There is no need to say much about the instant noodle factory. This is an industry that Allen started to plan several years ago. China happened to be an emerging market. Although similar instant noodle products have been sold here since the 1960s, the earliest old-fashioned instant noodles were more like the simplest fried egg noodles than instant noodles.
There is no problem with the quality, but the packaging is not good-looking. In addition, you needed food stamps to buy this thing in the past. Who has enough money to buy instant noodles?
Unless in some places where material is scarce, people would buy some to use as gifts when visiting relatives.
Later, some manufacturers imported advanced instant noodle production lines from island countries, but the taste of these newly produced instant noodles was not so good. There were people who ate them, but they were still far from the level that would be available to ordinary people decades later.
The delicious instant noodle factory invested in Menxia City is not entirely low-end.
The current factory has introduced a total of six modern instant noodle production lines, which can produce instant noodles in both bagged and barreled packaging.
The bagged ones are the lowest-end instant noodles that Allen has, and that’s it...the price is also 2 yuan a bag.
This price is not cheap in China today. Ordinary people can afford it, but they just don't want to buy it...
In the inland areas, the average salary was only over 100 yuan. Even in the coastal areas, it was only over 100 or 200 yuan. A bag of instant noodles cost only 2 yuan. Can you imagine what that meant?
As for the higher-end bucket noodles, the price is even more expensive. The main reason for the high price is the larger and more generous deluxe beef bun.
Even if we consider the prices in mainland China, in 1992, based on the prices in second-tier cities, the price of a pound of beef was approximately 5.5 to 7 yuan.
The beef Allen uses is from Australia. Although it is not the best quality, the cost of the sauce packet alone is 6 dollars, including the packaging and labor costs.
Adding the cost of instant noodles and packaging, the cost price of a bucket of luxury high-end instant noodles reaches 7.5 yuan.
The selling price of this kind of bucket noodles was directly raised to 13 yuan.
In an era when the average wage per capita is more than 100 yuan, a bucket of noodles costs 13 yuan, which is one-tenth of the wage.
If a person earns 3,000 yuan a month, this bowl of noodles would probably cost around 300 yuan.
This makes it even more unaffordable.
Although ordinary people don't eat much of this brand of instant noodles, this brand of instant noodles is very famous in China. This is because when the disaster hit last year, among the supplies donated by Allen, there were a large amount of instant noodles, and it has a very good reputation.
It's like even after the Chinese New Year, a bowl of beef noodles at an ordinary roadside stall would cost at least ten yuan, right?
I ordered a bowl and waited for the boss to bring it. I looked into the bowl and saw that there were quite a lot of noodles, but only one or two slices of beef, which were so thin that they were transparent. Even though there were a lot of noodles, diners would still feel the pain in their stomach when they saw such a small amount of meat.
But there is another noodle shop next door with a fancy decoration, but a bowl of beef noodles costs you thirty!
When it is served, wow, the top is really made with beef. Even if it is expensive and the diner feels that the money is wasted, he will not feel that he has lost out when he sees so much meat.
Allen's instant noodles use this trick. Even the cheapest one, which costs only two yuan a bag, tastes better than instant noodles of the same price on the market, leaving you with no reason to complain.
You can say that his products are expensive, but you can't say that his products are a rip-off. You get what you pay for!
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And...Alan's instant noodle factory showed in its first half financial report that it has produced and sold 200 million packages of bagged/barreled instant noodles, 70% of which are exported. Japan and South Korea are the main buyers, and South America is the second buyer. China, as the production place, has not had very good sales.
However, this has allowed many local businesses to see opportunities. Although they do not understand why the instant noodle factory run by this British noble lord sells both low-end and high-end noodles at higher prices than other manufacturers' products, as long as he maintains this production model, then wouldn't other manufacturers have a chance to fill the remaining blank market?
The fact that Allen's factory's instant noodles can be exported in large quantities is good news for local officials...
These days, China has not yet joined the WTO and is short of foreign exchange...
As long as the goods can be exported, they are high-end and classy, and it is a big deal!
So... although not many products are sold in China, the local tax and other support policies have always been very good.
Allen invested a small portion of his profits into developing new products, improving hygiene standards, product quality, employee dormitories, etc., which in their opinion were just fancy things.
Anyway, the cooperation between the two parties is very pleasant. Allen's instant noodle factory focuses on export and is very famous in China. The brand "Haochi" is the leader in instant noodles. When talking about this brand, many people subconsciously know that it is a foreign brand, expensive, high-quality and high-end!
Even though its market share does not reach the dominant position, but with the invisible bonus of its high-end status, Delicious instant noodles are now the undisputed leader in the Chinese instant noodles industry.
Now that the big guys have vacated so much of the market, other manufacturers are following suit. Master Kong in Taiwan has also followed this route, investing in building factories, imitating Allen's instant noodles, and also producing bagged products. The current selling price is only 0.02 cents lower than the 2 yuan price of Haochi brand bagged instant noodles, or 1.98 yuan.
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Alan snorted coldly. Wan Chai was just stingy. He wanted to make a lot of money on the selling price, but he didn't dare to blatantly exceed the price of his own brand's low-end version of instant noodles, so he just saved two cents.
Looking at the profit of the instant noodle factory in the first half of the year at the back of the financial report, it was 27 million pounds, or 200 million bags of instant noodles. It was just such a small amount of money, not even as much as he made from a movie.
The market still needs to be cultivated, and the people there are still a bit poor and the consumption level is not high enough.
After shaking the data, Allen squinted at the final data analysis. The instant noodle factory is still in a steady growth environment. Not to mention that the sales volume doubles every year, the profit in the first half of this year has increased by 10% compared with the same period last year. This is a good sign. As long as it keeps doing well...
After a few years, the profit will double, which is no problem. From this perspective, if he invests 100 million pounds in an instant noodle factory by around 2000, not only can he recover all the costs, but the net profit he will get every year will be nearly 100 million pounds.
Quite a lot!
This is how asset-heavy, physical industries play. It cannot be compared with cultural industries or Internet industries. The advantage of this type of industry is that it is stable, has guaranteed income regardless of drought or flood, and has a strong ability to resist risks. Even if it encounters problems, it will not suddenly die like some Internet companies.
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In addition to the instant noodle factory, the radio factory also uses almost the same routine. Allen doesn't want to sell shoddy goods and rely solely on large quantities and small profits but quick turnover. He likes to provide good value for money and not cheat customers.
Even the cheapest radio costs at least 70 or 80 yuan, and that’s the one with the lowest-end plastic shell.
As for the high-end ones, they were the samples that Allen had seen when he went to Seoul to participate in the Olympics. This kind of thing has a nickname in China: "Golden Precious!"
The name of his radio brand is "Guizhi". Ordinary radios were nicknamed "Pugui" by the people, mid-range ones were called "Yinggui" and high-end ones, even the trademarks were made of gold, were called "Jinggui"!
Simple and easy to remember, the price of ordinary high-end radios is less than 100 yuan, the price of silver high-end radios is directly raised to about 200 yuan, which is comparable to imported radios, and gold high-end radios...
No rival!
The price is nearly a thousand yuan. This thing is more for collection than for practical use. It is just for show. Ordinary people will never buy it unless they encounter a big event and need to give it as a gift.
Foreign imported goods of the same price, such as Russian brands such as Baltic and Vega, only sell for three or four hundred yuan, but...
Although the Russian radio is comparable to the "Silver Gui" in price, the appearance of the two is so different that ordinary people would choose the Silver Gui if they were asked to choose between the two.
The industrial designs of the two companies' radios are completely on a different level.
The shell of the Russian radio is still made of hard plastic, but Allen's Noble brand radio, starting from the Silver Noble, has begun to use metal. The combination of metal, wood, and piano paint, with exquisite appearance design, when compared with products of the same price, is basically the difference between a ringtone phone and a black brick mobile phone.
Now, the radio factory added a new production line last year, mainly to open up a product line to supply car radios to automobile companies, so...
The radio factory's financial report for the first half of the year showed no profit, and it even owed a lot of money, all of which was used to buy land to build factories, purchase production lines, and conduct research and development.
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After looking at these industries in China, the rest are easy to say. In Australia... a steel plant and a tinplate plant are supporting enterprises. The profits in the first half of the year added up to less than 5 million pounds. These are all packaged and supported by Allen's other industries at normal internal prices. Such a small profit is acceptable, mainly for the long term. With these things in hand, he can be self-sufficient. The remaining one cooperates with local farmers, like a supply and marketing cooperative, and there is no half-year financial report for this. The operating cycle and statistical time of this kind of thing are all based on a whole year.
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Island country, currently Allen holds more than half of the shares of Saria. Looking at the statistics in the financial report, from the initial investment in Saria, there were only 100 stores, to now, it has expanded to more than 340 stores. Now Saria has entered a stable period in the island country, maintaining the low rate of one store per month and spreading to the small counties below.
This half-year profit seems very abstract.
As for Salia... Alan was looking for stability at the beginning, mainly because he was attracted by their operating model and employee training methods.
Saizeriya's profitability is achieved by exploiting its employees and supply chain.
The overall profit is actually not high, and is even worse than the profitability of some heavy asset companies.
After deducting material costs, employee salaries and other expenses, the net profit of each store is less than 10,000 pounds per month.
His current more than 300 stores can provide him with a net profit of less than 20 million pounds in half a year. Although this money seems to be a lot, he cannot spend it. He has to keep it to buy land for expansion and open new stores.
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In Gambia, the situation is much better. Due to the last "clearance sale", most of the industries were sold to the Russians, and Allen only had a "small clinic" that specialized in testing and issuing health certificates.
We can earn around £3 from each health certificate.
In the first half of this year, due to the economic situation and changes in Russian business strategies, the overall tourist flow to Gambia slowed down. In the total of six months, only one million tourists visited Gambia.
This is enough to handle an average monthly passenger flow of 150,000 to 160,000 people.
After looking at the financial report of this small clinic, Alan smiled and found that it could bring him several million pounds in commission in half a year... Anyway, the work is not tiring, and the small clinic has a good reputation, so he might as well keep it open and treat it as some pocket money.
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The rest are just some odds and ends. In America, old Carl also runs a consulting company that is in a false name. This company is responsible for doing the dirty work, and any profits are left to them as funding.
Under this consulting company, Alan also has a small animal rescue organization that protects black Labradors. This organization was set up by him in order to deal with Little Blackie. It has no profitability and is a pure spending organization. It is more of a group of spies and thugs than a protection organization. The only difference is that the management is very loose, and the people in the organization don't know who the boss is.
There is also an unfinished prison. Once it is developed gradually in the future, it will become Allen’s largest industry in the United States.
The tea-selling industrial park in India has not been completed yet, and the employees have just started training. The financial report for the first half of the year was negative again, so we have to continue investing.
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The rest is on Britain's side.
The family business that Alan inherited included a candy factory. It had been a little popular for a while by selling Star Cups thanks to his movie, but later it returned to a half-dead state. Recently, it has produced some new products, such as bubble gum, which is better than nothing. The total profit for half a year has only been 100,000 pounds.
Another wool processing factory is similar, mainly producing traditional Welsh handicrafts such as wool socks and scarves. The selling price locally is not too expensive, and only a few tourists will buy some as souvenirs when they come to visit.
The profit of this is even less, but the wool processing plant and food factory have acted as a local stabilizer, providing nearly a thousand jobs for Carmarthen and indirectly affecting nearly a thousand families. The main function is to maintain stability. Now that the economic situation is not good, it doesn’t matter whether it makes money or not, as long as it doesn’t lose money.
Alan was flipping through the thick materials, and seeing that there was still a lot more to come, he couldn't help but feel a little overwhelmed.
Over the past few years, I have built up so many industries bit by bit, and I feel sad every time I think about it.
It’s really not easy to develop in Britain!
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