Chapter 1428: Dog Food
When the Wuling Hong Guang MPV arrived at the pet store, Zhang Zian saw a strange car parked in front of the store and a strange middle-aged man standing in front of the store and speaking loudly over the phone. People who didn’t know would think that he was discussing orders worth billions of dollars.
When he saw the MPV stop, the man put down his cell phone, looked at Zhang Zian and tentatively asked, “Are you the manager of this store?”
On a hot day, MPV was good for everything, but the air conditioner wasn’t very cold and it also consumed too much fuel. Zhang Zian wore a combination of short-sleeved s.h.i.+rts and shorts, which was cooling and had many pockets.
In contrast, this man had on trousers and a white s.h.i.+rt with a tie. The suit was placed on the forearm. This is the standard dress code of a real estate agent.
Zhang Zian nodded, locked the car door, and asked, “Who are you?”
“Oh, I’m the manufacturer’s agent responsible for the sale of dog food. I’m visiting all the nearby pet store. Here’s my business card.”
The middle-aged man said, handing a business card over with both hands.
Zhang Zian took the business card and looked at it. This person’s name was Qi Tong. His position was a sales manager of a series of English companies. The company name was very strange. He had never seen it before, but this was to be expected. Ordinary Chinese-speakers only heard of several large American company names like Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and Amazon.
“Let’s talk inside,” Zhang Zian signaled.
“Uh…”
Qi Tong was embarra.s.sed. “There are two very big dogs in your store. They are not tied …”
He was obviously referring to Famous and Zhantian.
“Yeah, is something wrong with that?” Zhang Zian asked.
“No… nothing, let’s go in,” Qi Tong shook his head helplessly.
While Zhang Zian was away, Qi Tong had just entered the store to try and sell once, but Lu Yiyun told him that the store manager was not there. She was just a cas.h.i.+er and couldn’t have been the manager. She asked him to wait for the store manager to come back and talk with him instead.
It was hot outside, and Qi Tong planned to stay in the store and wait for the manager to return. While waiting, he walked around the store, observed the types of pets and products on the shelves, and wanted to go upstairs to see the storage room. He wanted to see how much dog food was left in this store so that he could use it as part of his sales pitch later. However, he was fiercely stopped by Zhan Tian, and it scared him so much he began sweating. He quickly found an excuse to hide outside the store.
When Zhang Zian and Qi Tong entered the shop together, Lu Yiyun saw Zhang Zian with him and continued to paint peacefully.
w.a.n.g Qian and Li Kun were playing an online game and looked up. They didn’t like people who clearly saw the “Employees Only” sign, pretended that it was invisible, and still wanted to go upstairs. Just now, seeing Qi Tong’s helpless reaction to being chased out of the store by Zhang Tian made them laugh for a long time.
“Please sit down.”
Zhang Zian pulled up a chair and asked Qi Tong to sit down, while he sat on a reclining chair.
In the past, he used to discuss prices with pet food manufacturers or provincial agents on the Internet. This was the first time he was meeting someone who came up voluntarily to meet him.
“Brother Manager, you are still young, and the future is promising for you! I heard from neighboring places that this place was very famous. You must be running the business very well!” Qi Tong complimented him with as few words as usual before quickly narrowing the topic, “Brother, I just looked around. There aren’t many dogs in your shop, but is it true that dog food consumption here is particularly large? ”
As soon as Zhang Zian heard it, he knew that Qi Tong wasn’t simple-minded. He must have researched this place.
The dogs in his shop ate the same domestic dog food that was also fed to stray dogs. Since there were too many stray dogs and the food quant.i.ty is large, he later directly contacted the provincial representative of the manufacturer to discuss cheaper wholesale prices. Afterward, a batch of goods would be delivered directly by the province weekly to avoid him h.o.a.rding too many goods.
Qi Tong could tell that the amount of dog food consumed in his store was abnormally large, which proved that he knew someone within the provincial management of the domestic dog food. Otherwise, he couldn’t have known so much.
Zhang Zian a.s.sumed that Qi Tong bought an insider in the provincial government. The insider gave him the address and contact information of a major customer in the province, and he came to visit.
The insider who leaked information to Qi Tong received a salary from domestic dog food manufacturers but also revealed the contact information and information of his major customers to the sales staff of their compet.i.tors. There was a double-crossing agent!
It wasn’t surprising that they noticed Zhang Zian. In terms of daily dog food consumption, leisure pet breeding bases were far behind. After all, most of these breeding bases were puppies that would be sold before they grew up. However, he had to feed hundreds of adult large and medium-sized dogs every day. He had risen to become the largest customer of domestic dog food in the province, so it made sense that such information was leaked.
Faced with Qi Tong’s inquiry, he certainly refused to explain why there is such a large consumption of dog food, and he did not have to explain. After all, this was a buyer’s market.
“Well… I couldn’t have eaten it myself,” he said lightly.
“Haha! It’s fine if you don’t want to tell me. It’s not good for everyone to know how to get rich!” Qi Tong laughed. He then took out a bag of dog food from the bag he took with him and handed it to Zhang Zian, “Come on, Brother. You’re an expert on dog food, so how about this?”
Zhang Zian took it for a moment. As Lu Yiyun said, the outside of the packaging bag was written in English without any Chinese character.
The prominent positions on the front and back of the packaging bag were written in large fonts with numerous self-proclaimed slogans, such as “super high meat and protein content”, “rich nutrients”, “no artificial additives” and so on. This wasn’t very important because all pet food manufacturers in China and abroad wrote things like this. Whoever didn’t write it was a fool.
As for the authenticity of the goods … it was hard to tell.
Ignoring the slogans, Zhang Zian looked for the ingredients list and focused on a combination of words.
“By-products?” He asked, pointing to the word, “What are by-products?”
The word “by-products” was similar to Chinese “waste products”, but the meaning was broader. By-products appearing on dog food logos generally referred to leftovers from animals such as internal organs. Sometimes, even dead bodies of stray cats and dogs were made into food.
Qi Tong did not expect that he would look so carefully and smiled awkwardly, “Brother, I am only responsible for the sales. I know a few specific product details, but I don’t know everything… This dog food is imported from the United States. It has customs clearance and sales permits. There is no problem with its quality and hygiene. You can rest a.s.sured that the product is good! The pet industry in the United States is so developed, and American standards are often the world’s common standards. How could it be sold in the US if there was a problem? ”
Zhang Zian shook his head and handed the dog food back, “If you don’t mind, could you ask the manufacturer what they mean by ‘by-products’? Let’s figure this out and then discuss further.”