Belgian bakery conquers Chinese market

Our famous Belgian cookie bakery , Lotus bakeries is ready to settle his first establishment in Shanghai, one of china’s largest cities. Shanghai will be the center of distribution of Belgium’s best-known cookie.

Up to now, Lotus bakeries made use of Goodwell, a local importer.  But this could be changed soon, as Lotus is planning to start his own local distributing team.

The main advantage of an importer is that he has a broad knowledge of the local market. The fact that he also has other brands under his wings, is commercially less attractive. Therefore, Lotus bakeries decided to start a joint venture with Goodwell called Lotus Bakeries China. With the establishment of this joint venture, there is chosen for a team that is solely focused on the further development of Lotus. The Management of Lotus Bakeries is pleased with this important strategic step in China.

Although Lotus Bakeries opens a new establishment in Shanghai, the cookies will still be baked in Lembeke, Lotus’ hometown.   According to CEO Jan Boone: “you can’t produce the authenticity of the cookie anywhere else around the world. The cookies are still baked like my grandfather  did it in the old days, no dyes, no flavorings. How it should be.” The company distributes yearly 100 million cookies to China, only 1 % of the total production. Only 1%? let's do a little calculation. China counts around the 1.300.000.000 inhabitants. So 100 million devided by 1.300.000.000 gives us 0.076 cookies/person a year. Ofcourse this is strictly theoretical.  However the ambitions of Lotus bakeries of high. They aim at an double-digit annual sales growth. “Of course we are willing to grow, so this is an important step in further expansion” Jan Boone says.

So next time you make a trip to China and you can’t miss your daily coffee with a sugar sweet biscuit, don’t worry, Lotus bakeries cares for you. 

sources: 
http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/942/Economie/article/detail/1575414/2013/02/07/Speculoosbakker-Lotus-richt-Chinese-joint-venture-op.dhtml