Four self - owned farms, creating a burst of freshness: A decade of reconstruction of Zuo Ting You Yuan Fresh Beef Hot Pot

Ten years is a watershed in the catering industry. It means being noticed and also means being taken for granted. In this fast - changing market, it's rare to find a brand that has persisted in a niche category for ten years and still stands at the top of the category.

Not long ago, Zuo Ting You Yuan held its tenth - anniversary brand press conference in Inner Mongolia, for the first time systematically disclosing the brand's closed - loop layout in the entire fresh beef industry chain and pushing "antibiotic - free fresh beef" to the center of the stage.

In 2003, when Zheng Jian, the founder of Zuo Ting You Yuan, first stepped into Shanghai, he never imagined that his entrepreneurial journey would be bound to "fresh beef" for life. From Chaoshan to East China, from being unable to find suitable beef to opening more than 150 stores, what has brought Zuo Ting You Yuan to where it is today is the unchanging pursuit of "freshness".

"Actually, I wanted to start in 2003, but I couldn't make it work." In an interview, Zheng Jian looked back on the starting point more than twenty years ago in a calm tone. However, it was that in - feasible beginning that became the anchor point for the brand's logic ten years later.

Zheng Jian, the founder of Zuo Ting You Yuan

01. A Bite of Freshness Changed the Industry

In 2015, Zuo Ting You Yuan was officially founded. Twelve years had passed since Zheng Jian first came to Shanghai. Choosing to start at this time was not an accident.

Externally, the newly - broadcast "A Bite of China 2" increased the national consumers' attention to the quality of ingredients. The relatively niche category of fresh beef hot pot at that time was also put on more people's dining tables. Internally, it was a return after waiting for twelve years.

Zuo Ting You Yuan didn't choose to start from the "popularity" but from "freshness".

"We insisted on self - slaughtering in the first store." This statement sounds like an expression of "conviction", but in fact, it's just a response to reality. Zheng Jian explained, "I couldn't make it work in 2003 because I couldn't solve the problem of ingredients." To make fresh beef hot pot, fresh ingredients are the key. Even after more than a decade of starting the business, he still couldn't find a perfect and stable channel with controllable quality.

If you don't control the ingredients, don't even talk about freshness. So, from the first store, Zuo Ting You Yuan built its own slaughtering system. This is a heavy path that almost all catering entrepreneurs avoid. While peers were investing more resources in store operations, marketing, location selection and other asset - operation logics, Zuo Ting You Yuan spent money on things that users couldn't see.

This "heavy" investment seemed inappropriate at that time, and it could even be said to go against business intuition. Hot pot is a "popular" category with a low user - cognitive threshold, a standardized serving process, and high space utilization efficiency. Few brands would choose to break into the market through "industry - chain integration". But Zuo Ting You Yuan did just that.

After ten years, Zuo Ting You Yuan's pioneering "Four Owns": its own ranch, its own cattle - raising, its own slaughterhouse, and its own logistics, form a rare closed - loop in the entire industry chain in the industry.

They own about 360,000 mu of natural pastures in Xilingol, Inner Mongolia. The calves eat grass and drink spring water and are carefully raised for about 500 days. In the breeding process, they use total mixed ration and antibiotic - free epidemic prevention to ensure the flavor and safety of the meat. At the slaughter end, they built a modern slaughterhouse of about 6,000 square meters, with two slaughters and two deliveries a day, and the whole process is under cold - chain transportation. The annual round - trip mileage of cold - chain distribution reaches nearly 4.6 million kilometers.

"Because this category requires such efforts. Freshness is not just empty talk." This might be the confidence or responsibility for Zuo Ting You Yuan to achieve the status of "the King of Chinese Fresh Beef Hot Pot" today.

It must be admitted that this system was not originally a business story for the capital or a slogan written by the marketing team. Instead, it was designed to solve the problem of "not being able to find cattle" back then.

Today, it has become an "asset - heavy barrier" that others can't imitate. Zheng Jian is not in a hurry for quick success. "You have to admit that this was not designed by you. It's the market that has gradually pushed you onto this path."

02. "Freshness, Health, and Quality": The Brand's Keywords Grew Gradually

The consistent keyword of Zuo Ting You Yuan is freshness. This is Zheng Jian's most basic understanding of ingredients as a native of Chaoshan, a muscle memory from his catering experience. However, "health" and "quality" were understood as the journey progressed.

Frozen meat and fresh meat, although both are beef, are worlds apart. The logic of frozen meat is for circulation efficiency. From the perspective of nutrition and flavor, fresh meat preserves more nutrients than frozen meat. Although frozen ingredients can slow down spoilage at low temperatures, they cause some nutrient loss and affect the texture and taste of the meat. Repeated freezing and thawing will damage the cell structure, making the meat loose and reducing its flavor.

In an era when "freshness" was not yet an industry consensus, Zuo Ting You Yuan had already taken many "pioneering" actions. For example, seven or eight years ago, they started to cooperate with Nanjing Agricultural University and Rugao Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau to establish a targeted planting base in Rugao, a "long - life town", specifically supplying leafy vegetables for hot pot. "At that time, we didn't have many ideas. We just thought the local environment was good." But looking back now, these decisions have caught up with the "healthy diet" trend.

After the pandemic, when the concept of great health became a consensus, the logic of "freshness" further extended: if you want health, you need freshness; and health ultimately means verifiable quality.

Antibiotic - free fresh beef is a key supply point that Zuo Ting You Yuan has achieved in this chain. The cattle from the Xilingol pasture are raised for more than 500 days in an antibiotic - free breeding system, and then sent to the stores through slaughtering, cutting, testing, and cold - chain transportation. Each piece of beef undergoes 120 tests and has passed the antibiotic - free certification of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

What is "antibiotic - free"? The official explanation of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences is: "Antibiotic - free fresh beef means that there are no residues of antimicrobial drugs in fresh beef." Zuo Ting You Yuan has re - defined the quality standard of fresh beef through its "Four Owns" supply chain's control over beef, and it is also the first brand to achieve full - product certification.

For the beef category, "freshness" itself is also the direction of industrial upgrading that the country is promoting. As of June 2024, a series of national standards such as "Fresh and Frozen Cut Beef" and "Fresh (Frozen) Livestock and Poultry Products", as well as agricultural industry standards such as "Beef Grade and Specification" and "Beef Grading" have been successively issued in China. The intensive introduction of these standards marks that the fresh beef industry is moving from "empirical knowledge" to "professional evaluation", and it also means that the country is accelerating the construction of the "fresh - meat standard system".

"Do you think what we're doing is heavy? Yes. But it's precisely because we've taken a heavy - handed approach that we've survived until now," Zheng Jian said.

For consumers, this "heaviness" has become a sense of reassurance. "Customers will bring their children to eat hot pot here because they know it's safe and reliable," Zheng Jian added.

This brand perception has also influenced Zuo Ting You Yuan's subsequent communication actions. At the tenth - anniversary node, they invited Tengger as the brand spokesperson. This artist, who has a mass base among people from the 1960s to the 2000s, is a representative of "cross - generational popularity". Zheng Jian's judgment is: "What he has accumulated over the decades has not become outdated. We hope our brand can be the same."

In addition to Tengger, Zuo Ting You Yuan is also expanding more lifestyle touchpoints. They cooperated with the China Children and Teenagers' Fund to launch the "Youth Growth Program", which aims to penetrate the family mindset by offering a portion of beef for every centimeter a child grows. They also piloted co - sponsoring golf tournaments and other interactive cooperation in the healthy - lifestyle circle, which are also attempts to reach new high - quality consumers.

Zheng Jian and his team know that consumer demands and the market environment are changing. As the helmsman, he often pays attention to newly emerging catering brands, even if some of them are just short - lived meteors. "The fact that they were popular proves that there is a demand. We need to think about the compatibility with our brand." Zheng Jian is not averse to learning from young brands. He just insists that "we can't do everything, but we can figure out what's suitable for us."

03. In the Next Decade, the Underlying Logic Remains Unchanged

In the context of the catering industry, the tenth anniversary is often regarded as a hurdle. Zheng Jian also admits that "for a catering brand, a renewal is needed after ten years." He knows that today's young consumers are more diverse and changeable in their acceptance of new things.

But Zuo Ting You Yuan doesn't plan to have a complete makeover. Instead, they'll focus on the basics. "We still need to focus on the in - store experience." He hopes that in the next decade, besides persisting in and improving the supply chain, with ingredients as the bottom line, they'll continuously optimize the multi - dimensional experience model around service, dining, etc. in the store model. They'll also try to convey a core concept to a wider audience: health doesn't mean expensive, quality doesn't mean complicated, and freshness doesn't mean "old - fashioned".

Beyond the catering stores, on this basis, Zuo Ting You Yuan is also expanding its boundaries. On the To - C side, they've cooperated with Dingdong Maicai to promote antibiotic - free fresh beef to the daily family - consumption scenario. On the To - B side, they've started to provide beef - raw - material services to the industry and cooperate with several catering chain enterprises to distribute ingredients. Zheng Jian said, "We're not trying to release the surplus production capacity. We just think good things should be shared with more people."

Perhaps the most imaginative attempt is their trial of the high - end line stores, the "Black Gold Stores". In the past three years, Zuo Ting You Yuan, in cooperation with the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, has established the domestic snowflake - beef L1 - L5 grade standards, which are exclusively for the internal use of the "Black Gold Stores".

"At that time, we wanted to see if domestic beef could be sold at a high price," Zheng Jian admitted that he was not confident at first. But after opening three Black Gold Stores, two things have been verified: customers are willing to pay, and farmers are willing to raise cattle.

"We hope to establish an incentive mechanism for the domestic cattle - raising industry through this line." What he values more is whether a quality - control and price system for Chinese beef can be established, rather than always referring to A5 and M9.

Rather than "expanding rapidly" in first - tier cities, Zheng Jian is more concerned about the sustainability of the model. It took him three years to open three high - end stores. The reason is simple: "We'll verify first and then replicate." The same prudence is also maintained in the expansion of ordinary stores. Apart from the East - China market such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai, Zuo Ting You Yuan has only opened about 20 stores in Beijing, and there are no plans for regional expansion in the short term.

"Our ten - year journey is actually a new beginning." Although this statement from Zheng Jian sounds simple, it actually represents a clear strategic rhythm: not in a hurry, not complacent, clearly knowing what to hold on to, and being brave enough to change gradually.

Zuo Ting You Yuan hasn't told a big - bang story, without capital boost or internet - famous hits. However, it has shown a brand temperament built through "patient efforts": freshness, health, and quality. These are not just slogans but a real structure built brick by brick over a decade.

In the past ten years, it has convinced old customers with "freshness" and is trying to open up new markets with "health". Perhaps this is the path Zuo Ting You Yuan wants to take in the second decade: to tell a story about freshness, health, and quality, rather than just running a hot - pot business.