Making noodles earns over ten million a year - see how they did it
Shaanxi is a region where wheat-based food is the staple, with no fewer than a hundred kinds of noodles alone, and noodle shops everywhere on the streets. The barrier to entry in this industry is very low, but competition is extremely fierce. To gain a firm foothold in this industry, you really need some special skill. Zhao Qiuxia, now 60 years old, felt that to carve out a path among hundreds of noodle shops, she had to have her own brand and distinctive features. She came up with the idea of creating a signature product that people would remember at a glance.
3.8One noodle per bowlSelling over a thousand bowls a day
Zhao Qiuxia's signature noodle, the single noodle, is 3.8 m long, with only one noodle placed in a bowl. Why did she insist on making it 3.8 m long? 3.8 m has three meanings: first, it was successfully developed on March 8; second, it represents the 800-li plain of the three Qin regions; third, it represents the 38 million people of Shaanxi. Zhao Qiuxia put these meanings into the noodle for good fortune. A bowl of noodles is priced at 28 yuan, paired with two bowls of soup, and over a thousand sets can be sold in a day.
In Xi'an, Zhao Qiuxia's noodles are very famous, and every noodle shop she opens thrives. She started making noodles in her 40s, constantly introducing new creations, and now at 60, Zhao Qiuxia is working with ever more vigor. She says hers is the number one noodle in the world, and she wants to set an example in the industry and become number one in the restaurant industry.
Relying on running noodle shops, Zhao Qiuxia, who came out of the countryside, is now the owner of four noodle shops in Xi'an, speaking and acting with full confidence. How did she do it?
Professor husband quits his job to accompany her selling noodlesThree ingredients are key
Zhao Qiuxia came to Xi'an from the countryside and was often looked down upon by city people. Yan Zinong is Zhao Qiuxia's husband and was once a professor at a university in Xi'an. Seeing his wife worn out from worrying about running a noodle shop and suffering many grievances, he decided to quit his job and sell noodles together with his wife.
Her husband, a university professor, quit his job, which moved Zhao Qiuxia deeply and also made her feel greater pressure. A month later, Zhao Qiuxia figured out a method that quickly made her noodle shop's business boom.
Zhao Qiuxia's hometown is Baoji City, Shaanxi Province. The wheat-based foods of Xifu are very famous; foods such as xuejin, Qishan saozi noodles, roujiamo, and heluo all originated here. Zhao Qiuxia felt that the noodles from her hometown were authentic and delicious, and three ingredients were key.
The first is flour. The flour used is winter wheat from Guanzhong. This wheat is recognized locally as being of good quality. Zhao Qiuxia only wants the second batch of flour milled from the wheat and does not want the first batch. Even if the supplier wants to raise the flour price by about 10%, Zhao Qiuxia readily agrees.
The second is chili. How to make chili with a traditional flavor also stumped Zhao Qiuxia at first. After searching, she found a factory that grinds chili with a stone mill. Top-quality Qinjiao chili is bright red, with thin skin and thick flesh. After sorting, roasting, and other processes, it is then ground with a roller for about half an hour, which best brings out the pungent aroma of the chili and preserves the taste of the hometown chili in Zhao Qiuxia's memory.
Finally, with vinegar brewed from grain added, the noodles in Zhao Qiuxia's shop are chewy and delicious, and business is thriving. However, because competition in Xi'an's noodle shop market is too fierce, Zhao Qiuxia is under great pressure and often suffers from insomnia.
Publicly revealing the secret to making noodlesMaking biangbiangNoodle industry standards
Zhao Qiuxia's noodle shop was doing booming business with a steady stream of diners. One day in March 2015, two “big shots” came to the door. These two were Guan Yangli, director of the Standardization Division of the Xi'an Municipal Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision, and Gao Weiping, president of the Xi'an Restaurant and Catering Industry Association. The two came to Zhao Qiuxia's shop not simply to eat noodles. It turned out that they hoped Zhao Qiuxia's enterprise could take on the task of creating quantified standards for making Xi'an noodles.
But this proposal also put Zhao Qiuxia in a dilemma. For Zhao Qiuxia, creating standards for making noodles was not difficult. What was difficult was that if she chose to take on this task, it would mean making public the noodle-making methods her shop had painstakingly researched for more than ten years, including the selection of ingredients, seasonings, production techniques, and all other aspects.
After struggling with the decision for a long time, Zhao Qiuxia, with the bold and generous spirit of a Shaanxi native, finally decided to take on the task. The taste of the noodles being recognized by society was exactly the effect Zhao Qiuxia wanted. With this generosity of an entrepreneur, the standard has been completed and will be released publicly around June 2016.
On her birthday, Zhao Qiuxia made a wish: she wants to open her noodle shops across the whole country.