Mr. Tien-an Lo, Chair- man of the famous bakery chain operator Christine International Holdings Limited (Christine for short), thinks that Shanghai, where Christine is headquartered, is an inclusive city. Young men like fresh things there. In the baking industry, the features of this city are extremely appealing for both domestic and overseas brands as many new brands could be found in the city every year.
　　The increasing number of brands gives consumers in Shanghai more choices, which also made them pickier when it comes to bakery products. Previously, they only wanted to fill their stomachs, but now they have diversified demand of health, fashion and happiness.
　　Thanks to choosy consumers, furious competition and worsening economic conditions, many famous bakery brands are killed or standing on the verge of death in this city, including Chantilly, Taipan, and recently, Sharing Commune.
　　Christine is of course far away from this list. Actually, it is developing quite well. Starting from Shanghai, now it has about 1,000 outlets and 9,000 employees in China. This February, it went public in Hong Kong, as the first listed bakery company in Mainland China.
　　 What Made Christine So Special?
　　 In Mr. Lo’s opinion, most of the disgraced bakery brands share one common feature: they adopt the onsite baking, namely to have bakers make bread, cakes and other products in stores and sell them to customers directly. This sounds fashionable and healthy. But Mr. Lo did not think so.
　　According to him, this pattern of bakery was widely adopted in Europe 20-30 years ago, but now it is out of favor because it has following defects. Firstly, the on-site baking cannot guarantee the quality and safety of prod- ucts. Different bakers in different outlets or stores have different levels of skill. Therefore, the products made by them in different stores of one brand might taste different. In addition, without a central control and supervision system, it is hard to keep every store focusing on food safety.
　　Secondly, the on-site baking targets compulsive consumption, which could not sustain the long-term development of a company. Thirdly, bakery companies using the on-site baking are haunted by high turnover of bakers. Mr. Lo told us that about 70%-80% of Taiwanese bakers came to Mainland China, almost emptying the baking industry of Taiwan. “Mainland China is experiencing the same thing in Taiwan. Good bakers are headhunted by competitors soon,” said Mr. Lo.
　　“The Taiwanese baking industry began to learn from European bakery companies by using their ‘Central Kitchen’ pattern,” Mr. Lo said. And the“Central Kitchen” pattern is just what Christine adopts. According to Mr. Lo, the said “Central Kitchen” means that bakery products are processed, shaped and frozen in a production base before being sent to different outlets, where frozen products are defrosted, seasoned, baked and sold to consumers. This pattern can disintegrate the process of making bakery products and each link is strictly standardized. Therefore, the quality and safety of products can be guaranteed. In addition, this pattern could massively reduce the cost.
　　“If you look at our factory in Nanjing, you will find a 100-meter-long production line. Flour and other raw materials are put into the production line and shaped products come out automatically. Only two workers are needed to manipulate such a production line. There, producing bread is just like producing IT products. Christine is different from ordinary bakeries. We are a baking industry,” said Mr. Lo.
　　In his opinion, it needs at least 10 years for the “Central Kitchen” pattern to be widely used in China. The investment is partially blamed. “We invested US$ 120 million in our production line in Nanjing. That’s unimaginable for other bakery brands,” he said.
　　But the “Central Kitchen” pattern is not enough for Christine to stand out of the baking industry in China. It is assisted by unique products of Christine.
　　The uniqueness of Christine’s bakery products comes from the use of-Aminobutyric acid (GABA). According to Mr. Lo, the GABA is extracted from germinated nuts and was used by astronauts in the 1960s. The GABA could help their blood flow in the zero gravity environment during their journeys in outer space. Christine bought the patent and put GABA into their bakery products, combining the biotech with the bread-making industry.
　　Mr. Lo said that the cost of bakery products with GABA was slightly higher, but thanks to the “Central Kitchen”pattern, Christine is not deprived of its advantages in product prices. Then, the taste of bakery with GABA is better than ordinary products, making sure they can be accepted by consumers.
　　
　　Mr. Lo admits that the promotion of GABA-based bakery products sees slow progress because of the government’s requirement that foodstuff advertisement cannot propagate products’ healthcare effect. “We have to be very careful when it comes to advertising, or we will easily cross the line.”How to make the effect of GABA known to more consumers is worth considering.
　　 The Grand Plan with Groundbreaking Measures
　　The current economic situation in China and the world indeed affected Christine. According to Mr. Lo, Christine’s operating revenue still kept the increasing trend at this moment, but its profits did drop thanks to the increasing labor cost and property rents.
　　In spite of that, Mr. Lo still has a great plan for Christine’s future. In his opinion, bakeries will be either minimized or maximized in the future. Concretely, a bakery in the future will be either a small complex with one or two stores that provide good products for a limited number of consumers, or a huge chain operator with thousands of outlets.
　　Christine, which has already owned about 1,000 outlets, has already embarked on the way of maximization. In the future, the number of its outlets will definitely continue to grow along with its revenue. Then, how to keep growing and manage such a large chain remains a challenge for Mr. Lo and Christine. For this, Mr. Lo changed the way Christine was used to. Previously, the goal about operating revenue was divided and allocated to different regions, requiring them to increase their revenues to a certain level. This method might not be so effective as expected because different regions had different conditions and the fixed goal was easily affected by factors of market, economic situation and so on. Now Christine asks the manager of each outlet to work with the headquarters to propose their own development plans and goals based on the status quo of their outlets. For example, they can list what products they want to sell to increase the sales, how to improve the look the stores to attract more consumers and what kind of support they need from the headquarters to facilitate their operation. Then, the headquarters will help to provide right conceptions about cost, as well as the spiritual support.
　　“We want every store director to have market concepts. With market concepts, they are real operators instead of doorkeepers,” Mr. Lo said.
　　Christine also helps its employees to fix their own career development plans. He asked Christine’s financial department to establish a share incentive system to give different bonus to employees at different positions in the form of shares, encouraging them to develop themselves. “A company needs a dream. So do its employees. And they should work together to realize their dreams.” said Mr. Lo.“When other companies boast their profits and revenue, I think a good company should embody the value of employees.”
　　As for the management, Mr. Lo said that Christine now was using a 360-degree seamless connection system. The goal is to put all segmented departments together, coordinating them and involving them in company’s operation and projects.
　　“Presently, many companies find their departments work on their own without real coordination. It is a severe challenge for companies to make different departments work together. In Christine, if a new store is to be opened, the departments of planning, finance, design, decoration, logistics, production, quality control and so on will be all involved in the process,” he said. “Seamless connection and time management are the most important for chain enterprises. We have done well in this field though we still have problems to overcome. That’s why Christine is the only company that can manage 1,000 direct-sales stores in Mainland China.”
　　In addition to that, Christine is going to be more diversified in the future. In the next 2-3 years, Christine will have more cafés, seasoned bread and bread with less sugar and salt to assist in realizing Mr. Lo’s plan. Christine even reached an agreement with Christian Vabret, a famous baker in France and president of The French School of Bakery and Pastry. It is going to found its own baking school, to make young men enjoy making bread and pastries by themselves.