"Egg...instant noodles?"

After looking closely, Gu Jie read out the two rows of words on the packaging.

The two characters on the top are yellow, and are slightly conspicuous on the red background. This is similar to the color of the logo of the Golden Arch. The three characters on the instant noodles are white. There are two eggs painted under the font and the hen. On the right is a noodle bowl.

"Egg instant noodles? What is this? I have never seen it before." Gu Jie asked in surprise.

As for Ruth, she looked confused. She was a Westerner who ate milk, bread, sandwich, hamburgers, steak, fried chicken and so on since she was a child. She only knew about Chinese food after she was familiar with Annie. After all, Annie's family is a catering business. After the two became friends, they came into contact with Chinese food. However, compared to simple Western food, Chinese food is much more complicated, and Western people's appetite is not very suitable for Chinese food. In addition to some improved Chinese food, she also thinks that it is OK, and other traditional Chinese foods are rarely touched.

Among the three, Ying Annie knew what instant noodles were. The first inventor of instant noodles was Japanese. Japanese people first invented this simple and convenient food. Later, this food was spread to the Taiwan Strait and gradually it was also found in Chinatown abroad.

However, although Ying Annie knows what instant noodles are, she rarely eats this thing, because in the family that started with catering, there are too many delicious foods. Since childhood, Ying Annie has never eaten anything? Will she still eat this kind of thing?

Gu Jie has never seen this thing, so he can't blame him for not seeing it. Although he is from Shanghai, this thing was produced by Shanghai Food Factory No. 4, and it was put into production as early as 1970, 13 years ago, but not many people really know it.

First of all, the production of this kind of instant noodles is not large, and most of them are the demands for special jobs, such as exploration, oil, and coal mines, who often work in the field.

In addition, the price of this kind of noodles is relatively high. It is not cost-effective for ordinary people to spend this price to buy a bag of instant noodles. Even if you find a noodle restaurant to eat a bowl of noodles, it is better than making this one. Therefore, the market is not big and ordinary stores rarely sell it.

However, as time goes by, especially after the reform and opening up, people's living standards have improved, this kind of instant noodles has gradually begun to have a market.

The "Happy Brand" instant noodles of Shanghai Food Factory No. 4 began to sell well in the early and mid-1980s, with the highest sales reaching a peak of 3 million bags a year. The products also started to appear in other flavors from the initial single egg instant noodles. The most famous of which is a delicious meat paste noodles. This instant noodles started to bring a seasoning bag, which changed the earliest egg instant noodles without seasoning bags. It was just the process of directly tanning the flavor and noodles when making it, which was greatly welcomed.

Song Yuanchao still remembers when he was working in the telephone bureau in his previous life. It was common for him to work overtime when he was busy at work. He was too late to work. When he was hungry, he just took a tea jar to make a cup of instant noodles with a cup of pork crumbled noodles. The taste was so fragrant, and he still remembered it freshly until now.

Ying Annie quickly reacted and asked Song Yuanchao if she planned to make instant noodles. Song Yuanchao smiled and nodded and told them that this was the idea. It has been more than 20 years since the appearance of instant noodles in Japan in the late 1950s. The instant noodles market in Japan and the Taiwan Strait have been formed. In recent years, sales have become increasingly high. Most people have accepted this kind of low-cost and good-quality fast food.

But in China, instant noodles are still a fresh thing. In addition to the instant noodles from Shanghai Food Factory No. 4, it seems that Yanjing Food Factory once produced instant noodles for a while, but after that, it disappeared without a trace.

Song Yuanchao remembers that instant noodles became popular in China in 1983 this year, and it is not very clear what month it will be.

Song Yuanchao knows more than anyone else how big the market for instant noodles is and how strong its vitality is. Since he is engaged in fast-moving consumer goods, especially the food industry, how could Song Yuanchao miss this good product?

In order to make everyone's impression, Song Yuanchao took apart the instant noodles sent by someone from Shanghai and soaked a bowl of them in boiling water to invite everyone to try it.

Although the egg noodles from Shanghai Food Factory No. 4 are much worse than the instant noodles with various flavors in later generations, they are not without any uniqueness. The noodles have very good craftsmanship and are very powerful when brewed. They are much softer and better in the mouth than those instant noodles in later generations. Moreover, because the noodles and seasonings are mixed together, the noodle soup also has a light umami flavor, and the noodles themselves also have a unique taste.

After tasting it, everyone thought it tasted okay. Although it couldn't be said to be good, it would be fine to soak a bowl of noodles like this in hot water to cushion your belly when it was inconvenient to cook and couldn't find a place to eat.

Besides, instant noodles are the key to the word "convenience". It is indeed convenient to eat it by soaking a pot of water.

Gu Jie looked around with the packaging bag and asked, "This thing is very good, but the taste is a little lighter. It would be great if you add some ingredients when eating. By the way, how much does this cost?"

Song Yuanchao said a number, Gu Jie thought for a while and shook his head: "No wonder I haven't seen it before. It's so expensive. It would be fine if it's cheaper. But at most, ordinary people can just try fresh. A bowl of Yangchun noodles in Shanghai is only 5 points. Who can eat this thing every three days?"

Gu Jie said it to the point. Although the instant noodles from Shanghai Food Factory No. 4 are good, this is why it has never been opened to the market.

First, the taste can only be said to be average, and the southern taste is light and acceptable. If it is a heavy taste, it will feel that the side is a bit light, and there is no ingredient bag. It depends on the taste of the noodles itself. If you really want it to taste delicious, you have to add something to it yourself.

The second is this price. Due to the limitations of output and cost, the price of instant noodles is relatively high, which is another factor that restricts the product market.

However, Gu Jie didn't know that the problems he mentioned were not problems. The reason why Song Yuanchao was interested in this product and wanted to launch the instant noodle project was to seize the huge market first. In terms of taste, the Happy Brand instant noodles from the No. 4 Shanghai Food Factory is not without its advantages. This year they will launch four new products with ingredients, one of which is the famous delicious meat paste noodles.

The ingredients are the soul of instant noodles. No matter how good the noodles are, the people will not admit their opinions without good ingredients. Why did Master Kang, a later generation, make a small bag of instant noodles at that scale? Isn’t it the reason why he put effort into this?

Although the delicious meat noodles from Shanghai Food Factory No. 4 are good, the problem is that they had limitations in choosing the flavor when they were developing the material package.

As a native of Shanghai, Song Yuanchao was able to accept this taste, but it was different for people in other regions.

China is so big that customs and eating habits are different in different places, which has led to eight major cuisines in Chinese cuisine plus hundreds of snacks with different flavors. If you only start from your own preferences during the research and development process, then this product will fail.

After all, your taste only represents a part of it, and it has quite limitations. This product can only be successful if most of the entire market can accept it.

Song Yuanchao did not need to make other judgments about this. He knew exactly how Master Kong had developed in his previous life.

Didn’t Master Kong make a name for his famous braised beef noodles? This flavor of instant noodles takes into account the taste needs of most people across the country, and relying on this product, it has become the largest instant noodles manufacturer.

Of course, after launching braised beef noodles, the company has successively launched a series of instant noodles products of other flavors, such as seafood noodles, old sauerkraut beef noodles, etc. Some products are very popular, and some products are soon finished after market inspection, becoming the "failure" of product opening.

The failures here include "pickled pepper instant noodles", "sauerkraut chicken instant noodles", "black pepper steak noodles", "pork bone ramen", etc.

Some are because the product positioning does not meet the market taste, such as the first three, and there are also reasons why the research and development products fail to achieve results, such as the last one. But no matter what, repeated trial and error, Master Kong continued to grow in this process and eventually became a giant.

Song Yuanchao wanted to make instant noodles, but he had already figured out what flavor to use. This flavor was not the second choice except braised beef noodles.

Braised beef noodles are a product that has been highly recognized by the market in the previous life. It has extremely strong vitality and the sales volume is also the highest. How could Song Yuanchao let it go?

As for the price, let alone the reason why instant noodles from Shanghai Food Factory No. 4 are expensive is that the production and management costs are too high due to the production restrictions and the nature of the enterprise.

The Fourth Food Factory in Shanghai is a state-owned enterprise. The burden of state-owned enterprises has always been very heavy and the costs are relatively large. In addition, the efficiency of state-owned enterprises is not high and the waste of raw materials is serious, which is also an important factor restricting costs. Moreover, as fast-moving consumer goods, product costs are linked to output. The larger the output, the lower the cost. This is a very easy-to-calculate formula. In fact, this situation is not only in the fast-moving consumer goods industry, but also in many industries.

In addition, the current price of goods in the market is indeed a little lower, but it is already early 1983. In the 1980s, there were several price breakthroughs in China. The most impressive one was the price breakthrough in 1988. The price of goods rose rapidly that year, which caused people to rush to buy and hoard supplies.

Song Yuanchao was one of them at that time, and he had experienced this incident personally, so he was deeply impressed by this major event.

But now, the large-scale price breakthrough has not yet begun, but the small-scale price has already existed.

Just from 1983 to mid-1984 this year, the prices of market products began to be relaxed, and the initial guide price gradually became a form, and the products were accused of raising prices under limited circumstances.

Let’s not talk about the others for now, let’s talk about the orange soda produced by a branch before.

Last year, orange soda was sold on the market for 8 cents a bottle. This price was determined in the industry. All similar products from beverage manufacturers are at this price.

But by 1983, the price of orange soda will soon rise. If Song Yuanchao remembers correctly, the price of orange soda will rise from 8 cents to 0.11-0.12 yuan per bottle by summer, and the price increase is 40%-50%.
Chapter completed!