「November arrived.」
Hailufeng Company’s eel fry finally began to impact the market.
After all, in the month and a half since October, Hailufeng Company had already released 22.8 million glass eels into the dostic market, and they were still producing more.
The fishing season for eel fry typically runs from June to August. The fact that glass eels were still available for sale in November imdiately caught the attention of several cultivation companies.
Cultivation companies in the Min Nan and Lingnan regions, in particular, quickly ordered a batch of glass eels from Hailufeng Company’s salespeople.
「Goose City, Pearl River Delta.」
The boss and a technician of a company that specialized in cultivating glass eels into elvers for sale stared at the items before them: a glass eel cultivation manual, 10 kilograms of glass eels, and 300 kilograms of Hai Xue feed. They both fell silent.
"These are definitely glass eels, and the 0.1-gram variety at that," the boss said with a bitter smile. "To think that the feed formula we worked so hard to develop would beco obsolete overnight."
The technician, Old Dong, looked resigned. "I went to investigate a few nearby farms that bought their glass eels. I found out Hailufeng Company’s formula is incredible—it guarantees a 95% survival rate."
"Dad, what do we do now?" the boss’s son asked anxiously.
After all, their company’s main business had always been cultivating glass eels into elvers for sale. But now, any farm that bought glass eels from Hailufeng Company also received their cultivation techniques, making their elvers completely unnecessary.
The boss, Zhang Xinming, shook his head. "Don’t panic. Judging from Hailufeng Company’s shipping tis, they’ve most likely mastered the technology for artificially breeding eels. We can’t compete with them in the dostic market."
"This is predatory competition!" the young Zhang Bin blurted out, losing his composure.
Seeing his son’s reaction, Zhang Xinming was a little disappointed. "You’re still too young. What’s the use of all this blustering right now?"
"But..."
Zhang Xinming’s eyes narrowed. "There’s still a way. Ah Bin, go to East Japan at once. Didn’t the Rokkaido Eel Company want to buy elvers from us before? Go talk to them and accept their previous offer."
"Dad, you an sell elvers to the Japanese?"
"Exactly. Glass eels are difficult to transport, as they require special equipnt and feed. Elvers, however, are relatively easy to ship. Not many people have likely realized that Hailufeng Company has artificial breeding technology. We need to seize this opportunity to develop the markets in East Japan, Ryukyu, and South Korea."
Soon after, Zhang Xinming had soone order another 100 kilograms of glass eels from Hailufeng Company.
Clearly, Zhang Xinming was very shrewd. He had already guessed that Hailufeng Company was currently struggling with insufficient production capacity.
The dostic market required hundreds of tons of glass eels annually. He saw no need to compete with Hailufeng Company head-on. Instead, he chose a different path: he would take advantage of the difficulty in transporting glass eels, buy them from Hailufeng, cultivate them into elvers, and then export them to places like East Japan.
As for trying to steal Hailufeng Company’s artificial breeding technology, Zhang Xinming knew his own limits. He had tried to artificially breed eels before and ended up losing over two million.
In addition, he knew that many Japanese research institutions and companies were also working on artificial eel breeding projects, but none had made any significant progress.
Therefore, he instinctively assud Hailufeng Company’s technology was incredibly complex, with prohibitively high start-up costs. With a net worth of just a few tens of millions, he couldn’t afford to dabble in such high-tech ventures.
Clearly, this assumption caused Zhang Xinming to miss a golden opportunity.
If he had acted then, secretly bribing so of Hailufeng Company’s farm employees, he might have uncovered the secret.
「anwhile.」
Inside Hailufeng Company’s sales departnt.
When Li Zhou saw the sudden order for 100 kilograms of glass eels, he didn’t take it lightly. Instead, he called the salesperson responsible for the order to ask about it.
He soon learned that this was an order from an eel fry cultivation company.
This put him in a difficult position. Sensing the matter was too important to handle on his own, Li Zhou imdiately called Jiang Miao.
Jiang Miao, who was inspecting farmland in Nanhu Village, saw the call was from Li Zhou and answered, "Li Zhou, what’s the matter?"
"Boss, we got a large order today for 100 kilograms of glass eels. I checked, and the buyer is an eel fry cultivation company from Goose City. Should we cancel the order?"
Jiang Miao thought for a mont. "No need to refuse. Fulfill their order."
"Alright."
Jiang Miao hadn’t refused because, no matter what the other party was planning, Hailufeng Company held the first-mover advantage.
Refusing their order now would only make Hailufeng Company look insecure.
「A day later.」
When Zhang Xinming received the eel fry and feed, he secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
He had been prepared for them to reject his order.
He hadn’t expected Hailufeng Company to deliver it to his doorstep the very next day.
This also made Zhang Xinming put aside his other sches. After all, the fact that they didn’t care he was a rival cultivation company ant Hailufeng Company was suprely confident.
「November 23rd.」
Zhang Bin, who had taken an overnight flight to Kagoshima Prefecture in East Japan a few days prior, had already finalized a contract with the Rokkaido Eel Company.
Fortunately, he had previously studied abroad in East Japan, so he just brought two employees and went directly to Kagoshima Prefecture.
The president of the Rokkaido Eel Company hadn’t expected to be able to procure a batch of elvers, especially with winter fast approaching.
However, the president of the Rokkaido Eel Company didn’t give it much thought, simply assuming the Zhang Family’s business had run into financial trouble and needed the cash flow.
The two parties agreed that Zhang’s Aquatic Seedling Company would sell 400 kilograms of elvers to the Rokkaido Eel Company at a price of $2,000 per kilogram (approximately 2,000 fry per kg), for a total of $800,000.
To prevent the Japanese from backing out, Zhang Bin deliberately included a high penalty for breach of contract.
The Rokkaido Eel Company, thinking they were getting a huge bargain by securing 400 kilograms of fry at that price, didn’t hesitate and quickly signed the contract.
「anwhile.」
Hailufeng Company’s eel fry finally began to influence market prices.
However, the market price was still holding steady at 27,000 yuan per kilogram.
After all, the dostic market alone required 100 tons of glass eels annually, not to ntion international demand. Hailufeng Company’s current production capacity was clearly not enough to crash the market.
Before the end of November, several dostic eel fry cultivation companies had caught on, but their reactions varied.
So, like Zhang Xinming, planned to buy the glass eels and raise them for export.
Others gave up on the fry business and switched to eel farming instead.
Still others simply beca resellers.
But no one tried to get their hands on the breeding technology. Clearly, the long-held belief in the imnse difficulty of artificial eel breeding still dominated their thinking.
As a result, Hailufeng Company’s entire batch of eel fry for the end of the month was fully pre-ordered before they even hatched.
In November, 15.2 million glass eels were sold for a total of 39.97 million yuan, at an average price of 2.63 yuan per fry.
From September to the present, the company had sold a total of 38 million glass eels, generating a total revenue of 100.32 million yuan.
It was estimated that sales would reach 140 million yuan by the end of the year.
This revenue had already covered the company’s previous investnts in the new breeding base, real estate purchases, and the leasing of fish ponds and farmland.
It was estimated that the net profit for the year could reach 100 million yuan—though that was before deducting the 35% personal inco tax.
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