He is a marketing master, a successful entrepreneur and he has a legendary life. He likes to talk about philosophy, the meaning of life and positions himself as a start up entrepreneur rather than an accomplished business man. He was regarded as a philosopher of the business world. His definition of a businessman is a man pursuing the meaning of life. He is an idealist, consistently in pursuit of values, morality, and conscience. His ultimate goal is to realize the balance between commercial benefits and social responsibility. Sometimes he’s like a preacher. He is Xie Hong.

Chinese people should have a baby food brand of their own

Xie Hong, a native of Zhejiang Province, was born in 1965 in an intellectual family in Taizhou Huangyan. In 1980, 15-year-old Xie Hong was admitted to Hangzhou University Business School, the youngest student at that time. Hangzhou Business School was directly affiliated to the Ministry of Commerce, Xie Hong thereby had the opportunity to read a lot of works on Western business theory and the concept of effective management fascinated him. In 1984, Xie Hong was recruited as a teacher and he started to study food science. In 1987, Heinz infant nutrition rice entered the Chinese market, while domestic food manufacturers were still producing traditional cakes to meet the demand of the post-weaning baby market. At that time, Xie Hong has been aware that "weaning food" is an untapped market and babies in China need more nutritional foods than what were available on the market - Chinese people should have a baby food brand of their own.

In the summer of 1991, Xie Hong's infant nutrition instant rice study achieved initial success, which marked one of most important turning-points in his life. In 1992, Xiehong quit his job as a university teacher and started his own business.

At the very beginning, Xie Hong chose an English name - BEINGMATE (in Chinese literally translated as "life partner") for his baby food products. In 1992, Beingmate infant formula rice was officially launched onto the market - the first domestic brand for infant food. Xiehong’s mastery of marketing played an important role in Beingmate‘s campaign. He focused on Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang markets, building direct sale stores in major cities as well as agents in other cities. With this marketing system, Beingmate’s sales kept growing over the years, beating major competitors in the Yangtze River Delta market.

After the success of Beingmate infant instant rice, Xie Hong gradually started to build a whole infant industry chain. In 2001, Beingmate made its debut in the infant formula milk market. That same year, Beijingmate opened the first International franchise chain model shop. In 2002, Beingmate infant center started its pilot. In 2003, Beingmate opened the first Beingmate infant life experience store. Today, Beingmate has grown into a brand name worth more than three billion yuan, becoming a leader of China's infant industry.

For more than a decade, Beingmate has paid great attention to product safety. In addition, the company has played an active part in public welfare undertakings, participating in establishing 3 social welfare systems – a baby raising project, a baby caring project and mother caring project. In 2004, Xie Hong started the first infant industry organization – Hangzhou infant industry association. "An industry should be driven by faith. There should be a trade association with relevant standards to guide the development of the industry." Xie Hong believes that the infant industry bears a unique social responsibility and mission and any neglect or mistake would lead to disaster. “Therefore, as a leader of the industry in China, Beingmate takes the initiative to set up standards to maintain the healthy development for the whole industry. At the same time, Beingmate has been taking an active role to promote Hangzhou as an infant industry center of China." Special industries, great cause," Xie Hong summed up on the baby industry.

Since 1993, Beingmate has been providing help for more than 500 twins and thousands of poor families that have newly-born babies. Beingmate has made donations worth over 150 million yuan.