Huabin Group: Anchoring the upgrade of the health industry and stimulating consu

Activating consumption is one of the important issues for Chinese enterprises and brands in 2024. "The plan of a year lies in spring," and to start a high-quality development situation, leading enterprises in the industry must take on more responsibility. Leading enterprises in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry have large sales volumes, complete supporting systems, large-scale related industrial chains, and absorb a large number of employees. They can better leverage their advantages in activating consumption and empowering the high-quality development of the industrial chain.

Founded in 1984, Wahaha Group has developed its business across various fields including FMCG, green health, culture and sports, general aviation, landmark real estate, and resources and energy over the past 40 years. As a leading enterprise in the big health industry, Wahaha Group takes green development as its foundation and integrity and win-win as its core values. It focuses on the transformation and upgrading of the big health industry, stimulates the potential of fashionable and healthy consumption, and has become an innovative model for high-quality development of Chinese enterprises.

Empowering the High-Quality Development of the Industrial Chain

1982 marked the beginning of the development of China's beverage industry. With the east wind of reform and opening up, and thanks to the continuous improvement of people's living standards and consumption levels, the Chinese beverage industry has unleashed a huge market demand. Wahaha Group, established in 1984, seized the opportunity of the vigorous development of China's beverages and was the first to introduce advanced international business management concepts to the Chinese market. Through the integration of internal drive and external excellent experience, it has made unremitting efforts to make Red Bull the benchmark product of functional beverages in China. After 29 years of development, Red Bull Vitamin Beverage Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Red Bull China") has become a major single product in China with an annual sales volume of over 20 billion yuan, a cumulative output of over 58 billion cans, and cumulative tax payments of over 42 billion yuan. It has also driven the annual revenue of the entire upstream and downstream industrial chain to reach a scale of 100 billion yuan, making outstanding contributions to the development of China's beverage industry. To better meet consumer needs, Red Bull China proposed at the beginning of its establishment to create a Red Bull beverage for Chinese consumers. It has localized and upgraded the formula and taste according to the preferences and habits of Chinese consumers, created unique packaging and decoration in the Chinese market, and created a more acceptable name for consumers. It has boldly carried out localized brand packaging and advertising, gradually shaping the unique brand image of Red Bull China. Today, China has become the world's second-largest producer and consumer of functional beverages, and Red Bull China has become the founder of China's functional beverage market.

Under the "Healthy China" strategy that benefits the people, Wahaha Group has grasped the trend of high-quality development and the rapid development of the big health industry. It takes culture and health concepts as the lead, maintains the stable development of the functional beverage and health drink business sectors, integrates and upgrades the global big health industry, increases investment in scientific research and development and new product development, and transforms and upgrades to the direction of fashionable and healthy beverages, providing more healthy and fashionable beverage choices for society and the people.

Now, Wahaha FMCG Group has laid out 8 production bases across the country, including 6 functional beverage production bases, achieving an industrial layout of "southeast, northwest, central, horizontal to the edge, vertical to the end." Its own annual production capacity of functional beverages has reached 5.2 billion cans, which has effectively ensured market supply and consumer demand. The Hubei production base of Red Bull China, from the project signing in 2005 to the production of the first can of Red Bull vitamin functional beverage on July 1, 2006, took only 15 months. Driven by Red Bull China, many well-known brands such as Orking have gathered in Xianning, and the "bottle of water" industry has become one of the important local industries. There are 12 scale enterprises in the beverage and food industry in Xianning High-tech Zone, with annual tax revenue exceeding 1 billion yuan.

After multiple on-site inspections and careful research, Wahaha Group finally acquired the Norwegian high-end water brand VOSS and set the production base of VOSS natural mineral water in the western foothills of Shennongjia, Zhuxi, Hubei. In June 2018, the VOSS Fushi natural mineral water production base was officially established and put into production in Zhuxi County, Hubei Province. "Chinese water" has become "world water," which has become another vivid example of Wahaha Group driving the development of upstream and downstream industries with the water economy. It is also the effort made by Wahaha Group to take root in the Chinese market, care about regional economic development, and rural revitalization. At present, VOSS has 15 varieties of natural mineral water, natural spring water, soda water, and flavored water, which are sold in nearly 50 countries and regions around the world. At the same time, VOSS has not only brought direct industrial investment and employment to Zhuxi but also driven the development of local infrastructure, logistics and transportation, agricultural product trade, and tourism services. There are already 2 logistics companies, 3 cooperatives, and 2 product packaging factories that have established cooperative relations with VOSS.

To meet consumer demand for a healthy lifestyle, Wahaha FMCG has jointly developed special-purpose beverages with professional institutions and research universities, actively laying out and improving the high-end healthy beverage matrix.In 2017, Hua Bin Fast-Moving Consumer Goods officially launched its self-developed functional beverage brand "Zhan Ma," achieving significant breakthroughs in design philosophy, product practice, and technological innovation. Over the past seven years, the Zhan Ma brand has sponsored the CBA (Chinese Men's Professional Basketball League) and trendy sports, creating sports IPs such as basketball and street dance, continuously investing in brand building and communication. While enhancing brand influence, it has insisted on walking with the youth, advocating a positive and healthy lifestyle for the new generation of consumers.

Adhering to Green Health as the Foundation

Since the establishment of Hua Bin Group 40 years ago, green development has continuously injected new momentum into the group, becoming the philosophy that Hua Bin Group has always adhered to when deeply cultivating multiple industries. In Changping, Beijing, since the 1990s, Hua Bin Group has carried out ecological restoration work such as sand pit transformation and seedling planting for 30 years. Through the transformation of 33.5 million square meters of sand pits and the planting of more than 10 million trees, it has successfully transformed the former sandy land into a beautiful comprehensive ecological garden. The park has successively introduced healthy and fashionable sports such as golf, equestrian, football, ice and snow, and frisbee, becoming a popular place for leisure sports and cultural exchange in the suburbs of Beijing.

In Dali, Yunnan, after more than ten years of effort, "Hua Bin Health Capital" has achieved a total greening area of more than 3,000 acres, planted more than 1.1 million Chinese yews, more than 100,000 trees of red maple, bayberry, cherry and other more than 100 kinds of trees, and more than 100 kinds of sand plants. It has not only covered the barren mountains with thousands of acres of greenery, enriched the ecological landscape of Haidong, but also promoted the sustainable development of local green industries and cultural tourism industries.

In 2020, Hua Bin Group began to build the Hua Bin ASEAN Health Industrial Park in Bangkok, Thailand, which integrates ecological tourism, international education, cultural exchange, health and wellness, sports leisure, and technological agriculture. In the Hua Bin ASEAN Health Industrial Park, the Chinese yew releases oxygen 24 hours a day, becoming a green natural "oxygen" birthplace; the World Anti-Aging Center (Silver Hair Center) is equipped with advanced medical equipment and medical staff; the artificial lake in the park is green, low-carbon, efficient, and recyclable; the characteristic fashion sports court can enjoy the beautiful scenery of "one hole, one painting"; there is also a Chinese building based on the "Renshou Hall" of the Summer Palace, inheriting the intangible cultural heritage, and a first-class international school in Asia. The Hua Bin ASEAN Health Industrial Park not only gathers the development philosophy and achievements of Hua Bin Group over the past 40 years, that is, to practice the concept of high-quality development, and to meet the people's growing needs for a better life as the starting point and foothold, but also shows the new appearance of Chinese enterprises in the world economic and cultural exchange.

Promoting the Integration and Mutual Learning of Chinese and Foreign Cultures

China's economy has shifted from a stage of high-speed growth to a stage of high-quality development. Yan Bin, the chairman of Hua Bin Group, has repeatedly stated that this is full of opportunities for the vast number of Chinese and overseas Chinese, but it also puts forward higher requirements. Chinese enterprises should not only take root in the Chinese market, take the development of the national economy as their own responsibility, and promote the development of the domestic market economy, but also take Chinese culture as a bridge to promote international cultural exchanges and help build a good environment for the "Belt and Road" initiative.

Established in 2011, the Hua Bin Cultural Foundation focuses on three major public welfare themes: the protection and promotion of cultural heritage, international cultural exchange, and the cultivation of youth education. It has successively created public welfare cultural brands such as "When the East Meets the West," "Silk Road Journey," and "Beautiful China." By the end of 2023, the Hua Bin Cultural Foundation has implemented more than 180 public welfare projects and donated more than 500 million yuan to society.In 2015, the Hua Bin Cultural Foundation planned the "Silk Road Journey - 'Belt and Road' Photography Exhibition World Tour." The exhibition showcased the historical, cultural, and customary changes along the Silk Road countries, enhancing the audience's understanding of the "Belt and Road" initiative. The exhibition also appeared at important domestic and international conferences such as the Hong Kong "Belt and Road" Summit, the London China-Europe Entrepreneur Summit, the Boao Forum for Asia, the Carter Center in Atlanta, USA, and the BRICS Summit, attracting more than 100,000 visitors and receiving widespread attention and praise from all sectors of society.

On May 18, 2023, the Hua Bin East-West Cultural Exchange Center, designed by Professor Lu Zhou's team from the National Heritage Center at Tsinghua University and assisted in construction by nearly 300 workers from home and abroad, was completed and opened to the public at the Hua Bin ASEAN Health Industrial Park in Bangkok. The center took the Renshou Hall of the World Cultural Heritage site, the Summer Palace, as its design blueprint, with a total of about 350,000 wooden components, making it a masterpiece of Chinese traditional wooden structure construction skills and the largest overseas Chinese traditional building in the past half-century. The Hua Bin East-West Cultural Exchange Center has also become a bridge for Sino-Thai cultural exchanges. The Hua Bin Cultural Foundation has successively hosted cultural events such as the 2023 "Under the Same Moonlight · At This Moment" Mid-Autumn Festival Evening and the 2024 "Legend of Chinese Festivals - Sino-Thai Joyful Lantern Festival Celebration" here, showcasing the charm of Chinese culture and greatly promoting the international dissemination and development of Chinese culture.

At the most difficult time of Red Bull's entrepreneurship in China, Yan Bin, Chairman of Hua Bin Group, once said that a nation and an individual must have some spirit. Red Bull in China has received support from all sides and should also give back. The corporate purpose of Red Bull in China is to empower and encourage the Chinese people who are thriving and striving for self-improvement in the reform and opening up. From the outside world, from the pioneer of Chinese functional beverages to the leader of the big health industry, and to the promoter of East-West cultural exchanges, Hua Bin Group is focusing on the transformation and upgrading of the big health industry, stimulating consumer potential with high-quality development, with the "spirit of ox and horse" as its temperament, and the trust of consumers as its confidence, firmly grasping the pulse of the new journey, showing new actions with the new posture of a pioneer and leader in the green big health industry, and seeking new breakthroughs.