Mulberry Leaves: No Silkworms Needed, Still Selling 8 Million Yuan a Year

Every year he buys over 300 tons of mulberry leaves, but not to raise silkworms. He says these mulberry leaves have a great use. Though they are ordinary mulberry leaves, he treats them like treasures, and is extremely strict about both picking and purchasing them. The mulberry leaves are not used to raise silkworms, yet they are his money-making treasure, bringing him more than 8 million yuan in sales a year. See how Wang Jibing found an unconventional way to make money with mulberry leaves and set a new industry in motion in Yingde City, Guangdong Province.

Shigutang Town, Yingde City, Guangdong Province, April 13, 2017, 6 a.m.

In late April, mulberry leaves in Guangdong Province had just sprouted their tender buds. At 6 a.m., when the reporter arrived in Shigutang Town, Yingde City to conduct interviews, Wang Jibing was leading many villagers in the busy work of picking mulberry leaves. The villagers told the reporter they had already been working here for more than 2 hours.

Reporter Wen Penghe: What time did you come this morning?

Villager: I came a little after 3 in the morning.

Reporter Wen Penghe: Can you see anything when it's that dark?

Villager: I can see. I wear a flashlight on my head, and then I can see.

Wang Jibing: When is the earliest you've come?

Villager: The earliest was a little after 3.

Wang Jibing: Is your schedule generally fixed?

Villager: Generally not fixed. When there's a lot, I come earlier. Once the sun comes up in a while, we stop work, all of us stop.

They start picking at 3 in the morning because Wang Jibing requires that picking must stop by 9. He told the reporter that these mulberry leaves are definitely not for raising silkworms; they have another important use. These leaves are his money-making treasure, so purchasing them requires extra care. If they are picked after 9, the leaf surface temperature rises, the mulberry leaves change appearance, and he can no longer use them.

Wang Jibing: These two piles of leaves, one pile is good leaves, one pile is bad leaves. What's bad about them? This kind is bad, with small scorched black spots. This kind is our standard leaf; it is tender green.

Reporter Wen Penghe: There are no small black spots on this one?

Wang Jibing: This one has no small black spots. You can compare them: this one has small black spots, this one doesn't. The two leaves are completely different.

Reporter Wen Penghe: What caused this?

Wang Jibing: It's because the temperature inside the bag was too high; it isn't breathable.

Besides strictly controlling the picking time, Wang Jibing also has his own unique requirements for what kind of leaves to pick, and even for the size of the leaves.

Wang Jibing: Our standard is: one bud tip, one small tender leaf, and one tender leaf no wider than 4 fingers. This is our standard. So this is also a fairly difficult process. After a lot of time and everyone getting used to working together, and then them understanding and feeling it out, we only got to this point.

The leaves to be picked must, like this, include one bud tip and two tender leaves, and the width of the tender leaves must not exceed 7 cm. Only mulberry leaves like these are what Wang Jibing needs.

At 8 in the morning, the reporter rushed from the planting base to Wang Jibing's factory. Farmers kept arriving at his factory to deliver goods, and Wang Jibing also had to spread out the mulberry leaves like this to allow air circulation. Just as the reporter was filming, Wang Jibing suddenly lost his temper.

Wang Jibing: Redo it. It must be redone. I've said it several times, and you're still doing it this way.

Villager: I haven't redone it.

Wang Jibing: You haven't redone it? This one is big, it's beyond the standard. Once it's beyond the standard, it must be redone. If it isn't redone, I won't dare buy yours.

Reporter Wen Penghe: What's wrong now?

Wang Jibing: With hers, no matter how you pick through it, there are non-standard leaves like this. This kind is a non-standard leaf. This has to be redone. It must be redone.

Reporter Wen Penghe: How do you redo it?

Wang Jibing: Redoing means picking them over again.

Reporter Wen Penghe: So just pick through them again.

Although this only happened occasionally, Wang Jibing still did not lower his standards. He required the villager to pick through them again.

Reporter Wen Penghe: They're just too big?

Villager: Tomorrow I'll pick pretty ones, tomorrow I'll pick good ones.

Wang Jibing's requirements for mulberry leaves are so high, and he doesn't buy them to raise silkworms, so what exactly does he do with these mulberry leaves? In fact, at the beginning, the local villagers were all very curious too.

Locally, almost every household grows mulberry trees. Apart from raising silkworms, mulberry leaves had no other use. But in 2013, Wang Jibing came here to buy mulberry leaves, and driven by him, the price of mulberry leaves has kept climbing in recent years, now reaching more than 4 yuan per jin. Some villagers can earn more than 80,000 yuan from March to October each year just by selling mulberry leaves. Because of Wang Jibing's arrival, the villagers found a new way to make money, and some even gave up raising silkworms to specialize in growing mulberry trees and selling leaves.

Villager: They pick 100 yuan, more than 200 yuan (a day).

Reporter Wen Penghe: Calculated that way, that's 4,000 yuan, 5,000 a month, right?

Villager: At most, more than 6,000 yuan.

Reporter Wen Penghe: A month? Is that a lot for you?

Villager: For us, it's just picking one morning. If there's a lot, we don't even need to work in the afternoon. With this now, anyway, making money is easy.

Villager: As of today, one person's picked leaves have definitely exceeded 200 yuan.

Reporter Wen Penghe: Is that a lot?

Villager: That's decent.

Thanks to these mulberry leaves, Wang Jibing had more than 8 million yuan in sales in 2016. Without raising silkworms, Wang Jibing buys more than 300 tons of mulberry leaves a year. What exactly does he use them for? This story starts with how he married his own boss.

Wang Jibing is from Guanghan City, Sichuan Province. After graduating from high school, he went out to work. In 2005, he came to Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province, and worked as a chef in a restaurant. Li Yanfen was the female boss of that restaurant at the time. Seeing that Wang Jibing worked diligently and carefully, Li Yanfen thought highly of him.

Wang Jibing's wife, Li Yanfen: I thought he was a good person, very diligent, and good at taking care of people. When we went to buy groceries, he was very considerate.

Li Yanfen appreciated Wang Jibing, and Wang Jibing also had a good impression of this beautiful, capable female boss. Li Yanfen loved eating small walnuts, and whenever Wang Jibing had free time, he would shell walnuts for her.

Wang Jibing's wife, Li Yanfen: He would sit alone at our bar counter and shell a whole bag of small walnut meats, cracking them open with something. At the time, I was quite touched.