After breaking the knife: Zhang Xiaoquan faces the "impossible triangle"

(Picture source: Oriental IC)

Zhang Xiaoquan, a reporter from the Economic Observation Network Gao Ruohuan, has a 400 -year -old scissors brand history. He repeatedly turned over on non -main products "kitchen knives" and related issues.

Following "the kitchen knife can not shoot garlic" and "the method of cutting vegetables for decades is wrong" caused public opinion uproar, since Zhang Xiaoquan launched the "Broken Sword Conversion Order" on July 18, some netizens have been exposed on social platforms. Zhang Xiaoquan's "broken knife".

On July 21, a netizen in Jiangsu showed a video of chopped chicken legs with Zhang Xiaoquan kitchen knife and a sword with a broken and knife. A woman in Maoming, Guangdong cut the taro with Zhang Xiaoquan kitchen knife, and the knife was directly broken in taro.

This small probability product quality problem with "customer complaint rate is only 0.018%" sells in the mouth of Zhang Xiaoquan.

Broken: The "impossible triangle" of the craft

The protagonist of this quality incident, "Dragon Bark, Cut Two -Sword", is a product that Zhang Xiaoquan was listed in 2018. Product introduction shows that this knife uses "50Cr15mov stainless steel, high strength and good abrasion resistance."

Why can the knife of stainless steel break? The reason for Zhang Xiaoquan may be related to factors such as high product hardness and improper use of consumers. The toughness of the knife with high hardness will be poor, and the force is not uniformly broken during the horizontal auction.

Wang Liang, who has more than 20 years of experience in the steel forging kitchen knife, told reporters that the hardness, toughness, and abrasion resistance of a kitchen knife is selected from hundreds of steel. "It is impossible." This means that in order to strengthen a certain performance of a product, producers may sacrifice a corner of the triangle.

This is actually a choice question in craftsmanship. Behind the craftsmanship is the result of the brand's continuous subdivision of product positioning.

Xia Qianliang, general manager of Zhang Xiaoquan, said in an interview that the consumption price of many mainstream knives is still between 8 yuan and 20 yuan. In his understanding, "That's not a kitchen knife, that is called an iron film" Essence In the next five years, Xia Qianliang will sell the average price of Chinese family kitchen knives in the "confidence" of the 300 yuan mark. , Slice knife, etc., continuously expand the sales scope of this category. This is also the product play of international mainstream knives.

From 2018 to 2020, Zhang Xiaoquan's products accounted for sales of more than 300 yuan, from 5.53%to 6.71%, and the gross profit margin of the product has always stabilized at more than 40%.

House: Traditional craftsmanship and industrialization

But in Wang Liang's view, functional segmentation does not mean the lack of product quality. The selection and forging process of steel is the two important factors to ensure the quality of the tool.

"The connection between different steels needs to be forged repeatedly. Experienced masters will adjust the force, duration and ignition of the splash sparkling sparks during the forging. Deficiency. But if both are not available, the product is prone to quality problems. "Wang Liang said.

As an industrial enterprise that produces various types of knife cuts and modern life hardware, Zhang Xiaoquan's knife product "Sword Cut the first share" mainly comes from foundry production. Its prospectus shows that the overall output of Zhang Xiaoquan's knife in 2020 was 6.598 million, of which 1.463 million were out; OEM output was 5.135 million, accounting for 78%. The combination of knives and knife cuts, the product positioning of self -produced products and OEM products is basically the same.

Zhang Xiaoquan's largest foundry manufacturer is Yangjiang Kitchen Music Industry Co., Ltd. Guangdong Yangjiang is also one of the most important production bases for Chinese hardware knives. The industry also has the saying that "World Swords Cut in China, Chinese Knife Cut Yangjiang".

In October 2021, Zhang Xiaoquan was officially put into production at the intelligent manufacturing base of Yangjiang, Guangdong, and plans to produce more than 30 million pieces of various products per year. Earlier in May 2020, Yangjiang Jinhui also acquired Wang Mazi, a century -old store in Beijing. At this point, Zhang Xiaoquan, Wang Mazi, and Eighteen Zi, the three famous domestic knife and cut brands, have gathered in Yangjiang.

After many years of development, Yangjiang's knife companies have developed industrialized transformation in order to change the dilemma of the production of small workshops and low technology and technology. Zhang Xiaoquan is also one of the first companies to apply robots. It has automated production equipment such as blade robots, welding robots, and water mills.

Automated production lines are conducive to promoting the standardization of traditional skills and ensuring the stability of product quality. But at the same time, industrialization does not happen overnight in terms of transformation and integration of traditional handicrafts.

Wang Liang, who visited many large suppliers in Yangjiang, said that compared with traditional handicraft burning stoves forging knives, the automated production line often uses electromagnetic heating, and regular heating tools will be transmitted to the next process. In this process, time is fixed. It is difficult to determine whether the materials with different ingredients from the appearance whether the materials of different ingredients are heated or forged in place. If the heat is not quenched, the steel cannot be well integrated, and the tools are prone to quality problems.

"Brand knives on the market price of about 200 yuan-300 yuan, the production cost of Yangjiang is less than 20 yuan." In Wang Liang's view, the tools under the industrialized assembly line have stability and cost advantage, but the quality is also different. Not all, which is related to the manufacturer's in order to control costs and not use good steel, but also difficult to unify finished product testing standards.

Wang Liang has seen a production workshop. There is only one worker on the fully automated assembly line. He is responsible for pressing the button. The production line can produce thousands of knives a day. Li: Productism

Zhang Xiaoquan, who is not the main product "kitchen knife", has a 400 -year history of scissors brand history, is not a cold one day.

The Zhang Xiaoquan brand was founded in the first year of Chongzhen (1628) in the Ming Chongzhen. The craftsman Zhang Xiaoquan led Zhang Jingao to come to Hangzhou Daijing Lane to produce ancestral scissors. Due to the use of Zhejiang Longquan Hao Steel as raw materials, it was carefully made, and the scissors were durable. "Zhang Xiaoquan" scissors were listed as tribute during the Qianlong period. In 1915, they also won the second prize of the Panama World Expo. The first West Lake Expo won the award in 1929.

In 2006, "Zhang Xiaoquan" was identified by the Ministry of Commerce as the first batch of Chinese old names. In the inheritance of the scissors, Zhang Xiaoquan has the right to speak.

However, in the category of kitchen knives, Xia Qianliang used the chef of Michelin to "educate" consumers. Zhang Xiaoquan seemed to have no right to define industry standards.

Taking the product introduction of Jingdong's official website as an example, Zhang Xiaoquan's knife has a slightly higher positioning "Quanjin", Black Gold Series, and Jiangshan series. The longest part of the product promotion is "imported steel" and the introduction of high -carbon steel performance of various ingredients. The introduction of the forging process is not detailed.

"If the products are produced by the foundry, there is really nothing to introduce the craftsmanship." In Wang Liang's view, Zhang Xiaoquan's scissors are really good, but the production process of the tool is not comparable to that of scissors.

Someone once asked Zhang Xiaoquan whether the target brand is a double person. In 2019, Zhang Xinxia, ​​the daughter of Zhang Guodong, chairman of Zhang Xiaoquan Group, said in an exclusive interview with the "Family Enterprise" magazine that Zhang Xiaoquan's target was actually Japan's Beiyin Group.

Japan's Beiyin Co., Ltd. was established in 1908 to create a portable knife. The current products include a variety of series such as beauty tools and supplies, family cooking supplies, cultural supplies, industrial blade, and medical swords.

In Zhang Xinxia's opinion, the Beiyin Group is a magical existence. Many well -known knife brands in Japan are under its own. They use different brands to cover different consumer layers, and the product line is complete.

After the listing in 2021, Zhang Xiaoquan also adopted a similar strategy. In addition to the scissors of fist products, Zhang Xiaoquan is also involved in tools, kitchen accessories (cutting boards, electronic scale), waterware cups, tableware products, beauty care (nail clamps), pots, etc.

Zhang Xiaoquan, a century -old name, is no longer just synonymous with the category of "scissors".

And when Xia Qianliang said to "educate" Chinese consumers, Zhang Xiaoquan wanted to be targeting the bellite, and his general manager of Shanghai Beiyin Trading Co., Ltd. Watanabe Boming, but was interviewed when he participated in the Expo in 2021, " As an example, the household kitchen knife products are the same as the sales of the Western -style slender kitchen knives at the beginning, but the actual sales of the Chinese market prove that the traditional Chinese kitchen knife is still favored by Chinese consumers. Therefore, the company is targeted. The land has designed and produced more types of Chinese kitchen knives for the Chinese market. "

Watanabe Boliva said that as the sales scale in the Chinese market continues to expand, Beiyin will also actively develop products that are more suitable for Chinese consumers, and improve their products and sales strategies for Chinese consumers' habits and preferences.

On this road of "education" or "service" consumers, Zhang Xiaoquan seemed to be the opposite brand development path with the company he wanted to catch up.

Zhang Xiaoquan can do scissors. Why can't you do a kitchen knife? Zhang Xinxia seems to have given the answer in the above interview.

She said that the skill of the inheritance of the old craftsmanship of scissors of scissors is that it can judge the quality of the scissors, where the quality is, and whether they need to work, but the naked eyes are not visible. Facing the process of mechanization, in the process of digital treatment in the handicraft process, whether the scissors produced by mechanical production are the same as the handmade, or the master must be checked by the master. However, it takes a long time to train a new handicraft.

However, Zhang Xiaoquan, who quickly realizes the value of a century -old brand brand, how to balance the accumulation of brand technology precipitation, consumers' quality and innovative expectations for the century -old brand, will become the "impossible triangle" that listed companies will face the next "impossible triangle" to face Essence

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