Building a brand
Like carving a fine work of art, developing good eggs incurs considerable expense. In 2001, Chiu registered the trademark Sunny Eggs and set the sales price at NT$9 (now NT$11) per egg. Though his care is reflected in the cost, the product still had to survive the test of the market.
Taiwan’s eggs have long been priced around NT$3 each, with little variation, since barriers to entry to the industry are low, there’s high supply, and prices are controlled mainly by egg wholesalers. In order to find a niche, Chiu’s marketing strategy was to set his own sales prices and establish a distribution system, first selling them through Taipei’s high-class department stores and organic food shops, and later to general markets. To mold an image of quality eggs, the cartons bear the farm name and address, a QR code, a product description, and an after-sales service phone number.
On top of this, Sunny Eggs is one of Taiwan’s first egg farms to receive Taiwan’s Certified Agricultural Standards and Traceable Agricultural Product certifications, and has also passed ISO 22000 and HACCP international safety standards. In 2008 the company secured the OVN nutrition certification long prevalent in EU countries but rare in Asian countries, further reinforcing its brand image.
In retrospect, Sunny Eggs’ marketing strategy has been quite a success. Their sales volume has steadily grown by the year, and their eggs are the chosen ingredients of many restaurants and food processing companies that flaunt their rigorous standards. For example, the pineapple cake brand SunnyHills, the venerable egg roll company Fu Yishan, donut seller Mister Donut, and gourmet bread shop Paul all use Sunny Eggs.
Chiu believes that besides having a clear target market, brand building requires a diversity of products and sales channels. As they say, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” But he is dubious about cooperation with convenience store chains, whose parent companies are usually big food companies, despite their superior selling power. Such cooperation comes at a price: egg farmers are required to use feed supplied by the parent companies, they don’t have a say in pricing, and the cooperation must be exclusive. What begins as a partnership may end up like a dependent relationship.
Creating a “blue ocean”
Throughout this time, the trend of brand-name eggs has been growing. Chiu doesn’t worry about competition; instead, he holds that improved product quality and organized marketing will help the industry as a whole make reasonable profits while providing consumers with superior egg products.
Under the leadership of the Excellent Egg Development Association, where Chiu is in his fourth term as chairman, currently Taiwan has 19 fresh egg product farms, eight liquid egg factories (processing plants that package egg yolks and whites separately) and three “thousand-year-old egg” factories which have received the CAS mark. Although the total output of CAS certified eggs only accounts for 6–8% of the fresh egg market, this segment is the new cutting edge in the industry, bringing brighter prospects to Taiwanese egg farmers.
In the course of his life from “I won’t raise chickens!” to his mission to upgrade the industry, Stone Chiu is grateful for his father’s quiet yet steadfast support. “My father exemplifies the true spirit of industriousness. He had the forbearance to let me go away and live an itinerant lifestyle, and because of that I had the courage to break out of the mold, so we could create a new dawn for the industry together,” says Chiu.
The story of Sunny Eggs is the story of a father and son sharing the same ideals. This once again proves that by injecting new thinking into management and development it is possible for traditional industries to achieve success.