Chapter 47: Chapter 47: Demand Exceeds Supply
The three varieties of strawberries were officially launched on the online store.
As customers who had pre-ordered began to receive their strawberries, Hailufeng Company’s three varieties were met with a flood of positive reviews.
Over a week had passed since the official launch, and Zhang Xinyi was leading her team in reviewing the online store’s backend data.
"Manager, should we delete these few comments saying our prices are too high?" the backend administrator asked quietly.
Zhang Xinyi shook her head. "No. We’re targeting the high-end market, so aren’t high prices normal? As long as the customers aren’t posting malicious comments, there’s no need to delete them."
After more than a week of sales, the online store department had sold approximately 1,300 one-kilogram strawberry gift boxes. At an average price of about 65 yuan per kilogram, this generated a total revenue of 85,200 yuan.
"Manager, our canned eel sales have also increased quite a bit over the past week."
Zhang Xinyi checked the backend inventory data.
Currently, Hailufeng Company’s cannery could produce 70,000 tinplate cans of eel and 15,000 pouches of soft-packed kabayaki eel per month.
The soft-packed kabayaki eel pouches were mostly purchased by Japanese restaurants and unagi rice restaurants in various regions.
The soft-packed kabayaki eel had become the cannery’s flagship product. The only reason they continued to produce the tinplate cans was to use up the scraps generated during the soft pack production process.
This was because the soft-packed kabayaki eel was made from a whole eel. The standard for one pouch was 1.2 kilograms of eel meat, priced at 120 yuan.
However, a female eel typically weighs around 1.5 to 1.8 kilograms. After removing the head, tail, and viscera, about 1.2 to 1.5 kilograms of meat remained.
This meant that some eels were overweight and a portion had to be trimmed off to control the weight at around 1.23 kilograms.
Naturally, the trimmed-off meat couldn’t be wasted. It was used, along with whole eels that didn’t meet the 1.2-kilogram minimum, to produce the tinplate-canned eel.
Fortunately, Jiang Miao had no intention of damaging his own reputation. Although they used scraps, the meat was still good quality. He had Li Xinhua increase the eel meat content in each tinplate can to 110 grams while maintaining the original price.
Even so, over the past few months, the cannery had still accumulated an inventory of over 60,000 tinplate cans of eel.
Meanwhile, the soft-packed kabayaki eel was in high demand and couldn’t keep up with orders.
This was unavoidable. The soft-packed kabayaki eel was purchased by Japanese restaurants and unagi rice restaurants, while the tinplate-canned eel was primarily bought by individual customers, with some sold in supermarkets. The two products had very different customer bases.
Zhang Xinyi reviewed the sales performance of each product in the backend.
She discovered that for the entire month of March, the 15,000 pouches of soft-packed kabayaki eel were often out of stock for several days at a time. It was clear that large clients were snapping them up.
The profit margin on the soft-packed kabayaki eel was also good.
The 15,000 pouches generated 1,695,000 yuan in sales, with an average price of about 113 yuan per pouch. The average price didn’t reach 120 yuan mainly due to some losses during logistics and transportation, as well as discounts for large clients.
As for the tinplate cans in March, the online store only sold 7,253 cans, generating a total revenue of 101,000 yuan.
Thankfully, supermarkets and direct-sale stores were also selling them; otherwise, the inventory of tinplate cans would just keep piling up.
After reviewing the sales data for the strawberries and canned eel, Zhang Xinyi looked at the sales for the eel fry and Hai Xue feed.
Through the online store department’s channels, a total of 7.16 million eel fry were sold for a sales revenue of 15.75 million yuan. Over 25 tons of Hai Xue feed were sold, generating 370,000 yuan in revenue.
Zhang Xinyi did the math. The online store department’s total sales for March had reached 17,606,827 yuan.
She double-checked the figures one more time before recording them in a document on her tablet. After having the backend administrator verify them as well, Zhang Xinyi printed out the document.
...
At the end of every month, Jiang Miao would work from the chairman’s office at the headquarters.
His brother-in-law knocked and entered, holding a work report.
"Brother-in-law, have a seat."
"Ah Miao, this is the report on the newly expanded 200-mu open-air fishponds. We’ve already transferred some of our homegrown leptocephali into them."
"Oh? You’ve already moved them?"
His brother-in-law nodded. "All moved. It’s only four hundred thousand leptocephali for two hundred mu of ponds. We’re breeding nearly thirty million fry a month. It’s easy to set some aside to meet our own needs. Once we complete the cycle, we won’t need to buy mature eels from outside sources anymore."
"You’ve worked hard. Have some tea, Brother-in-law." Jiang Miao poured him a cup of Phoenix Dancong.
The brother-in-law took a sip of tea and then brought up the production expansion. "Right, Ah Miao, all the indoor breeding pools are now in use. We expect to double our monthly eel fry production capacity, and we should reach that scale by next month. The market price is still falling. Should we reduce our shipments?"
Jiang Miao refilled his brother-in-law’s cup, a faint smile playing on his lips. "The bomb at West Sea Company is about to go off. What do you think the market’s reaction will be?"
"You mean the eel farmers in Ryukyu, South Korea, and Southeast Asia will be forced to buy fry from us and the Rokkaido Eel Company?"
Jiang Miao held up his index finger and wagged it. "The Rokkaido Eel Company’s production capacity can’t even satisfy the East Japan market. Therefore, the international market will have no choice but to turn to us."
"That’s great! It looks like eel fry prices will see a rebound in April." His brother-in-law rubbed his hands together involuntarily.
KNOCK KNOCK...
"Come in."
Li Zhou walked in.
Seeing Li Zhou enter, the brother-in-law also stood up and picked up his briefcase. "You two get to it. I’m heading back to the farm to check on things."
"Take care, Brother-in-law."
"No need to see me out. You’re busy."
After his brother-in-law left, Jiang Miao poured Li Zhou a cup of tea. "Have some tea."
Li Zhou looked worried. "Boss, although we sold all the eel fry in March, the pre-orders for April are down by nearly three million."
"It’s fine. I’ll take care of it."
"Uh..." Li Zhou hesitated, at a loss for words. But seeing his boss’s confident demeanor, he wondered if he was just worrying for nothing.
Just as Li Zhou was wondering what to say, Jiang Miao opened the folder.
"Sales were decent this month."
The sales department’s performance in March was indeed decent. They had sold a total of 23.24 million glass eels, and along with the accompanying Hai Xue feed, the sales revenue was 52.73 million yuan.
"Uh, it’s all thanks to your brilliant guidance, Boss," Li Zhou replied quickly with a dry laugh.
"Alright, enough with the flattery. The company won’t forget your contributions. The Qingming Festival is coming up, so how about this: the sales department can take a week off. Get some rest."
"What? Is that really okay?" Li Zhou hesitated.
Jiang Miao shook his head. "I don’t mean anything by it. I just want you all to rest for a bit. A good work-life balance is important, after all."
"Alright then! On behalf of the entire sales department, thank you for your consideration, Boss."
Then, Jiang Miao gave a meaningful order, "By the way, if any clients call during the holiday wanting to order eel fry, have everyone give the same story: tell them the company is cleaning the fishponds and we need some time before we can resume supply."
"Cleaning the fishponds?" Li Zhou nodded. Though his mind was filled with doubt, he had no intention of pressing the issue. He took a sip of tea and then excused himself.
A moment later, Zhang Xinyi also came in.
She reported on the online store department’s sales performance.
After reviewing the report, Jiang Miao gave Zhang Xinyi the same instructions: tell the online store’s sales staff that if any customers want to buy eel fry during the Qingming Festival, they should use the excuse that the farm is cleaning its ponds and temporarily suspend all eel fry sales.
Zhang Xinyi was also full of questions, but she didn’t dare ask for the reason either.
