Chapter 328: Dragon and Phoenix Twins
The food and beverage industry in Hong Kong was not something Yang Wendong intended to personally enter. The main reason was that the market was simply too small. Unlike supermarkets, which had the potential to expand outward, local pastry shops or Chinese cuisine brands were limited by many factors and difficult to scale into national or international chains.
At present, Western markets like Europe and the United States—those with real purchasing power—didn't particularly enjoy Chinese flavors. And as for mainland China, its opening up was still more than a decade away. While it might one day become a manufacturing base for Changxing Group, developing its consumer market—especially in the service sector—would take at least another 40 years. For now, there was no need to even consider it.
In contrast, Western food chains like KFC, McDonald's, and Burger King were able to expand because their food standardization made them easy to replicate at scale.
However, Yang Wendong wasn't planning to invest much overseas yet. The timing wasn't right. His capital deployment in Hong Kong wasn't complete, and even when he did begin to invest abroad, he would only consider a handful of golden opportunities, like Walmart or early-stage electronics giants.
—
Three days later, it was February 24.
That morning, Yang Wendong arrived at the office. He had just begun skimming the newspaper when Zheng Zhijie and Liu Huayu walked in, pushing a food cart like the ones used in hotels.
Even before they entered, the aroma hit him. He smiled and asked, "Are you bringing me lunch today?"
Zheng Zhijie grinned. "Yes, Mr. Yang. These past few days, Old Liu and I visited several well-known prepared food shops. We picked a few of the best and brought samples from each. Please have a taste."
"Great, let's go to the lounge." Yang Wendong got up, still smiling.
Although it was a workspace, he often ate meals there—especially when meetings caused him to miss lunch. The tower included a dedicated dining lounge for this very reason.
Of course, they didn't bring in anything too oily or smoky—no hotpots, for instance. Yang Wendong wasn't particular about such things, but he also didn't want the office smelling like a food stall.
The group headed into the lounge. Liu Huayu quickly opened the windows and flipped on the exhaust fan. The system had been installed for cigarette smoke, but since their boss didn't smoke, no one else dared to use it. Now, it came in handy.
Zheng Zhijie began laying out roast duck, roast goose, char siu, suckling pig, pork chops, and more—each dish from a different shop.
"Looks fantastic," said Yang Wendong, appetite stirred.
"Please, give them a try," Zheng Zhijie invited.
"Alright," Yang Wendong said, picking up chopsticks and sampling each dish.
After trying a bit of everything, he said, "They all taste pretty good—maybe I'm not a professional food critic, but I can't tell much of a difference."
"We're the same way," Zheng Zhijie laughed. "We already filtered for quality, so they're all excellent. The hard part is deciding which ones to bring into Carrefour."
Yang Wendong thought for a moment. "Just do what we did with Watsons—conduct customer surveys inside Carrefour. Since these are all century-old brands, they're unlikely to have bad food.
But before we go any further, we should also negotiate investment terms. That has to be the prerequisite. Otherwise, we risk doing all this work and just helping our competitors."
"Understood," Liu Huayu said. "I've already done some preliminary probing. Except for two third-generation family shops, the rest seem open to discussion. We offer premium commercial locations, and anyone with a business mind knows what that's worth."
Carrefour wouldn't be giving away retail space for free, but every vendor could still turn a profit. A few thousand from each shop, multiplied by dozens of locations, would add up to something huge.
For most small business owners, this was like a gift from the heavens. If Carrefour weren't actively seeking to optimize its offerings, these opportunities would be near impossible to come by.
"Alright," Yang Wendong nodded. Glancing at the spread, he asked, "No roast chicken or sausages?"
Liu Huayu explained, "In Hong Kong's prepared food sector, chicken is typically served as white-cut chicken or soy sauce chicken. Roasting isn't as common—that's more of a Western preference.
As for sausages, they're also quite rare here. Those are more popular with Western palates."
"Hmm. Doesn't have to be roast chicken," Yang Wendong said after a pause. "It depends on what the customers want. I've also been thinking—we've already made eggs the cheapest in all of Hong Kong. I'd like to replicate that model with something from the hot food section."
A supermarket can't rely on just a few cheap items to attract traffic. Not everyone buys eggs or rice, even if they're staple foods.
To bring in more customers, you have to diversify your value offerings. In his past life, many supermarkets sold cheap roast chicken or sausages for precisely this reason—they were loss leaders that drew crowds.
"I get it now," Liu Huayu said. "So we'd need to do the same as with eggs—slash chicken production costs. But sausage is tricky. It's made from pork, and pork is hard to source locally in Hong Kong."
While Hong Kong did have some poultry and pig farms, only chicken was farmed at any real scale. Pork mostly came from mainland China or Southeast Asia.
Yang Wendong shook his head. "Even with current chicken farms, I doubt we could meet the demand I'm envisioning. I want everyone in Hong Kong to be able to afford our roast chicken and similar dishes.
If we can't buy it, then invest in it ourselves. Find professional farm managers, buy land in the New Territories, and hire workers from the mainland—some of them should know how to raise chickens. See if we can make it work."
Last year, Hong Kong saw a large influx of immigrants from the mainland, many of whom brought with them a wide range of practical skills. Since animal husbandry is a fundamental trade in agricultural societies, there were bound to be people among them with relevant experience.
Hiring them wouldn't just provide employment opportunities—it could also help Changxing Group tap into local expertise and develop new operations more efficiently.
"Alright, I'll start looking into it," Liu Huayu replied.
Zheng Zhijie added, "The farther north you go in the New Territories, the cheaper the land. A lot of places there are basically being given away if you agree to invest."
"Then buy more," Yang Wendong said with a chuckle. "But don't go too remote. Look for larger plots—that way, the poultry will have more room to move around."
Land values were bound to collapse in a few years. But truly remote areas wouldn't suffer much, because even now, they weren't worth much. The price drop wouldn't be meaningful.
Most of this land was owned by the colonial government. Without a development plan, they wouldn't release it. But with a credible project, not only could one acquire land—they might even get extra incentives.
Liu Huayu understood exactly what his boss meant and smiled. "Got it. I'll pick the location carefully. We need to factor in transportation, too. If the area is too remote, logistics will be a nightmare."
Yang Wendong thought for a moment. "Road access in the New Territories isn't reliable. Don't count on trucks. Buy land near the coast. Then build a small dock—big enough to handle ships of around 100 tons. That should be sufficient for transporting supplies and fresh water.
As for electricity... we'll need to have CLP Power run a line out there. That's not something we can do ourselves."
Liu Huayu laughed. "No problem. Changxing Group is already one of CLP's biggest clients. And to be honest, they're only able to keep generating electricity steadily because of your investment in water transport. I don't think they'll reject a request like this."
"Alright, it's settled," Yang Wendong nodded. "First, we bring in cooked food partners. Then we build our own poultry farms. It's a bit of a grind, but it'll help us keep costs as low as possible."
Hong Kong had always had a poultry industry—even well into the 21st century. It was even more common in this era.
Mainly, this was due to technological limitations. Frozen meat logistics were extremely expensive, and transporting live animals wasn't much easier.
On top of that, with a large refugee population, many with basic education and agricultural backgrounds, combined with Changxing's logistics and grain trade, Yang Wendong was confident they could achieve the lowest possible cost per chicken.
The biggest benefit, however, wasn't just the business. This was a perfect excuse to stockpile land.
In ten or twenty years, even if the New Territories didn't match the core urban areas in value, their growth rate would be astronomical.
"Understood," Liu Huayu nodded.
Zheng Zhijie chimed in, "Mr. Yang, once Liu picks a site, leave the infrastructure to me. Docks, housing, utilities—I've got it covered."
Liu Huayu laughed. "Haha, if we do this together, maybe we'll end up building an entire village in the New Territories."
"Even better," Yang Wendong agreed with a smile.
Once enough jobs were created, a village could naturally form. If things grew further, even a small town could be possible.
This wouldn't work for factories—factories needed skilled labor and infrastructure, so they couldn't just be thrown into the middle of nowhere. But poultry farming? That could work almost anywhere.
If a village formed around the farm, that could become the nucleus of future development. And when the colonial government eventually moved to build towns in the New Territories, Changxing would already be in place—ready to profit.
Of course, that was just speculation for now.
If the poultry business went well, Yang Wendong could even build a budget fried chicken brand, like a local version of Wallace (a popular mainland Chinese fast-food chain). He could franchise it out, and growth would skyrocket. That would increase demand for chickens, giving him another reason to expand the farms—and stockpile more land.
Even in the New Territories, if he managed to stockpile hundreds of thousands—or even millions—of square feet, that land could be worth a fortune in the future.
And if done well, this might even help lower meat prices across Hong Kong—a public good.
But no matter how promising, all this would take time. Realistically, it would be late in the 1960s before any real results showed.
—
That afternoon, while reading the Western news, Yang Wendong suddenly received an urgent phone call.
It was from the hospital.
His wife, Bai Yushan, who had been staying in a VIP maternity ward, was going into labor.
He immediately rushed to the hospital, but by the time he arrived, the delivery had already begun, and she had been taken into the operating room. All he could do was wait outside.
The Yang family and several members of the Bai family soon arrived. They all waited anxiously in the hospital hallway.
Because it was a twin pregnancy, the doctors had warned that the delivery might be complicated, which made even the usually unshakable Yang Wendong deeply worried.
Time passed slowly.
Finally, at 8 PM, the light above the operating room door turned off.
A doctor emerged, approached Yang Wendong, and said with a smile, "Congratulations, Mr. Yang—it's a healthy pair of dragon and phoenix twins."
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