Formosa Chang, a brand that I’m not unfamiliar with.
It is the LBP (Lor Ba Peng, what the Taiwanese calls this Braised minced meat rice) that I always eat when I go to Taiwan before this trip. And I know this brand because there is this Famous Taiwanese host who always get made fun of on those variety shows because he look like the founder of Formosa Chang, and his surname is Chang as well. So I always thought that the host is really the one who founded Formosa Chang.
But little did I know that the story behind Formosa Chang is a long and inspiring one:
On the second day of our trip, we went to Formosa Chang’s first ever shop along Ning Xia night market.
After the tour, the CEO of the Formosa Chang presented his brand to us. It was very inspiring as we get to learn a lot of things through that simple yet educational speech.
I think there are a few takeaways from the speech and also the tour led by the store manager. And I feel that these takeaways are very relevant to any company, be it the F&B or the retail stores. And to a certain extent, it’s very relevant to life as well.
Throughout the tour, this is the thing that kept coming to my head. Everything. Every single details say so much about them going back to their roots. The first bicycle, the first cartshop, the first ladle that they used to scoop their rice, the stones from the hometown.
I think this is the part where it gets heartwarming, when one company despite being so respectful, is still so humble because of their humble beginning. They don’t take it for granted that they’re THAT good and people just keep coming for more. They just know what they want to do, and that is to preserve what the founder has left behind with them, making the best LBP for the people out there.
This is not only heartwarming to the customers, but also even more so to the employees. Knowing your boss is turning the company into just a money-making machine is heartwarming enough. And knowing your boss actually went back to his hometown to collect the rocks that represents all of your hopes and wishes, and displaying it in the store, means so much more. I feel that knowing the management actually care about the employees is the most important thing to keep them motivated to strive for good results. It’s always like that isn’t it? If someone cares about you, you will definitely do your best and care for that someone too. It’s such a simple newton’s law, and some companies just don’t get it.
Knowing how precise each and every ingredient is used in that bowl of LBP, I was impressed. They really put in their best, to get the best proportionate of different rice, the best amount of minced meat in the rice, and the different methods to eat it. This LBP may look simple and easy to make, but trust me it isn’t. The rice itself contains much knowledge.
Formosa Chang uses two types of rice in that small bowl of rice. 70% of A and 30% of B, both A & B are Taiwan homegrown rice. And there are different ways of cooking the two rices. Hence, instead of making it easier by just cooking one type of rice, they go through a more difficult process to get that one bowl of rice, cooking two types of rice and mixing them.
Why go through that trouble, you may ask? It’s a simple answer, it’s simply because it’s just nicer. With a combination of a short grain and a slightly longer one, the texture and consistency of the rice is different from just one type of rice. This type of texture, consistency and taste of the rice blend perfectly with the LBP sauce. So for such perfect and out-of-the-world taste, to Formosa Chang, it is worth the trouble.
Knowing when to delegate to non-family members for the company’s best interest
It was humility at its best when the CEO of Formosa Chang said that he knows that he doesn’t know everything, and so he just focused on the things that he knows, and delegated those that he knows that other people will be more capable of than him.
He then focused on creating SOPs, which led to the successful making of the most perfect proportioned LBP. SOPs also included the workflow and process flow of all the behind-the-scenes, leaving those that he doesn’t know to the business consultants.
Never be afraid to take the more difficult path
One of the difficult paths that the CEO took, I feel that it’s the taking back of all franchisees. From just giving them the whole what-to-dos, to the entire how-to-dos, what-not-to-dos, the should-dos, that’s a difficult path on its own.
Formosa Chang has the luxury to just provide the Franchisee with the solutions, and just earn from that. But to the CEO, that’s not what they want. If the Franchisees are ruining their brand, and their service excellence and spoiling their reputation. There’s no way he’s going to earn this money and keep quiet. And so, instead of earning the easy money, he decided to close all franchising outlets, and open his own chain restaurants.
There you go, taking the more difficult path because you want to preserve the story of your brand, you want to keep and maintain the things that makes your brand what it is until today.
Another story that I think is relevant is during the time where there was a swine flu going on, when people were avoiding pork at all costs. That incident, is definitely a major hit to Formosa Chang, the company that’s famous for braised pork rice. But instead of leaving it to fate, the CEO decided to make a decision to create new products, adding on to the very lean product mix. They came up with chicken rice, and other items such as chicken cutlet, tofu, vegetables and soup to counter this virus, hoping that people will still support them through these items.
To gain people’s trust on items that they do not know about before is not easy. But to the CEO, rather than closing the business and making all his employees lose their jobs, he rather take the difficult path. He rather try and do his best in making the situation to his favour, then leaving it all to fate. Hence, this is the part where I think we can learn from, regardless business or personal. Always do your best, and go out of the way to do what you want to do. When life gives you lemons, make lemonades. Life’s just like that, you have to do what it takes to get what you want, and not sit down and wait for things to happen. This is the exact difference between someone successful and someone who’s just mediocre. The successful one will always be the one who’s willing to take the difficult path, cos that’s where you get the highest reap of satisfaction when you have succeeded.
Always innovate — combining the old and the new.
They wanted to attract the younger crowd, the Gen Ys. And they were not afraid to try something different, something outrageous and something that not all bosses will give the go ahead. What Formosa Chang did is that they recreated a whole series of merchandises to suit the Gen Ys of Taiwan who are into street brands like Bathing Ape, Supreme and so on. This trend has also been leveraged by taiwanese artistes as more and more of them are coming out with their own street brands in recent years, like Stage Luo has his own brand “Stage”, and “Stay Real” by Ashin from Mayday. I feel that this is a smart move because they are really working on a campaign that’s in line with what most Gen Ys are interested in these days.
And what’s more important than having the right people to speak to the Gen Ys? By getting celebrities to endorse these merchandises, wearing it on a magazine covers, I think it’s a good marketing way, because these celebrities can easily persuade the Gen Ys to purchase.
All in all I think this is a excellent campaign that definitely achieves the objective of reaching out to the younger crowd. Through this campaign, I feel that there are a few messages that have been delivered:
- We are not your traditional LBP brand, we know how to be fun and funky!
- We know what you like, and we will do our best to cater to your needs (further emphasizes on going the extra mile for the customers)
- Formosa Chang is unique and innovative, and we will always bring this new idea out there to reach out to our customers.
With all these messages successfully delivered out, I think it gives a very good publicity and people will start seeing Formosa Chang in a different light.
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