Demand Exceeds Supply

As the three varieties of strawberries officially went on sale in the online store.

And as customers who had pre-ordered gradually received their strawberries, Hai Lu Feng Company's three strawberry varieties received a flood of positive reviews.

More than a week had passed since their official launch, and Zhang Xinyi was leading her team in reviewing the online store's backend data.

"Manager, should we delete these comments saying our prices are too high?" the backend administrator asked quietly.

Zhang Xinyi shook her head. "No need. We're targeting the high-end market to begin with. Isn't it normal for the prices to be high? As long as customers aren't leaving malicious comments, there's no need to delete them."

After more than a week of sales.

The Online Store Department had sold a total of around 1,300 one-kilogram strawberry gift boxes, at an average price of roughly 65 yuan per kilogram, generating total revenue of 85,200 yuan.

"Manager, our eel canned food sales have also increased quite a bit over the past week."

Zhang Xinyi checked the inventory data in the backend.

At present, Hai Lu Feng Company's Canned Food Factory could produce 70,000 cans of tinplate eel canned food and 15,000 pouches of Unagi Kabayaki retort packs every month.

Of those, the Unagi Kabayaki retort packs had basically all been purchased by Japanese restaurants and eel rice restaurants across the country.

The Unagi Kabayaki retort packs had become the Canned Food Factory's flagship product. The reason they continued producing tinplate canned food was mainly to use up the trimmings generated during retort pack production.

Since each Unagi Kabayaki retort pack used one whole eel, the standard was 1.2 kilograms of fish meat per pouch, sold for 120 yuan.

However, female eels usually weighed around 1.5 to 1.8 kilograms. After removing the head, tail, and innards, they still weighed roughly 1.2 to 1.5 kilograms.

As a result, some eels exceeded the weight limit, and a portion had to be cut off to keep the weight at around 1.23 kilograms.

Naturally, those cut-off pieces could not be wasted. Together with the eels whose whole fish weight did not reach 1.2 kilograms, they were used to make tinplate canned food.

Fortunately, Jiang Miao had no intention of damaging his reputation. Although trimmings were used, all the fish meat was good quality. He also had Li Xinhua increase the eel meat content in every tinplate can to 110 grams while keeping the original price.

Even so, over the past few months, the Canned Food Factory had still accumulated an inventory of more than 60,000 cans of tinplate eel canned food.

Meanwhile, the Unagi Kabayaki retort packs were in short supply.

There was nothing to be done about that. Unagi Kabayaki retort packs were purchased by Japanese restaurants and eel rice restaurants, while tinplate eel canned food was mainly bought by individual customers, with some sold through supermarkets. The two products served rather different customer groups.

Zhang Xinyi reviewed the sales figures for each product in the backend.

She discovered that throughout March, the 15,000 pouches of Unagi Kabayaki retort packs had often been out of stock for several days at a time. Clearly, major clients were snapping them up.

The profits on the Unagi Kabayaki retort packs were also quite good.

The 15,000 pouches had brought in a total of 1.695 million yuan, averaging around 113 yuan per pouch. The average price had not reached 120 yuan, mainly because some were lost during logistics and transportation, while major clients also received bulk discounts.

As for tinplate canned food in March, the online store had sold only 7,253 cans, generating just 101,000 yuan in revenue.

Fortunately, supermarkets and directly operated stores were selling them as well. Otherwise, the inventory of tinplate canned food might have continued piling up.

After reviewing the sales figures for strawberries and eel canned food, Zhang Xinyi checked the sales of eel fry and Sea Snow Feed.

A total of 7.16 million eel fry had been sold through the Online Store Department's channels, generating 15.75 million yuan in revenue. More than 25 tons of Sea Snow Feed had been sold, bringing in 370,000 yuan.

After tallying everything up, Zhang Xinyi found that the Online Store Department's total sales revenue for March had reached 17,606,827 yuan.

Only after checking the data again did she record it in a document on her tablet. She also had the backend administrator verify it. Once everything was confirmed correct, Zhang Xinyi printed the document.

At the end of every month, Jiang Miao worked in the chairman's office at headquarters.

His brother-in-law knocked and entered, carrying a work report.

"Brother-in-law, have a seat."

"A Miao, this is the situation with the newly expanded 200 mu of open-air fish ponds. We've already put some of the leaf eels we cultivated ourselves into those open-air fish ponds."

"Oh? They've all been stocked?"

His brother-in-law nodded. "They've all been stocked. Actually, 200 mu of fish ponds only need 400,000 leaf eels. We hatch nearly 30 million fry every month, so we can easily spare enough to meet our own needs. Once the cycle is complete, we won't need to purchase mature eels from outside anymore."

"Thanks for your hard work. Have some tea, Brother-in-law." Jiang Miao poured him a cup of Phoenix Dan Cong.

After taking a sip, his brother-in-law brought up expanding production again. "By the way, A Miao, all the indoor breeding pools are now in use. We expect to double our eel fry production capacity every month. We'll reach that scale next month. Market prices are still falling. Should we reduce our shipments?"

Jiang Miao refilled his brother-in-law's tea, a faint smile appearing on his lips. "Xihai Company's mine is about to blow up. What do you think the market's reaction will be?"

"You mean the eel farmers in Ryukyu, South Goryeo, and Southeast Asia will be forced to buy fry from us and Kagoshima Eel Company?"

Jiang Miao raised one finger and shook it. "Kagoshima Eel Company's production capacity can't even satisfy the Japan market. That means the international market can only turn to us."

"That's great. Looks like eel fry prices will see a rebound in April." His brother-in-law unconsciously rubbed his hands together.

Knock, knock...

"Come in."

Li Zhou walked in.

Seeing Li Zhou enter, his brother-in-law stood up as well and picked up his briefcase. "You two get to work. I'll head back to the farm and take a look."

"Take care, Brother-in-law."

"No need to see me off. Get back to work."

After his brother-in-law left.

Jiang Miao poured Li Zhou a cup of tea. "Have some tea."

Li Zhou looked somewhat worried. "Boss, although we sold all the Eel Fry in March, the preorders for April are nearly three million fry fewer than in March."

"It's fine. I'll handle it."

"Uh..." Li Zhou hesitated, but seeing how confident his boss was, he wondered if he was simply worrying over nothing.

Just as Li Zhou was unsure how to continue, Jiang Miao had already opened the folder.

"This month's sales were decent."

The Sales Department's performance in March had indeed been good. They had sold a total of 23.24 million glass eels, and with the accompanying Sea Snow Feed, the sales revenue had reached 52.73 million yuan.

"Uh, it was all thanks to your wise guidance, Boss," Li Zhou replied with a dry laugh.

"Alright, stop flattering me. The company won't forget your contributions. Qingming Festival is coming up, so how about this? Your Sales Department can take a week off and get some rest."

"This... wouldn't that be inappropriate?" Li Zhou immediately hesitated.

Jiang Miao shook his head. "I don't mean anything else by it. I just want you all to rest for a while. You need to balance work and rest, after all."

"Alright, then. On behalf of all the Sales Department employees, thank you for your consideration, Boss."

Jiang Miao then instructed him meaningfully, "Oh, right. If any clients call during the holiday to order Eel Fry, have everyone stick to the same story. Tell them the company is cleaning out the fish ponds and that supply will only resume after some time."

"Cleaning out the fish ponds?" Li Zhou nodded. Though he was full of doubts, he had no intention of getting to the bottom of it. He took a sip of tea, then excused himself and left.

A short while later, Zhang Xinyi came in as well.

She reported on the Online Store Department's sales.

After reviewing the report, Jiang Miao gave Zhang Xinyi the same instructions: tell the Online Store Department's sales staff that if customers wanted to buy Eel Fry during the Qingming Festival, they should use the fish farm's pond-cleaning as an excuse and suspend Eel Fry sales.

Zhang Xinyi was equally full of questions, but she did not dare ask why.