A head for beer
| Image: Ellen Ho | Published: September 03, 2008
When Shu Guo arrived in Canada from China in 2001 to start Hi-bridge Consulting Corp., the tiny fireball of an entrepreneur didn’t expect to be washing dishes instead. However, realizing she wasn’t fluent enough to run her business in English, she put her plans on hold and started working in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant. During the next year and a half, she moved from washing dishes to working at Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd. (CTC) before deciding to pursue a master of arts in education at UBC.
Already armed with an MBA from Shanghai, Guo was brimming with entrepreneurial spirit upon completion of her degree. Revisiting her original plan to run a consulting firm specializing in Asian imports, Guo decided to start importing non-alcoholic beer and hard alcohol. Then she was introduced to Yanjing beer through a friend. Though a teetotaller herself, she was impressed by the flavour of the Chinese rice beer and brought it on board as her main import product.
Investing $100,000 of her own money and seven days a week into the company during the first year, Guo got Yanjing sales off the ground in B.C. In a recent boon to business, the popular rice beer has since been named the official beer of the Beijing Olympics.
To meet B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch standards, which would ensure the sale of Yanjing in liquor stores across the province, Guo had to prove the beer would sell. “At the beginning, it was very hard; people didn’t know the beer,” Guo recalls. “We started setting up tastings so the cold beer and wine stores and restaurants would buy it.”
Her hustle worked, and restaurants and cold beer and wine stores across B.C. started carrying Yanjing beer. Hi-bridge has exclusive rights to sell the beer in Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario and the Yukon. B.C. is currently Guo’s biggest market, ringing up sales of $22,000 a month. However, Guo expects the Ontario market to catch up and possibly eclipse B.C. in the near future.
B.C. is a minuscule market compared to her homeland, but Guo notes that, fortunately for her, people in B.C. tend to drink a lot. “It’s a small market compared to China, but that’s not always a bad thing – there is less competition, so it makes a very good business environment,” she says. “People here are easier to deal with. In China people are friendly, but there are too
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To meet B.C. Liquor
By Anonymous, November 16, 2008 at 11:21To meet B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch standards, which would ensure the sale of Yanjing in liquor stores across the province, Guo had to prove the beer would sell. “At the beginning, it was very hard; people didn’t know the beer,” Guo recalls.
Or,buying your own beer at government liquor stores to artificially boost sales levels will do the trick. Then take that beer and sell it through the back door of a local restaurant.
Ah yes, Ms.Guo. OFFERING
By Anonymous, November 16, 2008 at 11:12Ah yes, Ms.Guo.
OFFERING INDUCEMENTS TO RESTAURANTS OR ANY LICENSEE TO BUY YOUR BEER IS ILLEGAL.
Hello, Would advise Susan
By Anonymous, September 3, 2008 at 19:50Hello,
Would advise Susan Hollis to fact check her story. People in the alcohol business including myself are very familar with this company and her claims. I happen to be in the wine business.
Fact: Hi-bridge was first established in 1999 or earlier with a partner of Shu Guo. That information has long since mysteriously disappeared from her website since her introduction of Yanjing Beer into BC for the second time. She claimed then as now she was a major consulting firm partnering with major companies. Nothing to substantiate this then or now. When did she "revise her business" from importing Asian products to alcohol products? In 2001 or 2002? It was revised in 2007 when her beer came to BC again.
Fact: Yanjing Beer was one of three major beer sponsors for the 2008 Games in China. Budweiser and the number one beer in China,Tsingtao were the others.
Fact: Shu Guo's company does nowhere near the dollar amount quoted. Truthful information on sales data may be obtained from the BCLDB if it can be released to the author of this story. If that dollar amount were true she would be one of the top selling import beers in BC and she is not.
Fact: Yanjing Beer is a major regional beer from Beijing and has national presence across China but it is not the number one selling beer as her website claims. In fact a Vancouver Sun article posted on her own website indictaes the truth. Tsingtao is number one and has been for years. There are 3 or 4 major beers in China. Tsingtao,Yanjing,Zhujiang,Snow and Kingway.
Fact: Setting up tastings in private cold beer and wines stores has no relation to selling beer to restaurants. Restaurants order from the LDB if a product is either a Listed Product or a specialty Spec.
product. One note...giving free beer to restaurants is illegal as Shu Guo should now realize.
We are aware Shu Guo as you should be too.
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