Chapter 424: System

After signing with Hailufeng Company, these chicken farms would still use antibiotics like enrofloxacin and oxytetracycline, but only up to 30 days before the hens started laying eggs.

According to the Veterinary Pharmacopoeia, 2000 Edition, the withdrawal period for enrofloxacin in chickens is eight days, but its use in laying hens is prohibited.

To ensure there was no drug residue in the eggs, it was generally recommended to stop using enrofloxacin at least 28 days before the hens began to lay. Hailufeng Company extended this period to 30 days.

If a hen fell ill close to its laying period, it would first be isolated and then treated with natural antibiotics like allicin or berberine. Any eggs laid during treatment had to be destroyed. If the treatment was ineffective, the sick hen would be culled directly.

Combined with Hailufeng Company’s requirements for guaranteed egg quality, costs rose significantly.

But under such requirements, coupled with strict monitoring, the quality of the eggs was absolutely-unquestionable.

Other fruits and vegetables were managed with the same philosophy.

Currently, the eggs were already available in the Hailufeng Specialty Store’s physical locations and on its app. The other fruits and vegetables were still in the growing stage and not yet for sale.

In truth, Jiang Miao wasn’t too worried about the quality of the eggs. What truly concerned him were the fruits and vegetables.

Take chives, for example. They are a hotbed for excessive pesticide residue among vegetables. To kill pests, many farmers prefer to use highly effective, high-toxicity pesticides. However, the more effective a pesticide is at killing pests, the more toxic it usually is.

So why not use low-toxicity pesticides when they are available?

The answer came down to one thing: profit.

Low-toxicity pesticides are expensive, less effective, and have a short half-life.

High-toxicity pesticides are cheap, highly effective, and have a long half-life.

For the sake of profit, farmers would naturally choose the highly toxic pesticides that had been explicitly banned and phased out.

It was just like with many citrus fruit growers. Why would some of them collude with distributors to secretly use acid-reducing agents? The reason was to get their products to market early. By being the first to sell, a grower could earn a few dozen cents more per pound, and the distributor could make a few dollars more per pound.

Since ancient times, profit has always been the most tempting lure.

And although these rotten apples were a minority, they often set a terrible precedent, triggering a vicious cycle where bad money drives out good.

To avoid tarnishing the Hailufeng Specialty Store’s reputation, Jiang Miao would absolutely not allow any relaxation of control over their contracted growers and farmers. Some farmers had a bad habit: if you didn’t manage them, they’d love to cut corners.

For fruits and vegetables, Hailufeng Company offered a very generous cut. A purchase price of 60% of the retail price was one of the highest in the country.

If they still couldn’t properly manage the fruits and vegetables they grew at that purchase price, then they only had themselves to blame.

Lü Weibin continued, “Right now, the growers in our pilot program are all local, so we can see them firsthand. That makes managing them relatively simple, and they wouldn’t dare to cut corners with us. But when it comes to growers and farmers from other regions, I suggest the Agricultural Cooperation Division proceed with caution.”

Jiang Haibo nodded slightly at this. “That does make sense. It would be best for us to designate a few specific regions. On one hand, it would facilitate centralized management, and on the other, our inspectors wouldn’t have to travel too far for spot checks.”

Jiang Miao made the final decision. “Let’s tentatively set three regions, then: Eastern Guangdong, Northern Gan, and Ji Dong. We can expand to other areas once we have enough personnel.”

This was a decision made out of necessity.

If they didn’t start their partnerships in regions where the company already had a foundation, they could run into situations where monitoring was inadequate.

After all, many fruits and vegetables are extremely time-sensitive. Even with a cold-chain logistics system, if samples weren’t sent for testing promptly, it was possible for the produce to be sold before the test results were even back.

Therefore, under these circumstances, they could only start in regions with laboratories nearby.

There was no other way. It was impossible for Hailufeng Company to produce all of its own agricultural products; it was neither realistic nor economical.

If they were going to rely on growers and farmers to supply their products, then they had to make some compromises.

This wasn’t like when Hailufeng Company contracted its own land in Monan, where they could implement large-scale mechanized, intensive, and technologically advanced production.

Individual growers and farmers, all sorts of different people, scattered all across the country—the slightest lapse in attention could lead to substandard products appearing.

This was also another reason why supermarkets like Pang Donglai found it difficult to expand: the difficulty of supply chain management increases with the variety and volume of products supplied.

One misstep, and a supplier, grower, or farmer could suddenly cause a major scandal, severely damaging the brand you had painstakingly built.

Moreover, if you expanded too quickly, you also had to be wary of competitors trying to sabotage you. For example, they might secretly bribe someone to intentionally spray produce with pesticides, causing residue levels to exceed the limits. Then they’d have someone pose as a whistleblower, expose the issue, and hire paid online trolls to fan the flames.

Building a brand is incredibly difficult, often requiring years of painstaking effort.

But destroying a brand can take just a few days.

The current internet environment was just that terrifying and extreme.

All those online celebrities who skyrocketed to fame and then had their careers implode were a classic example.

In the world of the internet, a person’s strengths can be infinitely magnified, and so can their weaknesses. Perhaps this proved the old saying: what brings you to power will also be your downfall.

Jiang Miao wanted to help farmers, but he wouldn’t do so blindly. On the contrary, he had to strictly regulate the contracted farmers to ensure they earned a reasonable profit, Hailufeng Company received high-quality products, and consumers got good value for their money.