Organic Alternative Exploration

With the frequent occurrence of food safety issues, the diet safety of her four-year-old daughter has always been the focus of Shanghai Ms. Zhang. In her opinion, eating organic vegetables can reduce her daughter's exposure to pesticide residues to a certain extent. harm. However, in the face of all kinds of organic vegetables in supermarkets or organic vegetables delivered directly from farms, Ms. Zhang also has doubts, what exactly is organic? Are these organic vegetables really free of pesticide residues? Can organic vegetable suppliers continue to be honest? This is exactly the problem that Guo Lixin, general manager of Zhejiang Baicui Shanzhuang Original Ecological Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., who calls himself "Baicui Farmer", is exploring and solving.

"Organic" is a luxury product

In Huzhou, Zhejiang, Guo Lixin won a 1,500-acre hilltop in 2009, with Taihu Lake in the east and Tianmu Mountain in the west. The air is fresh, and the concentration of negative oxygen ions is several ten times. However, Guo Lixin did not use this land to the limit, but only used more than 300 acres of it to grow organic vegetables, and the rest was used for value-added services to the members of the villa. He looked forward to getting more profits from this land. .

The organic food industry has exploded in recent years. Since last year, Ms. Zhang discovered that there were suddenly more organic vegetable suppliers around her. Apart from Baicui Villa, where she recently started to try weekly vegetable delivery services, she also delivered chicken feathers for free at the gate of the community where she lived and could pick vegetables on weekends. The real-life version of "Happy Farm", "Shine Whole Foods" sold directly in the community, and Dolly's Farm Organic Vegetables where friends gave coupons, etc. Even the Yiguo.com, which she has been patronizing, originally only sold fruits, has also been sold. Private label organic food.

The rigid demand caused by food safety issues like Ms. Zhang has led to the rapid development of organic food in the Chinese market in recent years. In terms of organic farming alone, China ranked third in the world in terms of certified organic farmland in 2006. Capital investment in agriculture has also been a hot topic in recent years, and the industry leaders have also invested a lot. For example, Zhu Xinli of Huiyuan tested the first organic agriculture in Beijing as early as 2007, with an area of 15,000 mu; Wang Jianlin of Dalian Wanda also won nearly 10,000 mu of land in Beijing to build an annual output of more than 1,200 tons. Organic vegetable base; COFCO’s Ning Gaoning threw olive branches to Beijing’s Zhenggu Agriculture and Shanghai’s Dolly Farm, which are currently the two most well-known companies in China’s organic agriculture; The focus of investment in 2019 was agriculture, and Chen Shaopeng was in charge of it; even Liu Qiangdong of JD.com was also planting organic rice in his hometown, Su County, Jiangsu Province...

The current domestic organic industry is trying a model, a kind of sea-like The asset-light model of "buy and sell" such as Kele, Lohas City, and Yiguo.com only does the channel and manages the sales, while the organic products come from other people's planting bases; In the "mouse + cement" model of "self-growing and self-selling", the farms first do the back-end planting and sell them through direct sales.

The reason for choosing this "load-bearing" model is that Guo Lixin does not want to be an organic vegetable seller or supplier who only earns the price difference. "Our real product is a villa." Guo Lixin said that Baicui Villa is a membership-based villa, which provides members with organic food on the one hand, and a rural life on the other. Organic vegetables are only one product currently on sale, and Shanzhuang's related products will be launched this year. Once the number of members reaches a certain level, Baicui Villa will "thank you behind closed doors" and only provide services to members. "We don't want our members to see us as a product, but we want members to feel like they have a relative in the country, take the villa as their home in the country, and come and stay for one night in spring."

Provided Such a rural way of life means that it takes a lot of resources to create such an environment. Guo Lixin said that from this point of view, "organic" is really a luxury. Who can afford it? He is targeting groups with an annual household income of more than 300,000 yuan, who have a family and are over the age of 30. At present, Baicui Villa only offers half-year card and annual card sales. The prices of the two are 4,500 yuan and 7,980 yuan respectively, and they only provide twice a week for delivery. The standard configuration for each time is five or six kinds of vegetables. Eight catties, the price is 110 yuan, of course, members can also choose different vegetables.

Adhere to members with the natural concept of returning to simplicity

In less than a year since the official sales of vegetables, there have been hundreds of members of Baicui Villa, and the proportion of active members who buy vegetables every week is 20 %about. In Guo Lixin's vision, the Baicui Villa with 1,500 acres of land can accommodate about 1,000 members. "The carrying capacity of natural resources is limited. Just like growing organic vegetables, it must be grown within the carrying range of nature, so it is expensive. If you want to do things beyond this carrying capacity, it means to take unnatural means, such as Extensive use of pesticides, fertilizers and hormones." Guo Lixin believes that within such a capacity red line, members of Baicui Villa can feel a natural rural environment.

However, every time she places an order to buy food, Ms. Zhang will feel a little pain. Although there are more than 20 kinds of dishes to choose from, she does not have the necessary ingredients for cooking at home, such as tomatoes and cucumbers. "All of our vegetables are in season, and we don't plant out-of-season vegetables." Guo Lixin explained that following the laws of nature is another value he hopes to provide members - allowing members to gradually increase their value through the products of Baicui Villa. Go back to the process of echoing with nature, understand the natural alternation of seasons, feel this alternation, and do what you need to do in each season, so as to ultimately improve the quality of life of members.

It is painful for Ms. Zhang to change her current eating and living habits. However, in Guo Lixin's view, this challenge to everyone's existing concept of consumption and life will allow Baicui Villa to eventually accumulate a group of members who truly agree with its philosophy and thus have high loyalty. Therefore, he pays more attention to and focuses on developing individual members rather than corporate customers, although the latter means a large amount of and more stable revenue, and it is also the biggest contributor to the relatively successful Zhenggu Agriculture and Dolly Farms.

At present, many companies are also working on the "vegetable + villa" model, but Guo Lixin believes that the difference between Baicui Villa and other farms lies in the adherence to the way of nature and the inheritance of traditional Chinese culture. It lies in the natural expression of "delicacy in heart and simplicity in shape" conveyed by members. The concept of organic is an imported product. Most domestic organic farms learn from their European counterparts, and even the vegetables they grow are very westernized, such as basil, which is commonly used in the West. However, Guo Lixin does not agree with such a concept. A phenomenon that confirms this is that there are few foreigners in the members of Baicui Villa.

Being an organic farm in China is in harmony with nature. Therefore, in terms of form, the buildings of Baicui Villa are all traditional Chinese civil structures without nails. The gray tiles and blue bricks are all from old houses in the countryside; in planting practice On the basis of the cognition of local traditional culture, the corresponding vegetables are grown. Just like Baicui Villa is now located in Huzhou, Zhejiang, it follows the planting culture in the south of the Yangtze River, and will not use greenhouses to force the cultivation of northern or out-of-season vegetables.

According to nature, the expression in Baicui Villa's sales is to present the value that organic products should have to members, and will not "dress up" according to the latter's old sensory requirements for vegetables. "Our vegetables will be guaranteed within 24 hours from picking to delivery to members' homes. But during this process, we will not deliberately remove rotten leaves or sprinkle some water to make the vegetables look more beautiful. Maybe members will take The green cabbage I got is soft and looks old, but it will stand up quickly when it is put in the water, and it will rot as soon as it is fried." Guo Lixin said, "It is safe, healthy and delicious. Once the members are established, they will be the same as ours. If we meet the standards, we will think that we are good." Once a five-year-old child who didn't like vegetables ate the vegetables from Baicui Villa, and found that the vegetables turned out to be delicious, and asked his mother if the vegetables he bought before? Guo Lixin sees this as the best reward for Baicui Villa.

Looking for a sustainable development model

"Every man has an idyllic dream." Guo Lixin said with a smile. Especially since he is from the countryside, his memory of the countryside always has the health, nature and freedom that he had in his childhood. The current entrepreneurship is more honorable to him than the companies he has listed before. However, it is not easy to achieve.

"Are your vegetables really organic and safe?" Ms. Zhang's doubts exist in the hearts of all organic food consumers. An EU report on China's organic agriculture once pointed out that the credibility of China's organic agriculture is low, mainly due to the immature institutional framework, insufficient understanding of laws and regulations, and unethical operators taking advantage of system flaws. Although the country has a unified certification standard for organic food, the case of organic vegetable fraud has been repeatedly exposed by the media. At the end of last year, CCTV reported on the fraudulent behavior of two leading enterprises in Shandong. Well-known organic vegetables, it is said that the result is also "the excessive rate of heavy metal or pesticide residues is very alarming".

"Safety is the core value we provide to our members." Guo Lixin emphasized. Organic should be synonymous with safety, but he implicitly stated that different companies in the industry understand, express and adhere to it differently. "We don't take certification as the sole criterion for safety." He doesn't even approve of salespeople using certified products as a reason to convince customers. In fact, Ms. Zhang has been eating the organic vegetables of Baicui Mountain Villa for more than two months, and she has not noticed whether there is a certification mark on it.

In order to reassure members, some companies even lay optical cables under the soil and use the "Global Eye" which monitors the whole process in real time. Baicui Villa uses the most earthy and perhaps most effective method - participatory certification. "We dare to be open," Guo Lixin said confidently. "The villa is open to members at any time, and they can fully communicate with the producers of the planting base. It is impossible for me to control what all the employees say and what not to say. What to say. Members can learn the truth about what we usually do.” However, accumulating loyal members in this way is slow and requires long-term investment.

Another problem that Guo Lixin will face is the front-end planting - how to use a natural planting method to achieve the yield of modern planting. For example, under the modern planting technology, the per-mu yield of rice is more than 1,000 kilograms, but under the natural planting method, the per-mu yield of Baicui Villa is only 300 to 500 catties, but does this yield represent "natural" and "organic" "? What is the limit of this amount? There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this.

To do organic business, it is generally considered that the threshold lies in scale, capital and time. However, in Guo Lixin's view, it is not difficult to quickly achieve simple profitability, and even planting dozens of acres of land is enough, and there is no need for the current 1,500 acres of land. If like the former, the cost of personnel, land, fertilizer, etc. are all reduced, and the cost can even be compressed to negligible. However, Baicui Villa wants sustainable development and can be replicated. This is also a basic issue faced by all practitioners in the organic industry. Guo Lixin hopes to practice such sustainability through Baicui Villa.