Nongfushanquan recently fell into the "quality is not as good as tap water" storm, not only triggered a rival China Resources Yibao Food and Beverage (Shenzhen) Co. "April 18, China National Hygiene Association Healthy Drinking Water Professional Committee decided to cancel the association membership of Nongfushanquan.
Looking back at the incident, Nongfushanquan "standard door" reflects the current chaos of China's bottled water standards, but also highlights the weak administrative enforcement in this area. For the former, the clean-up work has been from the standard review of professional committees to the national ministries and commissions step by step to promote; but for the latter, "standard dispute" behind the administrative negligence or inaction, but did not get the response of the functional departments. Therefore, fundamentally, the crisis caused by the illegal implementation of standards in Nongfushanquan, is not due to the confusion or conflict of standards, but the lack of basic supervision and corrective action on the implementation of standards by the law enforcement agencies where the enterprise is located.
"Nongfu" accused of court
Nongfushanquan and China Resources Yibao between the fight has been more than half a month. Since March 15, Nongfushanquan was exposed to black unidentified material, brown floating material, and "water source garbage around the city" and other news. April 9, there are media reports, Nongfushanquan bottled water production standards are not as good as the tap water quality standards. The report said, "Comparing the standards of Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces, in cadmium, arsenic, chromium, total bacterial count and many other important water quality standards, the tolerance content of the Zhejiang standard are at least twice as high as the Guangdong standard."
Starting on April 10, Nongfushanquan responded to the official microblogging for three consecutive days, first clarifying that "the product is always higher than any existing national drinking water standards", and then pointed the finger at CR Yeebao, and emphasized that a series of negative reports over the past few months have been "planned" by CR Yeebao. ". Nongfushanquan also sent some of the media a graphic information, detailed list of Nongfushanquan and CR Yibao 13 plant sites or water sources, highlighting the CR Yibao is "tap water", while Nongfushanquan is "spring water", "Deep reservoir water" and so on.
On the evening of April 11, CR Yeebao responded that the company has never been involved in any way in the practices mentioned in the statement of Nongfushanquan in any form. China Resources Yeebao also published a letter to the staff to refute the accusations of Nongfushanquan, said the "cleaner from the cleaner". April 15, Guangzhou consumers to "Nongfushanquan in Guangzhou sales of products do not implement the Guangzhou local standards" as the reason for the lawsuit against the Nongfushanquan; just in the On the same day, China Resources Yeebao will also sue Nongfushanquan in court. China Resources Yibao April 16 in the official microblogging statement, said Nongfushanquan allegations of damage to the reputation of China Resources Yibao.
"Nongfu" was removed from the industry
Quite dramatic is that, since the CR Yeebao published "to take up the legal weapons" open letter, public opinion began to turn. Nongfushanquan after a number of statements are not named again CR Yibao, but focus on "clarifying the water quality standard questioning", and turned to pinch on the Beijing Times.
Nongfushanquan official microblogging publicized several water quality test reports, while many times "named" its water safety questioned the Beijing Times, in the microblogging words: "You can not run away, do not want to run." In this regard, the official microblogging response of the Beijing Times said, "You can not run away before the standard, do not want to run".
The outside world that the Nongfushanquan "standard door", Nongfushanquan implementation of Zhejiang standards (DB33/383) in arsenic, cadmium and other indicators of the limit are loose in the "drinking water health standards" and the revised "bottled (barrel) bottled drinking water hygiene standards. The Nongfushanquan local standards have long been abolished after the introduction of the national standard, which must be implemented in the "bottled (barrel) drinking water health standards", and may not be implemented lower than (GB5749-2006) "drinking water hygiene standards" of other standards.
After this storm, Nongfushanquan was also boycotted by the industry associations. 18 April, China National Health Association Healthy Drinking Water Professional Committee Secretary General Ma Jinya said, Nongfushanquan as China National Health Association Healthy Drinking Water Professional Committee members, in the media exposure of its bottled natural drinking water standards, the Association has been through the mail, telephone and other channels to communicate with them, but Nongfushanquan side! However, Nongfusanquan claimed that it was the most authoritative water research expert in China and did not need the association's guidance, with a "very arrogant attitude". As a result, the association made a decision to remove Nongfushanquan from the association.
Offensive war for marketing
"Behind this water war or due to fierce competition in the industry." A beverage industry veteran to the "International Financial Times" reporter frankly, at present, the profit of the bottled water industry has been pressed very low, for most of the brands, the price down is not feasible.
In fact, the commercial friction between CR Yeebao and Nongfushanquan has a long history. Currently, Nongfushanquan is at the forefront of the bottled water market in the country, especially in the East China stronghold, occupying an absolute advantage. However, in South China, Nongfushanquan has to face competition from brands such as Yeebao, Jingtian, Yili and Watsons. Among them, the most intense competition between Nongfushanquan and Yibao in the Shenzhen market.
It is worth noting that in the past half a month, drinking water, drinking water, bottled water, pure water and other water standards group "fight", the more the outside world to see the more confused. "Currently on the market water standards are more confusing. In addition to the national drinking water standards, there are a mountain of numerous local standards, and health, quality inspection departments have a set of standards system, the phenomenon of cross and even contradictions between standards is very serious, on the surface of the *** department introduced, but in fact, there are often corporate interests mixed in." The above people told reporters.
The information shows that the country only for pure water and mineral water national standards, and natural water has no national standards, local standards have been developed around. Therefore, the mineral water is generally written in the implementation of the standard "GB" (i.e., the national standard), spring water (or drinking natural water) to implement the enterprise's own development of the "product standard number" or the standard number for the "DB" local standards. The company's own "product standard number" or standard number "DB" of the local standards.
FMCG industry marketing expert Chen Xiaolong said in an interview with the "International Finance Daily" reporter, the FMCG industry is a relatively full market-oriented industry, competition is very fierce, because most of the private enterprises, with a strong sense of worry, aggressiveness is also stronger, especially the current beverage season is approaching, it is inevitable that companies compete for market share between the gunfire. In addition, the FMCG industry more impulse spending, often make some small means of immediate effect on sales, and products such as mineral water such as homogenization is very serious, to stand out in similar products, often also need special means.