Less than a decade ago, Henan Lotus — the largest producer of monosodium glutamate — bestrode the Asian food market, racking up billions of renminbi in sales as China became the largest consumer of the flavouring.
Today, it is a monument to how companies can lose out in China’s $180bn urban market for fast-moving consumer goods if they miss a shift towards healthy products, a trend that has also wrongfooted international conglomerates such as the Coca-Cola Company.
Lotus’s top line has fallen by more than Rmb900m ($132m) since 2011 to Rmb1.8bn last year, mainly driven by a Rmb800m decline in national MSG sales over the same period.
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