang Miao to Shangguantang Village, Zhangshan Town, in the north of Luling City.

Yingxiong Dairy’s dairy cattle breeding base in Luling City is located in Shangguantang Village, Zhangshan Town.

The reason why it is set up here is that there is a small river in Shangguantang Village, Zhangshan Town, which directly connects to the Ganjiang River. This river can accommodate 200-ton inland flat-bottomed boats.

This can reduce transportation costs by transporting very heavy fresh grass from various counties in Luling City via inland transport ships.

Lin Datong, the manager of the breeding base in Shangguantang Village, Zhangshan Town, received a notice from the guard and quickly drove out of the breeding base on his electric scooter.

As soon as he saw Jiang Miao and Liu Changqing, he quickly braked and greeted them breathlessly: "Hoohoo...Boss! Hello, I'm Lin Datong."

"Don't worry, I just came to take a look. Where's Manager Li?"

"Mr. Li is at the headquarters."

"Datong, take us inside for a tour!" Liu Changqing said with a smile.

Lin Datong naturally knew Liu Changqing. After all, they were both members of the management of Hailufeng Company, and they were in the same region. In addition, they had business dealings. He was very anxious: "Okay... Mr. Jiang, Deputy Manager Liu, please come in!"

As he walked, Jiang Miao carefully observed the breeding base.

"Datong, how many dairy cows are there in this breeding base?"

Lin Datong quickly replied carefully, "We have 3000 calves, 3000 growing cows, 3000 young cows, 1 milk-producing cows, and 1000 adult bulls, a total of 2 cows. This is also our company's largest breeding base at present."

Walking through it, you will find that the entire breeding base is very large, with a total area of ​​nearly 6200 acres, including professional cow sheds, dairy cow activity areas, cow dung treatment plants, silage yards, hay storage warehouses, milking rooms, staff areas, docks and other supporting facilities. There are a total of 324 employees here.

Lin Datong is not only the farm manager, he also serves as the head of the veterinary station. Since he is a veterinarian and has worked in other dairy farms for more than ten years, he has rich management experience.

After a while.

Another Hero Dairy manager also trotted over. This person had a very recognizable face, a horse face, a slicked-back hair, and was wearing a technician's work clothes.

"Hello, boss! I'm Ma Qianyang, the director of Luling Dairy Factory."

Jiang Miao patted him on the back: "Hello! Is the factory production going smoothly?"

Ma Qianyang was not too restrained: "We have already debugged part of the production line. We can currently produce whole milk powder, skim milk powder, butter, whey protein powder, and casein."

The industrial layout of Hero Dairy is a dairy cattle breeding base with a supporting dairy processing plant, thus reducing the cross-regional transportation of liquid milk.

The Luling Dairy Processing Plant is just across the river from the Luling Breeding Base. In order to facilitate transportation, special pipelines are even used and built above the river. Fresh milk can be pumped directly from the cow milking room to the dairy processing plant across the river.

After all, there are 1 dairy cows at the Luling Dairy Breeding Base, which can produce about 350 tons of liquid milk every day. In addition to a small part fed to calves, about 300 to 320 tons of raw milk need to be transferred to the dairy processing plant.

“What’s the production capacity?”

“每天生产45～50吨奶粉、4.5～5吨乳清蛋白、4吨黄油、12吨干酪素。”马千阳对答如流。

Jiang Miao looked at the rows of cows being sent into the milking machines and asked, "Datong, what is the cost of producing raw milk at this base?"

Lin Datong thought for a while and said, "It's about 3.6 yuan per kilogram. This is the comprehensive cost."

As if he was worried that his boss might misunderstand him, he added, "This cost is basically the lowest in the Yangtze River Basin. Guangming's farm in Shanghai relies on cheap imported grass, and its comprehensive cost per kilogram of raw milk is still as high as 4 yuan."

"It is indeed the lowest in the Yangtze River Basin." Ma Qianyang also agreed.

Jiang Miao nodded: "I know."

But he was still not satisfied with the cost.

"By the way, how is the current milk powder market?"

Ma Qianyang smiled bitterly: "Boss, the domestic milk powder market is currently weak overall. Due to overcapacity, many large dairy companies have sprayed excess raw milk into milk powder. Currently, whole milk powder is around 8 yuan per ton, and skim milk powder is around 2.5 yuan per ton."

Jiang Miao didn't care too much about this situation: "It doesn't matter. Our costs are low enough. We will sell it to formula milk companies and infant formula companies at the lowest market price."

Cost is an advantage.

Although he knew that the production cost of Yingxiong Dairy was much lower than that of its domestic counterparts, Ma Qianyang still suggested: "Boss, I think we need to restart the production lines of fresh milk, yogurt, formula milk, cheese, etc. as soon as possible to enrich our product types."

"Let's wait for a while!" Jiang Miao did not agree immediately because the layout of Hailufeng Company had not been completed yet.

You need to keep a low profile at this stage.

There is another reason why the retail prices of many dairy companies' products remain high, and that is the domestic distribution system at all levels. After all, after the distributors at all levels have added layers of markups, the retail price of each kilogram of milk has increased by at least 2 yuan.

Jiang Miao knew very well that no matter how powerful Hailufeng Company was, it would not be able to overwhelm those distributors in the dairy products market because this was not a monopolized product.

Therefore, in order to break the deadlock, the only way to do so is through the physical stores and online sales of Hailufeng specialty stores, which is a direct sales method from the manufacturer and can bypass dealers at all levels.

This just takes time to plan.

The time for this layout will probably be the end of this year.

Hailufeng Company will officially launch its franchise store APP before the end of the year. At the same time, it will open a large number of physical stores and a relatively complete logistics system in the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, Beijing, Tianjin and Tangshan, as well as the locations of major branches.

Only by accomplishing these, coupled with Jiang Miao's huge fame from his achievements in Senzu soybeans, can the market deadlock in dairy products be broken.

(End of this chapter)