On May 18, Beibingyang Yili Park North Gate 2. Two elderly people who went to Beibingyang Yili flagship store to shop walked through the North Gate 2. A08-A09 Edition Photography/Beijing News reporter Yin Yafei

The old production process of Yili bread.

On June 15, 1951, a commemorative photo of the establishment of Beijing Yili Food Factory.

On May 8, Daxing District, Beijing Yili Bread Food Co., Ltd., bread production workshop, workers are busy.

In the 1950s, Beijing Yili Food Factory soda biscuit box.

Beijing Centennial Yili

On the afternoon of May 6, a food store near the Tianqiao Theater in the south of the city, an old lady entered the store, turned left skillfully, grabbed two "fruit breads", and paid the bill in less than a minute.

The husband was waiting for her at the door. He couldn't tell the exact reason why he loved this one for decades. Maybe he liked the chewiness with the aroma of walnut kernels, or maybe he was used to opening the wax paper packaging soaked in butter.

On the lintel, a dark red signboard was sprayed with bright yellow characters - "Hundred Years of Yili". This century-old store, which belongs to Beijing No. 1 Light Industry Food Group (abbreviated as "No. 1 Light Industry"), is a state-owned enterprise. It has been in existence for 67 years since it was established in Beijing in 1951.

After decades of ups and downs, "Yi Li" has experienced a long period of pain under the wave of China's economic transformation and state-owned enterprise reform. Especially in the process of transition from planned economy to market economy, this old domestic brand was in a game with private enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises, and it almost closed down.

In the 40 years of reform and opening up, "Yi Li" has gone from "the only one" to decline and decline, and then to today's rebirth. This complex curve is difficult to describe with "no doubt".

No. 5 Guangyi Street

At 8 o'clock in the morning, the production line of "Yili" has started in the Daxing factory area outside the South Fifth Ring Road. 36-year-old pastry chef Zhao Zhanzhong arrived at 6:50. The milk fragrance from last night had not yet dissipated. He prepared eggs while turning on the machine. After the chef in front of him beat the small cakes, he took out the black mold plate, hung the batter on it, and neatly arranged them in rows and sent them into the baking oven.

Zhao Zhanzhong is from Baoding, Hebei. He only knows that this company that made a name for itself in the capital was not native to the capital. It was migrated from the concession area of old Shanghai in response to the call for "prospering the capital" at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Before moving to the Daxing factory area, it had been at No. 5 Guangyi Street near Guang'anmen in the city.

Old residents nearby can all tell the origin of the street name: "Guang" is Guang'anmen, and "Yi" is Yili Food Factory. From 1951 to 2001, "Yi Li" spent a full 50 years here. Old Zhou, who has lived at the back wall of the factory for 63 years, said that he grew up smelling the "Yi Li" smell and still remembers the former glory vividly--

In the 1970s and 1980s, cars waiting for goods lined up at the back door, stretching for two or three hundred meters. The carts went directly to the production line to wait for the goods, and took away one box after another. At four or five in the morning, they were delivered to several large sales points such as Xidan and Wangfujing. I heard that there were already people waiting there, and the machines running non-stop from morning to night.

"Fruit bread" evolved from the "Christmas bread" of old Shanghai. At first, it was stuffed with fresh fruits, but Beijing had few fresh seasonal fruits except April apricots and June peaches, so the fruits were replaced with nuts. He remembered that there was an old Shanghai "581" tricycle in the factory, which drove in and out with a rumble, "dark green and very foreign style".

When they first moved in, 48 old workers from Shanghai followed them. One of Lao Zhou's neighbors was a man who "spoke with a southern accent and didn't eat soy sauce." The "particularity" of Shanghai people became a legend inside and outside the factory: they worked according to the operating procedures and never slacked off. After get off work, the men put on suits and the women put on dresses and went to the dance floor to dance.

Beijing educated youth Chen Junyuan recorded his memories of 42 middle school students learning to work in the factory on his blog: One day during the night shift, at 6 a.m., funeral music suddenly came from the loudspeaker, and the rumbling sound of the machines stopped abruptly. Everyone was stunned, and only a few minutes later did they know that Premier Zhou Enlai had passed away.

When the time came to 1976, there were more than 2,000 workers in the factory, "if they did well, they would be evaluated as advanced, and if they messed up, they would receive state subsidies." At that time, Yili was a collectively owned enterprise, and the production and distribution of materials were all regulated by the state, and the operators did not have to worry about production and investment at all.

They didn't know that two years later, at the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, Deng Xiaoping proposed the strategic decision of "internal reform and external opening up", and the focus of the work of the Party and the country shifted from "class struggle as the key link" to economic construction. The following year, Deng Xiaoping again proposed, "Why can't socialism have a market economy? This cannot be said to be capitalism. We are mainly a planned economy, combined with a market economy, but this is a socialist market economy."

Economic system reform became an important issue for the country in the next two or three decades, and "righteousness and profit" also ushered in a change in the chessboard of destiny.

"Others follow economic laws, and we know nothing about the market"

After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, China's economic cells began to recover. Coca-Cola returned to China; Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant resumed business, and the old brand gradually revived. The 7.6 million educated youth who went to the countryside returned to the city like a tide, and the employment problem became an urgent matter.

When 18-year-old Li Qi received the notice to return to the city, he was harvesting wheat under the sun in the countryside of Tongzhou. Among the four job volunteers he applied for, he wanted to work as a foundry worker at Shougang the most. The reason was simple: it was a heavy physical labor position with a salary of 33 yuan, which was much higher than other units. As a result, he was not admitted and came to the bread workshop of Yili Food Factory.

Like many state-owned enterprise employees over 50 years old, he remembered the changes in his salary in the first ten years: 18 yuan in 1979, more than 20 in 1981, more than 40 in 1986, and more than 60 in 1989.

During the transition from planned economy to market economy, no one gave a definite answer as to when the reform first started in the factory. But most people believe that 1984 was an important node based on their feelings.

In April 1984, "Yi Li" opened a Western-style fast food restaurant in Xirongxian Hutong at the south entrance of Xidan. Li Qi recalled that there was a big sign at the door saying "Air conditioning is open", and when you walked in, you could hear light music. After washing your hands, there was a hot air blower next to the sink, which dried your hands in less than 1 minute. At the food pick-up area, the food was placed on a tray, which was convenient and fresh.

Yili fast food restaurant's leading position became a bright page in the company's story. In the same year, the factory welcomed Americans for the first time.

Nabisco, an international biscuit manufacturer, took the initiative to find it, hoping to establish a joint venture. Yili responded to the reform policy of encouraging Sino-foreign joint ventures and was eager to establish a modern enterprise system: Yili held 51% of the shares, and the other party held 49%, and the company name was "Yili-Nabisco". But the changes that followed were unexpected by the entire factory.

For Hu Wenzhong, who was 34 years old at the time, at first he only felt that the biscuit workshop had moved away and there were fewer people in the factory. But after the joint venture, animal biscuits and soda biscuits were all cancelled and replaced by Nabisco products. Since then, Yili's reputation has gradually been replaced.

"When the other party became stronger and expanded its capital, Yili's shares were diluted. They then removed the two words "Yili" and called it "Nabisco", kicking you out." Hu Wenzhong is 68 years old this year, with gray hair. In 1980, she returned to Beijing from where she had been sent to work in the labor and personnel department of Yili Food Factory (equivalent to the human resources department), and worked with the factory for 38 years.

Many years later, she realized that what foreigners valued was Yili's sales channels. "They did business according to economic laws, but we knew nothing about the market at that time. We only knew that we produced as much as the country sent us."

The pain of the influx of foreign capital has not yet disappeared, and the pace of internal reform has come one after another. The policy of "appropriation to loan" has been quietly carried out in the light industry and tourism industry of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou since the early 1980s. Before that, the state had long implemented the policy of capital construction investment being allocated free of charge by the national budget. In order to increase the economic responsibility of enterprises, it was changed to loans from the People's Construction Bank of China, and interest was paid when the loans were repaid.

Hu Wenzhong said that Yili was used to receiving grants and did not realize the change. It thought that loans were also given by the state, and "it would be a waste if it was not spent". The 11 production lines introduced from abroad basically became negative assets after losing the market.

This is not the only story of "trial and error" in the reform process.

In 1984, the Third Plenary Session of the 12th Central Committee set "planned commodity economy" as the goal of economic system reform, "let prices return to exchange formation", and "replace the administrative pricing system with a market pricing system".

However, fully liberalizing prices was very risky for China at that time. The "dual-track pricing system" became a special product of the transition from a planned economy to a market economy, that is, the state allowed enterprises to sell some products on their own under the premise of completing the plan, and their prices were determined by the market; products under the state's mandatory plan were uniformly allocated according to the state's prescribed prices.

In the late 1980s, Yili fruit bread and Beibingyang soda were products under Beijing's mandatory plan. Hu Huizhong remembered that the price of fruit bread given by the Price Bureau was 42 cents per piece. But at that time, the raw materials such as sugar, oil and flour had become the purchase of enterprises by themselves. The price of raw materials in the market rose, but the price of goods could not be raised, so fruit bread had to be discontinued.

"If we continue to produce, we will lose money for every piece sold." In 1992, an article in the Beijing Evening News made Hu Wenzhong sigh, titled "Where is Yili Bread?" "If consumers hadn't thought of you, this bread would have been gone long ago."

Under the call of the market, fruit bread was resumed.

From "self-employed" to "professional manager"

In 1993, when Zhu Rongji was asked by a German reporter, he said, "Overstaffing is a major problem facing state-owned enterprises. State-owned enterprises are burdened with heavy burdens, and they are helping the country and society to support many people. If we take this into account, the efficiency of state-owned factories is not as low as they are said."

Hu Wenzhong recalled that the busy and orderly Yili workshop was no longer there. The most profound memory of the old employees during that period was the Yanjing draft beer that cost 56 yuan per liter, "staying in the dormitory all day, drinking beer and playing poker". Some people signed in at work and left to do private work outside.

In 1997, Hu Wenzhong was busy arranging the layoffs and diversion of employees. Some people scolded her for "doing immoral things" and "just thinking about driving us away". Every employee who saw her could tell a basket of difficulties at home and outside.

In addition to the wave of layoffs, in the process of separation of ownership and management rights in state-owned enterprises in the 1990s, the independent contracting system gradually became a common form of operation.

In May 1995, Li Qi left Guangyi Street and settled in a 300-square-meter factory building outside the South Second Ring Road. This was originally a place to store equipment after a large production line was shut down, and the site fee was 150,000 yuan per year. The factory leaders gave him 500,000 yuan in start-up capital, asking him to develop new products and bring them to the market, "as long as I can earn back the rent."

With more than a dozen people, each responsible for their own profits and losses, 34-year-old Li Qi experienced a "startup." The Jinsui Bakery was born here as a third-level subsidiary of the "First Light Industry" Group. There were more than a dozen contract factories that were "thrown out" with him.

After leaving the fermentation room, he stepped on a tricycle and delivered the newly developed bread to the small shops on the streets and alleys. "It was completely different from before. Everyone thought I was a self-employed business owner." At the end of the first year, when the financial accounting was done, the bakery created a profit of 140,000 yuan. In the following years, self-service supermarkets sprang up like mushrooms after rain. Li Qi took a fancy to the Supermarket Fa on the North Third Ring Road, where he opened the first "store-in-store" with on-site baking.

In 2001, China officially joined the WTO, marking a new stage in the opening up of the industry. Jinsui Bakery merged with another bakery and was renamed Yili Bakery. It also welcomed two shareholders from the United States and Singapore. It was controlled by the "Yili" Food Group and established a joint venture.

Li Qi was hired as the general manager of the bakery. "Yili's reform steps are considered big. I am the general manager of a purely state-owned enterprise, with a state-owned enterprise establishment." Within the company, he was hired as a "professional manager" and was responsible to the shareholders.

In the following ten years, he opened more than 40 "stores within stores" and opened his own chain store "Bai Nian Yili" in 2012. At this time, Yili Food Factory had few employees left except for the four or five thousand retired employees under its name. The employees all said, "The bakery saved Yili and saved it from death. ¡±

In 2011, Li Qi took over the brother company "Arctic Ocean", and the first major thing he thought about was the comeback of Arctic Ocean.

In the mid-to-late 1990s, "Pepsi-Cola" acquired the company under policy encouragement, and the Arctic Ocean cold drink brand was shelved. More than a decade later, the beverage cabinets in convenience stores are already filled with plastic bottles and cans, and the glass bottle packaging is gradually forgotten. The "Snow Mountain White Bear" on the slender bottle of Arctic Ocean is gradually forgotten.

At the shareholders' meeting, Li Qi said, "Let's bet on the glass bottle. People are looking for memories. " He spoke in a loud voice, seeming confident, but he was not completely sure. At first, the factory set up a small-scale production line, producing 18,000 bottles per hour, but they were sold out unexpectedly.

Regaining the spirit of craftsmanship

At 6 pm on May 6, Li Qi paced in the factory area in Daxing, and the phone in his hand kept ringing. Workers walked out of the workshop one after another and jumped on the bus to go home. The Arctic Ocean workshop hadn't gotten off work yet. The cleaners poured out the leftovers in the glass bottles, took out cigarette butts, popsicle sticks, and napkins, and stacked them on the assembly line for cleaning.

"The cost of cleaning and recycling glass bottles is very high, and there is a great risk if they are not cleaned thoroughly. Big companies pick the easy things to do, and only the difficult things are our space for survival. " At this time, Li Qi was very clear that Yili was no longer the "big enterprise" it used to be.

He set aside several hundred square meters of green space in the factory area and erected a sculpture of Arctic Ocean soda on the artificial lake. A 20-year-old art student was painting on a green paint bucket. He had never heard of "Yi Li" before coming here to work as a part-time set designer.

Li Qi admitted that young people and outsiders think that domestic bread is old-fashioned when they hear about it, and companies are also trying to change. On Zhongguancun's Entrepreneurship Street, Arctic Ocean sponsored an employee blind date meeting organized by an Internet company.

"However, feelings and brands are just stepping stones. To be able to do it for a long time still depends on quality. " He wonders every day, why do people buy Swiss watches and German durable goods?

According to statistics, as of 2013, there were 3,146 companies in Japan with a lifespan of more than 200 years, the most in the world, and 837 in Germany. China, as the world's second largest manufacturing country with the second largest GDP, does not have many century-old companies. One of the important reasons is that the spirit of craftsmanship has not been effectively inherited.

"Enterprises are encouraged to carry out personalized customization and flexible production, cultivate the spirit of craftsmanship of striving for excellence, increase varieties, improve quality and create brands." In March 2016, "craftsmanship" appeared for the first time in Premier Li Keqiang's "Government Work Report."

Yi Li, aware of this, is also regaining the spirit of craftsmanship.

"My father was a fitter, and when I first entered the factory I was a bread baker, and I relied on my skills to get through step by step. " In 1979, fermented raw bread was loaded into the entrance of the large oven one by one, and delivered to the exit twenty minutes later. The fragrant bread came out of the oven, and the iron box was very hot. Li Qi wore short sleeves all year round. He took the heavy cast iron tray from the conveyor belt, turned around and poured out six or seven loaves of bread, "If you are not slow, the iron tray will fall and hit your feet."

He never counted how many times he had to repeat this action every day. Later, he could tell whether the raw material ratio was correct, whether the flour was beaten enough, and whether the degree of fermentation was appropriate by just looking at the dough.

"Everyone who comes to the factory to learn a craft has a master who teaches him some methods. After he learns it, he starts a business and a family here. Generations of people have been doing this, they are Swiss watchmakers. " He felt that Yili had a long way to go.

Personal experience of reform

Li Qi, 57, is the general manager of Beijing Yili Food Group Co., Ltd., and manages brands such as Yili and Arctic Ocean.

On June 10, 1979, I was harvesting wheat in the field. The sickle was not sharpened quickly, and my movements were relatively large, and I accidentally cut a piece of skin off my leg. At that time, I received a letter of notification saying that my household registration could be moved back to the urban area of Beijing. Our family originally lived in Xianyukou, Qianmen. In 1969, in response to the call of "two hands do not eat idle meals in the city", we moved to the rural area at the junction of Tongzhou District and Hebei Province.

At that time, Yili Food Factory began to recruit workers from the society, and the monthly salary of apprentices was 18 yuan. I entered Yili's bread workshop and worked in both proofing and baking. Yili is a collectively owned enterprise, so we call it "Yili Collective".

I was transferred to the Product Development Department in 1988 to do new product research and development and study the production environment of bread and biscuits, including temperature, humidity, proofing time, etc. In the previous few years, foreign-funded enterprises took a fancy to Yili's sales channels. After the joint venture, they used this channel to sell their own brand products. After they became stronger, they stopped selling domestic brands. The market was gradually taken over by foreign capital, and my development department had basically nothing to do.

At the same time, the state's grants to enterprises were gradually changed to loans, which had to be repaid after operation, and interest had to be paid. The factory introduced 11 production lines at once, and by the 1990s, they had basically become "burdens" that could not be thrown away.

In 1995, I contracted a small bakery, and the factory building I used was where the equipment was stored after a production line was shut down. At that time, the factory was responding to the reform policy of "withdrawing from the second and moving into the third" - withdrawing from the second ring road and moving into the third ring road; withdrawing from the secondary industry and moving into the tertiary industry.

The bakery started with a capital of 500,000 yuan, a dozen people, and was responsible for its own profits and losses. I think I experienced a 100% entrepreneurial experience. With profits, the factory gave me another 500,000 yuan two years later. Around 2000, the bakery had more than 130 people, mainly relying on supermarket channels to run bakery stores. In 2012, we opened our own chain store, with more than 1,300 employees and an annual salary of about 200 million yuan.

The current "burden" of state-owned enterprises is still heavier than that of private enterprises. Like Weiduomei, they are more flexible than us in auditing, employee contract management, and supporting facilities, and they do a good job.

Some employees want to earn more wages and don't want to take out insurance, but state-owned enterprises can't do that. Some employees don't want to live near the store, so we have to send a car to pick them up. The food factory still has 4,000 retired employees. Although their wages are paid by the state, they have formed the concept of "looking for the enterprise when there is a problem". If there is a problem with the heating fee, property management and maintenance fee, they all come to find it.

Based on my personal experience, I think the core of state-owned enterprise reform is to liberate productivity and creativity. In that era, the delegation of power and trust of the group leaders gave me an opportunity. In the future, if we want to gain a foothold in the market, we must continue to reform.

Reform Dictionary

Price dual-track system: The price dual-track system refers to the system in which the planned part of the same product is subject to state pricing and the unplanned part is subject to market-regulated prices. In China, it generally refers to the dual-track price system for industrial means of production. It refers to a special price management system in the transition of China's economic system to a market economy.

The dual-track system is a gradual incremental reform strategy implemented by China from 1979 to 1993. With the gradual development and growth of the extracorporeal price mechanism, the price within the system will eventually lose its prominent position and gradually withdraw from the market. The implementation and eventual breaking of the dual-track pricing system marked China's official move toward a market economy. (Reporter Tao Ruogu)

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