Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

Pei Qian did not notice any danger when he first heard about 'garbage sorting'.

Garbage sorting was a big trend, and countries all over the world were doing it after all. It might be only 2011 and a little early to do garbage sorting domestically, but there were some advanced developments in this world. Pei Qian had experienced it many times.

Moreover, garbage sorting was nothing more than cultivating everyone's awareness of the environment and making it a little more troublesome for them in their daily lives. It would not have much impact on everyone's lives.

Therefore, Pei Qian did not immediately realize what 'garbage sorting' meant to him.

However, Pei Qian suddenly reacted after freezing for a short while.

Garbage sorting did have nothing to do with him, but it had a lot to do with Fish-Catching Take-Out!

Currently, all Fish-Catching Take-Out had a unified process:

The white porcelain bowls were packed and delivered to the doorstep. The customers leave the leftovers in the tableware for recycling after their meals are completed. The delivery guy would collect the tableware and handle the leftovers centrally before the dishes were cleaned, disinfected, and then reused.

The bad thing was in this 'centralized handling of leftovers'!

In fact, Pei Qian did not think of this when he first started. He only felt that recycling the tableware would allow the delivery guy to make more trips and could spend more money. At the same time, he could pay more for lost tableware.

However, the situation was completely different once garbage sorting was implemented!

The customers did not have to worry about their leftovers or about the disposable lunch boxes and tableware with Fish-Catching Take-Out, unlike the other takeaways.

Customers would have to throw away the boxes, cutlery, and leftovers separately after they were done with their takeaways with other brands.

However, Fish-Catching Take-Out did not need to be bothered with that. They could just put the entire set of tableware outside their door and wait for the recycling. It would have saved them a lot of trouble!

Originally, Fish-Catching Take-Out was going at a premium. Other takeaways could always compete with Fish-Catching Take-Out by virtue of 'cheap, convenience' advantages, but now…

The more Pei Qian thought about it, the more panicky he felt. He moved immediately and went to Fish-Catching Take-Out Shop Number One to look at the disaster!

…

At Fish-Catching Take-Out Shop Number One, the Gourmet Laboratory…

Rui Yuchen was worrying about the prospect of Fish-Catching Take-Out.

Boss Pei did not pay attention to the data that he reported to him at all but made a wave of reverse operation with unknown meaning.

Fish-Catching Take-Out obviously performed better in super first-tier cities and first-tier cities with fewer shops outside Handong Province. However, Boss Pei did the opposite, asking Rui Yuchen to open all new branches in Jingzhou City and other cities in Handong Province.

At present, the Fish-Catching Take-Out stores in the entire Handong Province were obviously saturated, especially in Jingzhou, where Fish-Catching Take-Out stores were competing against each other for business.

Of course, 'saturation' was a concept. It did not mean that the entire Jingzhou was fully covered with Fish-Catching Take-Out. It would be more accurate to say that the supply of Fish-Catching Take-Out had exceeded demand from the current number of users.

There was no helping it. Rui Yuchen had already tried avoiding an overlap of coverage of any two stores before the opening of the stores, but there were really too many Fish-Catching Take-Outs in Jingzhou!

In the end, there was no helping it; it could only be done this way.

In short, Fish-Catching Take-Outs were currently in a state of oversupply in most cities in Handong Province, especially in Jingzhou.

Other than that, Rui Yuchen was having a headache about the Food Harmony brand.

The reputation of Food Harmony was indeed good judging from the pilot situation. However, it was only open to Tengda's loyal users who were required to reach a certain credit rating. Such a pool of users was small in the first place.

Food Harmony might have a certain premium in itself, but a large amount of money must be invested in custom-made food boxes, purchase of ingredients, chef training, cleaning of tableware, etc. There was no way to recover it when they sold so few.

Rui Yuchen's original idea was to make Food Harmony a high-end brand, just like how carmakers made additional high-end luxury brands not to make money but to show their muscles to attack the other brands, thereby enhancing the main brand's performance.

If they were to follow this line of thinking, Food Harmony should be small and beautiful with such high-end services provided only in certain large cities and major stores. It should not be expected to meet everyone's needs but show muscles and high-end meals rather.

However, Boss Pei's thinking was still unpredictable.

Boss Pei asked them to promote Food Harmony immediately to all Fish-Catching Take-Out stores, even if they were in third-tier cities.

That simultaneously included all Fish-Catching Take-Outs in Fish-Catching Internet Cafes.

That way, every store had to reinvest a lot of money to buy food boxes, train chefs, and buy ingredients. All the stores' losses were now greatly increased again!

Originally, Rui Yuchen had seen a little profit which instantly became a black hole of losses with the new maneuvers from Boss Pei.

What did Boss Pei mean?

Rui Yuchen was really puzzled.

He had also discussed these issues with Lin Canrong from the Nameless restaurant. However, Lin Canrong could not say anything. He could only wait patiently if he could not figure it out. Boss Pei must have certain other arrangements.

Therefore, Rui Yuchen was busy these days opening stores, promoting Food Harmony while trying to figure out Boss Pei's true intentions 24 hours a day.

However, all was still for naught.

Rui Yuchen found an empty seat to continue pondering over what Boss Pei meant after giving some guests the samples of Fish-Catching Take-Out at Shop Number One.

However, there were plenty of new order notifications in the store suddenly.

Ding, new order.

Ding, new order.

Ding, new, ding, ding, new order.

Rui Yuchen did not care at the beginning because it was already after five in the afternoon. It was normal for new orders to come in near dinner time.

However, Rui Yuchen suddenly realized that something was wrong after a while.

This new order was too frequent, it had never happened before!

In particular, the voice prompts for many new orders were connected together. This would only be the case when several people placed orders at the same time.

Rui Yuchen hurriedly checked the platform and found that the number of orders in Fish-Catching Take-Out Shop Number One was rapidly growing. It obviously increased nearly 40% as compared with dinner time yesterday!

Rui Yuchen was pleasantly surprised. "Business is rather good today!"

However, he was confused at the same time. What was with everyone today? Why did they order Fish-Catching Take-Out?

Actually, many people in Jingzhou had ordered Fish-Catching Take-Out before, but they did not eat it every day. They would only order it every once in a while for a change in taste. They would usually order other takeaways as well.

There might be many types of meals available for Fish-Catching Take-Out, but one would definitely get tired of eating it all the time.

Therefore, there might be a lot of users of Fish-Catching Take-Out in Jingzhou with a good reputation, but everyone did not order it frequently so it was difficult to achieve payback.

However, with the situation being such now…

Rui Yuchen could not help but be pleasantly surprised. "We'll be able to make profits if we have such an order quantity every day!

"Forget it, what am I thinking? How would it be possible for us to have such an order quantity every day?

"Wait, that's not right. It isn't any special occasion today. Why are people ordering from Fish-Catching Take-Out?"

The more Rui Yuchen thought of it, the more he felt it wasn't right. He quickly went to the chat group consisting of branch managers of Fish-Catching Take-Out to check.

Only then did he realize that the chat group was swarmed with messages!

"Quickly look at this news!"

"[Link] The strictest garbage sorting in Handong Province is fully implemented!"

"[Link] It was imperative to cultivate the awareness of garbage sorting"

"[Link] Leading garbage sorting into a new fashion and new habit!"

"Has it been implemented?"

"Yes, the stage of soliciting opinions is now over. It is now fully implemented in Handong Province, and Jingzhou is a key model city."

"Some small districts are already inspecting garbage sorting, and any litter no longer exists."

"So fast? No wonder I was thinking why the orders are exploding today!"

"My order has also exploded! An ordinary store in a small third-tier city with not many customers usually received more than a dozen orders suddenly—I was shocked!"

"I'm getting off here. I have to rush the back kitchen."

Rui Yuchen hurriedly clicked on the links in the group chat to read the news. Only then did he realize why the orders were skyrocketing.

Handong Province was undergoing garbage sorting!

Every city had its own regulations on garbage sorting, but it was clear that the garbage sorting policy in Handong Province was the strictest in history. It was divided into four categories: Food waste, recyclable waste, hazardous waste, and other large waste.

Food waste and recyclables should not be mixed together!

Most plastic lunch boxes and plastic bags used in take-outs were all recyclable garbage that had to be thrown into the blue trash can while food waste must be thrown into the green trash.

That meant that the leftovers in the takeaway had to be thrown separately from the plastic box and the plastic bag after ordering an ordinary takeaway!

Rui Yuchen banged the table with his fist with enlightenment. "I understand now!

"Boss Pei actually had such a meaning! If you consider the garbage sorting policy, then the series of actions by Boss Pei is the best solution!

"Opening Fish-Catching Take-Out mainly in Handong Province, especially in Jingzhou City, would be able to satisfy consumers' demands to the greatest extent.

"If I were to follow my original idea to open stores all over other cities, then the local demand for garbage sorting in Handong Province would not be able to be met!

"And opening Food Harmony in all stores is even more important now; it can achieve two key effects.

"In addition to showing all diners the high-end brands of Fish-Catching Take-Out, that will diversify the demand. Those who want a high-end experience will order Food Harmony while the ordinary folks can order Fish-Catching Take-Out.

"Perfect!

"Could Boss Pei have heard about it a while ago and had predicted the trend?"