This Northeastern man sold Sichuan Malatang in Harbin, and eventually hatched more than 6,000 stores and pushed the stores to Sichuan.

Moreover, he has stores in Japan, South Korea, Singapore and other places, and his revenue exceeded 1 billion yuan in 2019.

During the interview, he threatened to have 10,000 stores in 2025 with revenue exceeding 10 billion.

He is the "Spicy Hot Pot Giant" Yang Guofu.

Why does a person selling spicy hotpot have such powerful energy?

Spicy Giant’s Northeastern Past

In 2000, Yang Guofu began to meet his wife on the roadside Set up a stall selling snacks.

At that time, most roadside stalls sold porridge and side dishes. Yang Guofu also sold porridge with others, and later also sold grilled squid and grilled ham.

One day, he found a restaurant selling spicy hotpot that was doing good business.

At that time, income levels were generally low. Malatang, a fast food snack with vegetables and meat, rich in variety, cheap and affordable, was very popular. Yang Guofu also started selling Malatang. thought.

In 2001, Yang Guofu rented a basement of a few square meters and began to think about how to make a unique spicy hotpot base.

Since he had no one to ask for advice, he could only restore the taste of Malatang he had eaten in his mind, and then work backwards on the product formula.

The process was naturally not smooth. For example, when I put bean paste into a pot of food, it didn’t taste the same; I learned from my colleagues to stir-fry spices, but the pot was burnt.

Yang Guofu was able to see Malatang in Northeast China because of the rapid expansion of Sichuan cuisine.

But from Sichuan to the Northeast, it spans more than half of China. The spicy and delicious Sichuan cuisine becomes even spicier when it comes to Malatang with more soup. Northeasterners don't like it. You must be used to it.

After thinking about this, Yang Guofu keenly discovered that Sichuan spicy hotpot can be perfectly combined with the famous Northeastern dish beef bone soup.

The weather in the Northeast is cold, so drink the rich and fragrant beef bone soup to ward off the cold and warm up.

So Yang Guofu began to try to reduce the spiciness of the soup, and even added rock sugar and full-fat milk powder to the base.

Finally, we created a new type of Malatang that has a milky white soup and a salty yet sweet taste. The most notable feature is that the taste is not that spicy, and even the soup is not that spicy. It's OK to drink.

In 2003, Yang Guofu's first directly-operated store opened in Yonghe Street, Harbin, named "Yangji Malatang".

At that time, you could drink soup and make spicy hotpot freshly cooked in a small pot, which was a disruptive change.

Relying on the taste that is more in line with the living habits of the locals and the small pot cooking mode, this store immediately became popular.

Due to adequate preparations in advance, "Yang Ji Malatang" was sold out within half a day of opening. The business was very hot. In addition, sincerity in business, repeat customers A lot, the business of this spicy hotpot is getting better and better.

By 2005, Yangji Malatang had attracted many relatives and friends to join, and it had developed into a business of 20 or 30 stores.

This year, Yang Guofu realized that there were more and more competitors, and most of them were relatives in the same village.

Yang Guofu is determined to take the road of branding and corporatization to strengthen himself.

In 2005, Yang Guofu registered a trademark in his own name, and in 2006 it was officially opened to the outside world for franchising.

The expansion path of the spicy giant

After Yang Guofu Malatang officially opened its franchise, the stores expanded rapidly.

However, as the scale of the franchise expanded, troublesome problems such as relatives trusting relatives, friends trusting friends, and taking advantage of loopholes also emerged one after another.

Yang Guofu realized that this would be extremely detrimental to the development of the brand in the long run, so he ruthlessly cut off the annual franchise income of two to three million yuan, and stopped the booming franchise in 2010. Join and sort out the issues.

In 2013, after the entire catering system was reorganized, Yang Guofu Malatang expanded rapidly across the country at the rate of opening 1,000 stores per year.

In 2020, seventeen years after its establishment, the number of Yang Guofu Malatang stores reached 6,000, covering 31 provinces and cities, 400 cities across the country, and 18 national stores. Regional agent, 10 overseas stores, covering 4 overseas countries.

Looking at the 17-year development history of Yang Guofu Malatang, it is not difficult to find that throughout his entrepreneurial process, he followed a strategy of slowing down and advancing with precision. Got every key point right.

First, in the early days of starting his business, Yang Guofu accurately discovered that Malatang originated from Sichuan. Sichuan food is spicy and spicy. Not everyone can tolerate this strong taste, so he added Malatang soup base. Changed to suit local tastes.

With the feature of "mala tang that you can drink soup", Yang Guofu Malatang established its brand in one fell swoop and firmly occupied the market.

In addition, Yang Guofu Malatang also took the lead in changing bowl-style Malatang into weighed Malatang of your choice, and also pioneered the single-pot freshly made model. They are all disruptive innovations.

As early as 2003, when it was founded, Yang Guofu moved Malatang from a roadside stall to a store-style Malatang, overturning the previous roadside stall Malatang. business form.

After 2012, Yang Guofu Malatang eliminated the "dirty and messy" stores and upgraded the stores again to be more in line with the preferences of young people.

Moreover, the types and origins of pepper, star anise, cinnamon, licorice, and even salt used are different, and the taste is also different. Yang Guofu also has a good way of selecting ingredients.

In 2018, Yang Guofu invested a huge investment of 400 million to build a warehouse in Sichuan that integrates procurement, R&D, production, packaging, transportation and logistics. Equipped with seasoning research and development center.

The annual output of this R&D base reaches 15,000 tons, which can meet the supply of raw materials for 20,000 stores.

In Yang Guofu’s view:

Recently, Yang Guofu not only established an unprecedented business school , and also opened an online flagship store, selling self-heating food and hot pot and spicy soup bases.

From the perspective of development route, Yang Guofu is indeed ambitious and is working towards his goal of 10,000 stores and 10 billion.

I just don’t know if Yang Guofu’s vision will become a reality in 2025.

The controversial drawbacks of the spicy giant

Behind the rapid expansion of Yang Guofu Malatang, there has always been controversy and applause.

On major social media, the hygiene situation of Yang Guofu Malatang has been repeatedly exposed.

Netizen "Jiangshan Yiga" said that he went to Yang Guofu Malatang for dinner at around nine o'clock one morning. At that time, he was the only customer who went to pick up food. At that time, I happened to meet the shop owner adding enoki mushrooms.

The shopkeeper took the enoki mushrooms out of the bag and put them on the plate without washing them. The netizen couldn't see it and asked: "You didn't even wash the enoki mushrooms?"

Originally, the netizen did not want to force the shop owner to wash the enoki mushrooms, but the shop owner immediately started arguing with him.

In retrospect, netizens were still angry:

Coincidentally, another netizen " Milk" also encountered a similar situation.

He ordered takeout from Yang Guofu Malatang, and ended up eating a large black unknown object inside. The netizen immediately called the store to ask for a refund, but to his surprise, the store I was unwilling to refund the original price and even had a fight with him.

Netizens were so angry that they could only call and complain.

Objectively speaking, for restaurants with a franchise model like Yang Guofu Malatang, the biggest drawback is the uneven number of good and bad franchisees.

The brand effect depends entirely on the character of the franchisee. If you encounter a franchisee with poor character who harms consumers, it is likely to directly jeopardize the entire brand effect.

Yang Guofu obviously thought of this, so he stopped joining for rectification in the middle. However, the thunderous methods used by the headquarters were unsatisfactory in the eyes of the franchisees. Another scene.

Netizen Shi Nian said:

According to netizens’ revelations, since the date of joining, Franchisees must operate in accordance with the headquarters' standardized operations.

Standardized store decoration, employee clothing, and even marketing cannot have any personalized measures, otherwise it will be viewed as unruly behavior by the headquarters.

For example, if sales are not very good recently, if you want to do some activities, or if you want to add some other dishes based on local characteristics, it is not allowed.

If you are busy too late at night and forget to pour out the leftover soup at the bottom of the bucket in time, if you happen to be discovered by the headquarters inspection staff, you will be fined up to 10,000 yuan. If you do not pay the fine Just cut off all the base material.

Netizens are very helpless:

Excluding rent and transfer fees, one is about 60 square meters A store requires an initial investment of about 200,000 yuan, and many of the decoration materials and equipment provided by the headquarters are several percent higher than the market price.

Some people say, "From the moment a person becomes an entrepreneur, he is destined to have mixed success."

On the road to entrepreneurship, dangers and opportunities always coexist.

Behind Yang Guofu's huge business territory, there are also countless business crises hidden. If you are not careful, you may still lose everything.

Whether Yang Guofu’s 10,000 stores can be opened depends on whether he can continue to move forward cautiously.

Author: July