In a mere month, Master Kang has taken Taiwan by storm, so much so that the company has been unable to meet demand for its instant noodles. The strength of the offensive launched by Wei Ing-chou, chairman of the Ting Hsin Group, has not gone unnoticed.
Ten years ago, Master Kang was just a small cooking-oil factory in Changhua. To expand its business, the brothers who owned the company decided to break new ground in mainland China. Wei Ing-hsing, Ting Hsin's vice chairman and the youngest of the four brothers, was the first to go to the mainland to develop the cooking-oil manufacturing business. But he picked the wrong location and the company lost almost all its capital. There was nothing for it but to return to Taiwan.
In the midst of these difficulties, there was an unexpected turn for the better. On one occasion, Wei Ing-hsin was traveling by train to China's interior to explore a cooking-oil manufacturing opportunity. On the way to visit a client, he noticed that everyone in the mainland wanted to eat instant noodles made in Taiwan. One Communist-party cadre asked him where these delicious noodles could be obtained. Quick on the uptake, Wei resolved on the spot to develop the instant-noodle market in the mainland. He immediately discussed the matter with his eldest brother and proposed putting cooking oil manufacturing on the back burner to concentrate on starting an instant-noodles business.
In the food industry there is a saying, "Don't get into business you're not familiar with." No sooner had Wei Ing-hsing talked about his plan than his brothers expressed their doubts about it. Most of them thought it was too risky and unlikely to succeed. But Wei Ing-chou, the eldest brother, did not share this viewpoint, thinking: "If we don't do it, we'll never get to know this business." Wei Ing-chou therefore persuaded his brothers to start again from scratch. Their aim was to make good-tasting instant noodles.
When Master Kang noodles were first introduced in the mainland, they met with little consumer interest. But Wei Ing-chou was not ready to give up: every day he would eat instant noodles to taste them himself and identify any problems. It was not unusual for him to eat more than ten bowls of noodles a day. After countless tastings and recipe changes, he gained so much experience that he could clearly make out which production line a bowl of noodles came from. A long period of research and improvements finally led to the tasty Master Kang noodle brand, which quickly became all the rage.
After the Master Kang brand became a hit in the mainland, orders started to pour in from all over. Production could not keep pace with demand. Trucks bearing cash lined up to buy Master Kang noodles, forming a queue that stretched all the way around the plant. This spectacular success would be hard to imagine in Taiwan.
To speed up production, Wei Ing-chou successively increased the original three production lines to six, and then to 12, 24, and so forth. No matter how many times the company has stepped up production, it has proven so successful that until now it has never been able to keep up with demand. According to Master Kang Holding Company, Ting Hsin currently operates 105 production lines around the clock in mainland China. After ten years of ceaseless work, Master Kang instant noodles finally became the market leader in the mainland. What makes the Wei brothers even more ambitious is their hope that the Taiwan market will be another springboard to fulfill their dream of conquering the Greater China economic region.
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