A white-collar worker at a foreign company quit his job to grow vegetables and became the "King of Asian Lettuce" after 20 years.

When starting his business, everyone around Ma Tiemin advised him that growing vegetables was both tough and unprofitable. How did he become the "King of Asian Lettuce" after more than 20 years?

It takes only a 20 - minute drive from Zibo North Station in Shandong to reach the Kaisheng Haofeng (Zibo) Smart Agriculture Industrial Park. Covering an area of 1,200 mu, the park has built six smart glass greenhouses, where nearly 450,000 cherry tomatoes are quietly growing.

Everyone entering the greenhouse must change into disinfected work uniforms, wear hairnets, masks, and arm sleeves, and complete processes such as automatic shoe - sole cleaning and alcohol hand disinfection in sequence. Li Jiawen, a manager who has worked here for three years, told China Entrepreneur that to avoid contamination in every aspect, the park does not allow employees to take their work uniforms home. The first thing employees do every day when they come to work is to change into their work uniforms.

Entering the glass greenhouse in the high - temperature of July, the first feeling is actually coolness. The 11 - meter - high tomato plants climb along the steel frames, and they are cultivated using a soilless cultivation method. After the tomatoes are harvested, they are first graded and packed according to their appearance, and then their pesticide residues and taste (hardness, sugar content, acidity) are measured. Each cherry tomato must "burst with juice in one bite", and the sugar content should be ≥9.5°. This has been listed as a hard - and - fast indicator for evaluating technicians.

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Kaisheng Haofeng has a total of 19 such smart glass greenhouses across the country. It can achieve continuous picking for 10 months every year, with a daily output of over 40 tons of cherry tomatoes. The output is 6 - 8 times that of traditional greenhouses, ensuring the supply of a well - known brand of fruit tomatoes across the country.

"One Big" is a new brand founded by Ma Tiemin, the founder of Kaisheng Haofeng, in 2022. The products focus on fruit tomatoes, with cherry tomatoes being the core product. In addition, it also includes NFC tomato juice and tomato health - water series products.

"One Big" is a startup brand, but Ma Tiemin is an agricultural entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in the agricultural industry. Before switching to selling tomatoes to the C - end market, he had been growing lettuce for more than 20 years. According to the company's disclosure, his lettuce is exported to more than 20 countries such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, accounting for 90% and 50% of the lettuce import markets in Singapore and South Korea respectively. At the same time, it accounts for 60% of the lettuce purchased by international catering giants and is also the largest lettuce supplier for many international food service companies in China. Therefore, Ma Tiemin is known in the industry as the "King of Asian Lettuce".

At the end of the year when he decided to launch the "One Big" brand, he moved his whole family from Qingdao to Shanghai.

In July 2025, China Entrepreneur met Ma Tiemin in Shanghai. He started his story from the impact he felt when he worked as a technician in a foreign - funded enterprise after graduating from university. In the early 21st century, when agriculture was still in the stage of extensive management, some enterprises had already broken down the seemingly "weather - dependent" vegetable - growing process into standardized steps and used process control to precisely lock in the quality of the fruits.

This industrial thinking that respects science and abandons empiricism is completely different from Ma Tiemin's past impression of farmers' "weather - dependent and only - seeking - big - and - sweet" perceptual way. The replicable standard system adopted by the enterprise made him firmly believe that if vegetables were grown according to standards, "growing vegetables might change one's fate", thus planting the seed for his later entrepreneurship.

In 2003, he sold an apartment, combined with the savings from his years of work, and borrowed 200,000 yuan from his parents. He took the first step of resigning from his job to start a business. In the following years, he focused on the supply of high - quality head lettuce. In 2006, he founded Kaisheng Haofeng Agricultural Group Co., Ltd. It wasn't until 2008 that Ma Tiemin officially registered his first C - end brand, "Green Walker".

However, with a new direction in mind, he didn't rush forward. Ma Tiemin spent more effort on building smart glass greenhouses and digital agricultural management projects. The C - end business of "Green Walker" never really took off. But besides lettuce, he gradually expanded into other categories such as tomatoes.

In December 2022, Ma Tiemin decided to start anew - positioning high - end tomatoes and focusing on the cherry tomato category. The confidence for this new start came from the supply chain - "One Big" has stored 500 varieties in the reserve library, and the digital agricultural management is complete. You can see real - time planting data just by opening your mobile phone.

Now, Ma Tiemin, born in 1976, is about to complete his third year as a "migrant worker in Shanghai". In these three years, the annual revenue of the "One Big" brand has exceeded 1 billion yuan.

Different from the traditional bulk sales model, although there is no national "Number One Tomato Brand" in the Chinese market yet, the branding of tomatoes is in a stage of rapid development.

Ma Tiemin wants to take a step forward and do a good job in building the "One Big" brand. Now, he still maintains a high - frequency business - travel schedule. He never misses industry exhibitions at home and abroad. He has in - depth conversations with exhibitors on - site, learns new technologies, and understands new equipment. "I leave the professional details to the experts in each field, but I must make the decisions on the 'direction'. So I need to absorb information intensively and turn all the information into a basis for judgment."

Ma Tiemin often says in his self - introduction: "Ma Tiemin, Ma Tiemin, which means 'determined to be a farmer'. There are reasons for me to be a farmer. Since I've made this choice, I will really do it well."

Resigning to Start a Business

When Ma Tiemin decided to start a business, there were a lot of skeptical voices.

For example, his parents, although willing to lend him money, never understood. They thought that if he jumped to another foreign - funded enterprise, his salary could easily double. Why did he have to work so hard to start a vegetable - growing business? His former leaders and colleagues also shook their heads, saying that growing vegetables was both tough and unprofitable, and starting a business was simply unreliable.

But Ma Tiemin was full of enthusiasm at that time. Without much thought, he plunged into the fields. He leased nearly 400 mu of land in Xiagezhuang Town, Laixi City, Shandong, signed a 15 - year land - lease contract, paid 100,000 yuan in land rent for the first year, and used the remaining about 300,000 yuan for hiring the first batch of workers, daily operations, and salary payments.

When working in foreign - funded enterprises, Ma Tiemin had collected four or five address books over the years. At first, it was a small plastic - covered notebook the size of a palm, only recording names and phone numbers. Later, it was replaced with a larger - sized notebook, along with a business - card album that could hold three rows of business cards. He always carried this thick stack with him. Every time he met someone, he would first get their phone number, then copy it into the notebook when he got back to his dormitory, and make notes on their names and identities.

In an era without exhibitions, the Internet, or smartphones, Ma Tiemin relied on his "paper address book" to conduct market research. Every night after work, he would open his phone book, make calls one by one, and record the ideas and suggestions of his peers item by item. The next day, he would summarize this information for comprehensive judgment, and he did this day after day.

In the first year, relying on the information he had gathered, Ma Tiemin planted seven vegetable varieties at once, including green beans, broccoli, head lettuce, and white radishes, all of which seemed to have a wide market. However, reality gave this young entrepreneur a heavy blow. Due to the impact of SARS, a large number of restaurants closed. At the end of the growing season, none of the seven vegetable varieties could find a market.

Ma Tiemin Source: Respondent

In order not to let the remaining goods pile up, Ma Tiemin and several colleagues drove the vegetables to the vegetable market every early morning. They carried the boxes themselves, set up stalls, and shouted to attract customers. Some people took the vegetables without paying and just wrote an IOU. Ma Tiemin had no choice but to accept it. Otherwise, if the vegetables couldn't be sold, they would have to be brought back as they were, which was completely different from his decent life working in a foreign - funded enterprise.

What bothered him the most was that the market didn't accept his "pesticide - free and heavy - metal - free" vegetables at all. No one was willing to pay an extra cent for "food safety". "During that time, it was like talking to a wall. You said your vegetables were residue - free, but people only cared about how big and bright they were. No one in the market understood, and it was really painful," Ma Tiemin recalled.

In order to find a market, Ma Tiemin sold vegetables during the day and made calls to find customers at night. By chance, he learned that an old colleague who had returned to Shanghai was working in a supply - chain company, responsible for purchasing lettuce for an international fast - food giant. So, Ma Tiemin immediately contacted him and promoted his lettuce. Finally, relying on the advantage that the yield rate (finished product quantity/raw material quantity) of his vegetables was 6% - 8% higher than that of other suppliers, he found a market.

After paying the land rent in the second year, his account was empty. Ma Tiemin owed money to suppliers on one hand and borrowed money everywhere on the other hand to barely pay the salaries. At the same time, he made a bold decision to cut off the other six varieties and focus on growing lettuce.

"At that time, people around me started to advise me again. They said that focusing on growing lettuce was too risky. What if it couldn't be sold again? It would be better to plant more varieties to spread the risk," Ma Tiemin recalled. But he believed that the root cause of the poor sales of those six vegetables was not objective factors like SARS, but blocked channels and out - of - control pricing. That is to say, customers bought the vegetables not because of their quality, but only because of the low prices he offered in a hurry to clear the inventory. Some customers even pressured him to lower the price after the delivery, and some payments are still outstanding. Some factories have even gone bankrupt.

This painful start forced Ma Tiemin to focus. Since the lettuce production standards he adhered to were recognized by foreign - funded catering giants, he decided to take this thing to the extreme.

To do this well, from 2004 to 2006, Ma Tiemin selected sites in Fujian, Shanghai, Shandong, and Hebei to build the first four lettuce - growing bases. These bases in different regions have different sowing, seedling - raising, growing, and harvesting times. Thus, for the first time in the industry, an all - year - round "lettuce supply chain" was formed. That is to say, there is a stable supply of lettuce in terms of quality and quantity throughout the 52 weeks of the year.

The path of using standardization in agriculture was gradually paved. In 2008, on the basis of the B - end business, Ma Tiemin officially registered the brand "Green Walker" for the vegetables he grew and began to explore expanding the customer base from purchasers to the general consumer group.

Don't Be Defeated by Difficulties

Ma Tiemin told reporters a story from the early days of his entrepreneurship. At that time, after obtaining the qualification to be a supplier for an international fast - food giant, Ma Tiemin searched all over the country for suitable bases for growing lettuce. One of the selected sites was in Bashang, Zhangjiakou, Hebei, at an altitude of over 1,000 meters. Seedlings are raised here starting in March every year, harvesting begins in June, and ends in early October, mainly ensuring the supply of lettuce in summer.

Growing lettuce requires water, but there is a water shortage in Bashang. Based on his experience, Ma Tiemin called the landowner to confirm if there was a lake nearby. The landowner assured him, "There is an abundant supply of groundwater." So, he quickly leased thousands of mu of land, planted the vegetables, and started drilling wells at the same time. However, from the first well to the ninth well, each well would run out of water after pumping for a while, and they couldn't find a water source. The cost was one thing, and when averaged per kilogram, it wasn't very high. But the key was that if there was no water, all the vegetables would die, and the just - negotiated contract would also fall through.

At that time, Ma Tiemin was under 30 years old, tall and thin. The farmers he hired had a hard time believing that such a young man would really calm down to grow vegetables. They also didn't understand the technology Ma Tiemin was promoting and gathered together to discuss. The comments reached Ma Tiemin's ears, and the most he heard was, "This young man will definitely run away soon."

But Ma Tiemin had only one thought in mind: to find water as soon as possible. No matter how high the cost was, he had to grit his teeth and bear it. He must not break the contract due to a water shortage. Once the contract couldn't be fulfilled, not only would the business be lost, but his reputation would also be completely ruined, and the road ahead would become narrower and narrower.

So, during the seedling stage of the lettuce, they could only rely on the hired villagers to carry and scoop water for emergency relief. In April in Bashang, the wind is strong, and the temperature difference between day and night is large. Seeing that the manual water - carrying couldn't hold out, Ma Tiemin continued to invest with determination. He pulled the electric wires to the lake, connected a submersible pump, pumped the lake water into a large pit dug on the mountainside with a plastic pipe, and then pumped it to the vegetable field with a diesel pump for a second time. When the pipes weren't long enough, they used a relay method.

There are thieves in Bashang, so the pumps also need to be guarded day and night. Otherwise, the diesel engine and the pipes would be stolen by the next day.

No one believed that electricity could be pulled to the lake, and no one believed that a diesel pump could sustain thousands of mu of land. But he never gave up. Relying on this simple method, he kept the contract and his reputation. Even now, when Ma Tiemin goes to this base, some people still sigh, "This guy is really amazing."

From Lettuce to Tomatoes

In 2010, Ma Tiemin accidentally noticed that sweet peppers and tomatoes from Europe, Israel, and Japan could already be found in high - end supermarkets in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Even though the prices were four times that of ordinary products, there were still people willing to buy them. He believed that this was a signal: A small number of consumers were already willing to pay a high price for "safe, delicious, and story - laden" tomatoes. This demand was only temporarily met by imported products.

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