How was Madajie forged after 37 years?

Every Spring Festival, people will choose candies as New Year's goods! "For New Year candies, choose Madajie!" The "Madajie" brand, as the leading candy brand, has already entered the hearts of the people. Speaking of Madajie, we have to mention our real "Madajie". As the founder of this brand, Madajie (formerly Ma Guimin) is now nearly seventy years old. From a small workshop to a candy manufacturer with thousands of employees and multiple factories nationwide, Ms. Ma Guimin has been running this company for more than 30 years, becoming an industry benchmark. "Be down-to-earth and work diligently," this is Madajie's work style.

"Be down-to-earth and work diligently," this is Madajie's work style. She is daring, hardworking, and persevering. Her early struggles are legendary.

Born in Baoding, Hebei in 1953, as the eldest daughter in the family, she shouldered the family's burden early on. At the age of 16, she entered society to earn money to support her younger siblings. For ten years, to earn money and support her family, she did all kinds of dirty and tiring work, working in Hebei Cotton Ginning Factory, Beijing Flower Patch Factory, and Beijing Native Products Company, doing handicrafts. Her hard work paid off, and she performed well in the factory, earning the appreciation of her superiors!

At the age of 26, she went to Beijing alone and joined Beijing Yongfeng Sugar Factory in 1981. She always remembered "Be down-to-earth and work diligently." She started from scratch, working tirelessly. She apprenticed and studied classic traditional candy-making techniques for more than ten years. She served as a team leader, director, and factory director, working in technology, statistics, frontline operations, production management, sales management, and general management. After ten years, she devoted herself to research in candy production technology, sales, and finance, accumulating rich experience and growing from a frontline employee to a general manager. The hardships involved are only understood by herself. In her late thirties, due to family reasons, she had to resign to take care of family matters. While busy with family matters, she did not lose her passion for work. She had an idea: to start her own business, balancing family and work! Thus, at nearly 40, Madajie borrowed 80,000 yuan from relatives and friends to establish Beijing Jingyuan Food Factory (the predecessor of Beijing Madajie).

The name "factory" sounds big, but in the beginning, it was just a small workshop with simple equipment: a few pots, large tubs of sesame seeds, and large bags of peanuts... Many old and large sugar factories didn't pay attention to such a small workshop, but Madajie didn't lose heart because "emphasizing quality and not using fake products" was Madajie's basic principle. In the early days of entering the industry, for small manufacturers and new brands like Madajie, entering the fiercely competitive Beijing market was not easy. But Ms. Ma Guimin, with her unyielding spirit, turned many "impossible things" into "success." At the beginning of her business, to quickly circulate Madajie products in the market, Ma Guimin went everywhere to find a "foothold" and found a northeastern distributor, Sister Guan.

But Sister Guan was busy, and every time Ma Guimin saw her, she was too embarrassed to disturb her, so she silently helped out in her shop, such as sweeping the floor and loading and unloading goods. Three days later, Sister Guan noticed Ma Guimin and proactively asked about her intentions. Only then did Madajie state that she was the factory director and hoped to promote her products. Sister Guan smiled at Ma Guimin, moved by this down-to-earth and sincere factory director without any airs. In this way, Madajie products had their initial distribution channels. The strong desire to survive in the initial stage, coupled with Ms. Ma Guimin's daring and persevering spirit, and Madajie candies attracting customers with low prices and winning them over with quality, finally enabled the company to gain a foothold in Beijing.

Around 1998, the impact of southern candy brands intensified, leading to the elimination of many northern candy brands.

Madajie was unwilling to watch her factory perish. To save the factory, she visited Europe to study technology. Madajie realized that Madajie was no longer competing in just the Beijing market. After completing market distribution and sales in Beijing and surrounding areas, Madajie Food began to seek nationwide layout. Madajie Sugar Factory successfully transformed and gradually grew. From a small workshop to a large company, the increasing sales brought considerable income to Madajie Company. In 2006, Madajie products exceeded 10 million yuan in annual sales in prefecture-level markets such as Baoding and Foshan.

Of course, Madajie also encountered many obstacles on the road to updating and iteration. There were many difficulties in various channels and in the industrial chain, as well as pressure from the market. In 2011, the price of sugar raw materials soared, and price fluctuations were very unstable. This uncontrollable change in raw materials was a disastrous blow to Madajie. Faced with this predicament, candy companies had two choices: shut down for a year to cut losses, or continue selling but with unstable product prices. Most companies chose the former, while Madajie resolutely chose a third option: "continue selling, but keep the price unchanged." During that time, the two founders of Madajie were very worried and made this decision that would inevitably lead to losses after careful consideration.

Madajie and the other founder, Chairman Ma An, believed that if the team did not continue to operate, morale would decline, and the team would disband. Even if the market stabilized after a year, rebuilding the team would be time-consuming and may not achieve the current level of coordination. However, having decided to continue, they could not put pressure on consumers, so they decided to continue purchasing high-priced raw materials and selling at normal product prices. Fortunately, after overcoming this difficult period, Madajie jumped from seventh or eighth place in the industry to the top three. The strength of an enterprise is often demonstrated during times of crisis.

Extensive learning and selective application, accumulation and sudden emergence. In 2013, Madajie created a miracle in the industry with its product, Mikezi, achieving sales exceeding 100 million yuan within less than 100 days of its launch, setting a record for the shortest time for a single product to reach 100 million yuan in sales.

In the same year, Madajie's single-store, single-day high-volume sales activities were launched across China, achieving top sales rankings in many systems stores such as China Resources, RT-Mart, and Carrefour! Today, Madajie has become a well-known candy brand and a choice for many consumers in North China, East China, and Northwest China. After decades of hard work, Madajie's product structure has rapidly diversified, including seven or eight types of candies such as milk candy, hard candy, chocolate, soft candy, and brittle candy, dozens of items, and it has also accelerated the expansion of leisure bakery foods, successfully building Madajie's large leisure comprehensive system. In 2015, the Madajie factory in Jinta Economic Development Zone, Dingxing County, Baoding City, Hebei Province, was completed and put into operation, covering an area of 200 mu.

In the same year, Madajie set up a large leisure food industrial base in Qiaoxian County, Hebei Province, becoming the largest "Madajie" base in North China. It covers an area of over 750 mu, with 17 standardized production workshops, 10 intelligent finished product and raw material warehouses, and modern office buildings and staff apartments, with a total construction area of over 400,000 square meters.

From obscurity to industry benchmark, Madajie seeks development through change and consistency; relying on a strong distribution network and brand effect, Madajie has risen to the top, successfully capturing millions of consumers.

On August 8, 2018, Madajie was awarded the title of inheritor of three intangible cultural heritage projects in Beijing: "Su Tang", "Gu Wu Tang", and "Jiu Shuang Tang". On May 5, 2019, at the Sixth Member Representatives' Conference and the First Meeting of the Sixth Council of the China Baking and Confectionery Industry Association, Madajie was named "Pioneer of the Baking and Confectionery Industry in the 40th Anniversary of China's Reform and Opening Up". From producing best-selling products to manufacturing best-selling products. Madajie, starting from a frontline worker, embodies a craftsman spirit, a tenacious spirit of perseverance; representing the pursuit and expression of perfection in details, representing an extraordinary demand for product quality.

In 2019, Madajie Food seized opportunities and expanded into the fresh bean product business—Madajie Jinggong Doufu! Aiming to become a large-scale, reliable, and standardized bean product manufacturer nationwide. It possesses multiple internationally advanced automated bean product production lines, mainly producing fresh bean products and nearly 100 kinds of products, with an annual soybean processing capacity of 100,000 tons in its full-series bean product production workshop. Jinggong Doufu, as a new representative of high-quality products in the industry, is the first company in the industry to publicly implement transparent production. At the same time, in response to industry development needs, in 2022, Madajie obtained the IP authorization of Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf and The Octonauts, applying the IP to Madajie's candy series and jelly family, giving more children a happy and memorable childhood. Furthermore, in May of this year, Madajie launched into the big health industry , launching Kaiyi Kang nutritional powder compound protein solid beverage, quickly establishing goodwill among consumers, and aiming to contribute to national health.

We have always seen Madajie's unwavering commitment to philanthropy, from the "Love Packaging", "Love Wardrobe", and "Years of Time" public welfare projects to the recent "Million Candy Reading Plan", continuously contributing love to society.

In addition, in 2020, Madajie Food actively responded to the call to "participate in the nationwide fight against the epidemic"; in 2021, in the face of devastating floods, Madajie Food donated relief supplies, which were transported overnight to Henan. This batch of supplies will be used to address the basic living needs of the disaster-stricken people in Henan, alleviating their urgent needs, and receiving positive feedback from all sectors of society.

A good company cares not only about consumers but also about society. "No matter how the economy develops, cost-effectiveness is something that never goes out of style, and this is Madajie's brand killer." Madajie's founder, Ma Guimin, is one of the few female leaders in China's food industry, and her legendary story with "Madajie" continues.