Chapter 328 - 163: Vibrant Vitality

Chapter 328: Chapter 163: Vibrant Vitality

’Although he had his own thoughts on the matter,’ Jiang Miao still nodded. "You can handle these arrangements. What do you plan to do with the camellia honey?"

Du Liheng had considered this problem as well. "Although the bees’ processing greatly reduces the toxicity of the camellia honey, some people might have allergic reactions, and there are still trace amounts of residual toxins. If we were to process it further, it would increase costs, making it not worth the effort."

"Then what’s your proposal?"

"After discussing it with Manager Kong from the Gannan Branch, we believe it’s best not to sell this type of honey on the market. We don’t want to tarnish the company’s reputation. After all, this is the internet age, and it’s all too easy for people to start malicious rumors. I propose we harvest the camellia honey and send it over to the Monan Branch."

Jiang Miao nodded slightly. "That’s a good use for it."

It was worth noting that the Monan Branch’s 200,000 mu of soybeans and 150,000 mu of pastureland could also produce 4,000 to 6,000 tons of Purple Alfalfa and soybean honey each year. Consequently, that location also needed about 100,000 bee hives.

However, the Monan Branch only had a nectar flow season of five to seven months each year. The remaining five to seven months were a period of nectar dearth.

Especially during the lean months of February and March, it was essential to provide supplemental sugar syrup and honey to ensure the bees’ survival.

As for migrating the hives south, that was something the Monan Branch would definitely not consider.

This was 100,000 hives, not a few hundred. Migrating south would require at least 100 large trucks, plus drivers and technicians. The cost was higher than simply overwintering them on-site. Furthermore, there were traffic risks involved in the migration, and the bees could also get sick from failing to acclimate to the new environment.

Since they had to overwinter on-site, the Monan apiary needed to address the issue of bee food for February and March.

And as it happened, the Gannan apiary would be producing a large amount of slightly toxic camellia honey. Transporting it directly to Monan was far cheaper than migrating the hives south.

This killed two birds with one stone: it put the otherwise wasted camellia honey to good use, and it helped the Monan apiary get through the lean period of early spring.

Of course, Hailufeng Company’s beekeeping operations wouldn’t severely impact other beekeepers because Hailufeng Company’s nectar sources were on its own land, not encroaching on the traditional nectar grounds of other beekeepers.

As for the issue of their retail price being too low, this also wouldn’t severely impact beekeepers.

The answer lay in the purchase price of raw honey and the market retail price of concentrated honey.

One only had to lay out the two prices to see who was making all the money.

The purchase price for raw honey was 6,000 to 7,000 yuan per ton.

Yet the retail price of concentrated honey was as high as 60 to 120 yuan per kilogram. Converted, that’s 60,000 to 120,000 yuan per ton.

The price difference between them was 10- to 20-fold.

On average, it takes 3.7 kilograms of raw honey to produce 1 kilogram of concentrated honey. Even including various production costs, the total cost for one ton of concentrated honey was at most 30,000 yuan. With proper management, this cost could be brought down to around 26,000 yuan per ton.

After successive markups from manufacturers, distributors, and retailers, the price increased two- to four-fold.

The beekeepers barely made any money.

Instead, it was the manufacturers, distributors, and retailers who were lining their pockets.

Therefore, there was still a huge potential to lower the current retail price of honey.

As for whether manufacturers would try to push down the purchase price of raw honey, the answer was, inevitably, yes.

But that didn’t mean they would succeed.

Where did Hailufeng Company’s current beekeeping staff come from? Fifty percent of them were former migratory beekeepers.

Why had they stopped their migratory beekeeping?

It was because they couldn’t make a living, and the work was grueling. They spent every year chasing nectar sources and migrating. It truly wasn’t a job most people were willing to do.

A small, family-run migratory beekeeping operation typically had 30 to 100 hives. If they were lucky and found a large area of crops in a major nectar flow, they could harvest 1.5 to 5 tons of raw honey in a month, an income of about 12,000 to 35,000 yuan.

But the problem was that along the way they had expenses for gas, vehicle depreciation, lodging, daily living costs, medicine, and bee feed (honey and sugar).

If they encountered a bad year, they could end up with nothing to show for it.

In a relatively good year, the annual gross profit was only 30,000 to 50,000 yuan, and this was usually the combined income for a couple or an entire family.

That being the case, when faced with the olive branch extended by Hailufeng Company, the vast majority of young beekeepers were willing to switch from migratory beekeepers to stationary beekeeping technicians. They could get a base salary of at least 6,500 yuan a month, plus performance bonuses and other benefits. Wasn’t that better than eating in the wild and sleeping under the stars, migrating all year to chase honey? At the very least, it made it much easier to find a wife.

After all, in this day and age, young beekeepers were not a hot commodity. In the matchmaking market, they were considered even less competitive than farmers.

Upon hearing that they spent more than half the year living in the wilderness all over the country, what young woman would be able to tolerate that kind of life?

Therefore, when many older beekeepers heard that Hailufeng Company was recruiting beekeeping technicians on a large scale, they immediately sent over the children who were supposed to inherit the family business. They knew the harsh reality of their profession and didn’t want their children to repeat their own miserable lives.

Who knew when they might get into a car accident or run into a wild boar in the wilderness? The risks were simply too high.

Thus, through this method, Hailufeng Company formed a network of relationships with beekeeper communities all over the country.

Currently, if the production lines at Hailufeng Company’s honey processing plants, such as those in Gannan and Monan, ran around the clock, they could produce about 120,000 tons of concentrated honey a year. Moreover, Hailufeng Company could expand its production capacity several-fold in just a few months.

If other honey processing plants were unwilling to purchase raw honey at a price of 6,000 to 7,000 yuan per ton, Hailufeng Company would definitely step in to buy up the supply. After all, concentrated honey could be stored for two to three years.

And even with a support price of 6,000 to 7,000 yuan per ton, if the retail price was 40 yuan per kilogram, there would still be a gross profit of over ten yuan.

Even if Hailufeng Company sold wholesale to distributors and retailers, they would still have a gross profit of at least 5 yuan per kilogram.

This was market competition, after all.

It was all about survival of the fittest.

’If they think a gross profit of 5 yuan per kilogram is too low, they’re more than welcome to close up shop and hand the market over to Hailufeng Company.’

Jiang Miao had long since figured out the typical behavior of many domestic companies. They would play dead as long as the knife wasn’t cutting them. But the moment it was at their throats, every last one of them would scramble to compete more ruthlessly than anyone else.

As long as he could keep the beekeeping community stable, the honey processors, distributors, and retailers were nothing but paper tigers.