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"the small mooncakes are like chewing the moon, with crisp and sweet fillings inside." another mid-autumn festival is approaching. what kind of mooncakes are you going to eat this year? recently, the "empty shell mooncakes" with shanxi characteristics have triggered a buying boom, and "shanxi empty shell mooncakes are popular" has topped the douyin hot list.

as one of the traditional chinese delicacies, mooncakes have a long history, and mooncake production and sales companies naturally belong to traditional industries. in this field, there are many time-honored chinese brands with hundreds of years of history. shuanghecheng, born in taiyuan, shanxi, is a time-honored food company. the company's brand was founded nearly 200 years ago during the daoguang period of the qing dynasty. in shuanghecheng's product system, mooncakes occupy a considerable weight. the company's mooncakes have been rated as "chinese famous cakes and branded mooncakes" by the state for 25 consecutive years.

although the brand is "old", shuanghecheng's business methods and concepts are very "young". in recent years, the company has developed short video and live broadcast channels, and sold more than 260,000 mooncake products by opening a flagship store on the douyin platform. with the help of continuing to deepen the douyin e-commerce channel, shuanghecheng is growing from a regional enterprise in shanxi to a national food company.

the 196-year-old brand is reborn

shuanghecheng is a well-deserved chinese time-honored brand. this brand was founded in 1828 and has a history of 196 years. shuanghecheng mainly produces traditional folk pastries and mooncakes. its "guo dulin jin's mooncake" production technique was listed in the national intangible cultural heritage list as early as 2008. "guo dulin jin's mooncake was invented by three masters and apprentices named guo, du and lin from a pastry shop in taiyuan. to commemorate the three masters, later generations named it guo dulin mooncake." zhao guangjin, chairman and general manager of taiyuan shuanghecheng food co., ltd. and inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage of guo dulin jin-style mooncake making technique, introduced.

zhao guangjin

zhao guangjin, 73 years old this year, has been engaged in the pastry industry for 53 years, and his relationship with shuanghecheng began in 1985. at that time, shuanghecheng was a small state-owned enterprise with 56 employees, more than 20 retired workers, and a loss of more than 100,000 yuan. the cash on the account was less than 1,000 yuan, and the fixed assets were less than 30,000 yuan. it was under such circumstances that zhao guangjin was transferred to shuanghecheng as a manager.

before being transferred to shuanghecheng, zhao guangjin worked as a worker in the shanxi railway construction corps, a salesman, and later a pastry worker in the sugar, tobacco and wine company. with his hard work and perseverance, zhao guangjin was promoted to deputy factory director step by step.

perhaps even zhao guangjin himself did not expect that after being transferred to shuanghecheng, he would work there for nearly 40 years, and turned shuanghecheng from a small enterprise on the verge of bankruptcy into a large comprehensive food company with more than 2,000 employees, thousands of product varieties, and more than 200 chain stores.

zhao guangjin knows best the hardships along the way.

"at that time, shuanghecheng was still a 'front shop and back factory' model, with a store area of ​​only 60 square meters, and the old building had been in disrepair for a long time and leaked everywhere." zhao guangjin said, but this was not the worst. the company's performance was not good, wages could not be paid, employees were unwilling to go to work, production lacked funds, and sales channels lacked. these were the biggest problems facing zhao guangjin.

at that time, zhao guangjin tried every possible way to revitalize the enterprise. in order to reverse the decline of the enterprise, zhao guangjin launched a drastic reform and established an economic entity with independent accounting, independent operation, and self-financing. but the first priority was to keep the enterprise alive.

she asked her employees to donate money from their own homes to support shuanghecheng in making mooncakes for the mid-autumn festival. in the end, dozens of employees pooled 83,000 yuan to make 120,000 kilograms of mooncakes. during the mid-autumn festival that year, these mooncakes were sold out and she made 34,000 yuan.

the initial success gave zhao guangjin confidence and hope to his employees. after that, zhao guangjin led shuanghecheng to a path of rapid development.

73-year-old "sister with braids" bravely goes online

although she is over 70 years old and has gray hair, zhao guangjin always wears a floral shirt and two braids. this is the image she always presents to the outside world. that is why zhao guangjin is called "braid sister".

zhao guangjin said that she started wearing braids when she was a torchbearer at the 2008 beijing olympics. she was already in her 50s at the time, and her two braids were particularly eye-catching. but this contrast also brought a lot of doubts, "people say all kinds of things."

actually, there is a little-known story behind these two braids. "i came to shuanghecheng with two braids, but later i was too busy to take care of them, so i cut them off." zhao guangjin said that the reason he tied his braids again in 2008 was "because shuanghecheng was undergoing another face-changing transformation after restructuring, and i hoped that these two braids, which symbolize 'youth', would make me as energetic as when i first joined shuanghecheng."

zhao guangjin talks about the techniques of making various pastries

it is not difficult to find that zhao guangjin has always dared to innovate and try in business operations. as early as 2015, shuanghecheng started e-commerce operations, expanded sales through the internet, and introduced specialized talents.

in 2019, with the rise of short videos and live streaming e-commerce, shuanghecheng followed the trend and entered this field. at first, it created a personal account "sister braids" on the douyin platform, mainly for zhao guangjin, a national intangible cultural heritage inheritor, to demonstrate and spread the mooncake making skills of guo dulin jin's family. later, it created the douyin @shuanghecheng good and good flagship store and opened a store of the same name, fully focusing on douyin e-commerce.

"in the past, people only looked at titles and sales volumes on shelf e-commerce, and few people learned about brands and products through detail pages. on douyin e-commerce, we can use short videos and live broadcasts to fully tell the stories of products and the stories behind them, so that more people can get to know the people and brands with stories in shanxi." the person in charge of shuanghecheng e-commerce introduced.

zhao guangjin is also impressed by this new e-commerce model. "we are a time-honored brand and have always been operating in the traditional way. but in the internet age, we must keep pace with the times," zhao guangjin said.

in 2021, the company's e-commerce team just started to try to sell goods through live broadcast on douyin. "after one live broadcast, we sold nearly 100,000 yuan worth of mooncakes." this made zhao guangjin appreciate the powerful communication power of douyin e-commerce and the consumption power of platform users. "it subverted our cognition. it turns out that products can be sold in this way." zhao guangjin said that with the help of douyin e-commerce's recommendation technology, "as long as there is a good product, netizens all over the country can know it in an instant. this power is really huge."

at present, shuanghecheng has created 4 live broadcast rooms for store sales, seasonal products and daily sales, with 8 full-time anchors. the sales of shuanghecheng official flagship store alone exceeded 260,000 orders, among which, the sales of a shuanghecheng authentic jin-style egg mooncake exceeded 70,000 orders.

safety is the best reputation of a product

"why is it that during the mid-autumn festival, everyone is willing to take mooncakes and give them to their parents and relatives and friends? mooncakes carry a kind of heritage, a culture, a spirit and a blessing. mooncakes are just a carrier, and behind the carrier is culture, which is our national spirit." whether in short videos or in the live broadcast room, zhao guangjin will continue to explain the production process of jin-style mooncakes and the cultural heritage behind it.

in her opinion, this is not only her responsibility as an inheritor of intangible cultural heritage, but also her hope to make young people understand and like time-honored brands. now, zhao guangjin often interacts with fans in the live broadcast room. "i can't just sell products for the sake of selling products." zhao guangjin said that she mainly tells stories in the live broadcast room, "many products have stories."

zhao guangjin took the best-selling mooncake, the egg mooncake, as an example, saying that the egg mooncake was improved from the cake, "it may look clumsy, but in fact this mooncake has been made for 100 years and is becoming more and more popular with consumers." today, the egg mooncake has become a representative feature of jin-style mooncakes.

as the mid-autumn festival approaches, mooncake consumption on douyin e-commerce continues to be popular, including shuanghecheng, with the advantage of douyin e-commerce's "global interest e-commerce". douyin e-commerce data shows that in terms of price, mooncakes priced below 200 yuan account for more than 90%; in terms of goods, the richness of mooncake products is also increasing, and the number of active sellers has increased by about 80% year-on-year.