Skip to main content
Sister Publication Links
  • Sustainable Plastics
  • Rubber News
Subscribe
  • Sign Up Free
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • News
    • Processor News
    • Suppliers
    • More News
    • Digital Edition
    • End Markets
    • Special Reports
    • Newsletters
    • Resin pricing news
    • Videos
    • Injection Molding
    • Blow Molding
    • Film & Sheet
    • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
    • Rotomolding
    • Thermoforming
    • Recycling
    • Machinery
    • Materials
    • Molds/Tooling
    • Product news
    • Design
    • K Show
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Sustainability
    • Public Policy
    • Material Insights Videos
    • Numbers that Matter
    • Automotive
    • Packaging
    • Medical
    • Consumer Products
    • Construction
    • Processor of the Year
    • Best Places to Work
    • Women Breaking the Mold
    • Rising Stars
    • Diversity
    • Most Interesting Social Media Accounts in Plastics
  • Opinion
    • The Plastics Blog
    • Kickstart
    • One Good Resin
    • Pellets and Politics
    • All Things Data
    • Viewpoint
    • From Pillar to Post
    • Perspective
    • Mailbag
    • Fake Plastic Trees
  • Shop Floor
    • Blending
    • Compounding
    • Drying
    • Injection Molding
    • Purging
    • Robotics
    • Size Reduction
    • Structural Foam
    • Tooling
    • Training
  • Events
    • K Show Livestream
    • Plastics News Events
    • Industry Events
    • Injection Molding & Design Expo
    • Livestreams/Webinars
    • Editorial Livestreams
    • Ask the Expert
    • Plastics News Events Library
    • Processor of the Year submissions
    • Plastics News Executive Forum
    • Injection Molding & Design Expo
    • Plastics News Caps & Closures
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
    • Plastics in Automotive
    • PN Live: Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Polymer Points Live
    • Numbers that Matter Live
    • Plastics in Politics Live
    • Sustainable Plastics Live
    • Plastics Caps & Closures Library
    • Plastics in Healthcare Library
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
  • Rankings & Data
    • Injection Molders
    • Blow Molders
    • Film Sheet
    • Thermoformers
    • Pipe Profile Tubing
    • Rotomolders
    • Mold/Toolmakers
    • LSR Processors
    • Recyclers
    • Compounders - List
    • Association - List
    • Plastic Lumber - List
    • All
  • Directory
  • Resin Prices
    • Commodity TPs
    • High Temp TPs
    • ETPs
    • Thermosets
    • Recycled Plastics
    • Historic Commodity Thermoplastics
    • Historic High Temp Thermoplastics
    • Historic Engineering Thermoplastics
    • Historic Thermosets
    • Historic Recycled Plastics
  • Custom
    • Sponsored Content
    • LS Mtron Sponsored Content
    • Conair Sponsored Content
    • KraussMaffei Sponsored Content
    • ENGEL Sponsored Content
    • White Papers
    • Classifieds
    • Place an Ad
    • Sign up for Early Classified
MENU
Breadcrumb
  1. Home
  2. News
January 27, 2012 01:00 AM

Injection molder Fu Hong's brand finds success

Steve Toloken
Assistant Managing Editor
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Share
  • Email
  • More
    Reprints Print
    Chairman Herman Lo displays Fu Hong Industries'& food-dispensing teether. Hong says the firm began developing its own child-care brands for China's domestic customers in response to a declining export market. (Plastics News photo by Steve Toloken)

    HONG KONG (Jan. 27, 2:10 p.m. ET) — An ambitious but risky move into China's domestic market making its own brand of plastic child-care products has given Hong Kong-based injection molder Fu Hong Industries Ltd. a solid growth strategy, the company says.

    Frustrated by shrinking profit margins in its traditional business as a manufacturer of bottles, teethers and other baby-care items for major global brands like Gerber, Fu Hong in 2008 launched its own brand of baby products in China.

    Founder and Chairman Herman Lo said the new business has grown quickly, and though there have been missteps, this year he expects the branded business — Qin Qin Wo in China, which translates as “kiss me,” and overseas as Kidsme — to surpass sales from contract manufacturing for the first time. Kidsme was launched as a brand last year.

    It's given the company, which employs about 1,000 and runs 70 presses, a hedge against tough times for Chinese export factories, said Lo. The designer of plastic baby products founded Fu Hong in 1989.

    This year Lo plans to double staff on the brand side to more than 200 and launch Fu Hong's first product outside China — a polypropylene and silicone teether/feeder that allows parents to put food into the teat for babies to suck. The teether has a worldwide patent, said Lo.

    In an interview at the Hong Kong Toy Fair in early January, Lo talked about the risks and rewards in going from manufacturing for the top 10 global baby product companies to marketing its own brands. The motivation was simple, he said.

    The molder began seeing products it had made and exported for global brands showing up in Chinese stores — but selling for roughly five times what brand owners like Gerber Products Co. or NUK paid Fu Hong for its manufacturing services. But Lo said those same customers, wanting to save a few pennies, pressured Fu Hong to cut its prices. “Let's say I get net profit of 10 cents, if you squeeze me 2 cents, then that's 20 percent of my profit,” he said.

    The experience motivated him start his own business: “I have to say thanks to my customers. They gave us too much pressure. ... I had to think about another way to survive.”

    Overseas sales manager Ben How said Fu Hong sees opportunities as Chinese consumers spend more. “We also want to serve the Chinese market with a quality product,” he said. “If we can do something in between [in price] we can serve more people.”

    Becoming a brand required a fresh start and a new sales and marketing mindset. Lo decided to hire new staff. The firm recruited 1,500 fresh university graduates, put 120 through months of training, and from them chose a core staff of about 20, he said.

    Lo said he has made plenty of mistakes. The firm's first brand name sounded good in Canton­ese, his native dialect — spoken in Hong Kong and South China. But the name was difficult to pronounce in China's official Mandarin, so the brand was not well-received by some customers.

    “I had the patents, the copyright and packaging,” he said. “Luckily we can fix [the errors] in the early stages.”

    He recruits staff from throughout China, trains them on Fu Hong culture in Dongguan, and sends them to their native parts of China to build sales. That region-specific marketing is vital.

    Guangdong province, bordering Hong Kong, understands foreign culture, he said, but Hunan and Sichuan provinces “have their traditional way of doing things. It is not easy to penetrate to have success,” Lo said.

    Today, Fu Hong's sales are split equally between its own brand and contract manufacturing, Lo said. But he thinks the firm may double its brand sales this year.

    “Nowadays everyone says creativity and innovation is the way to survive,” Lo said.

    RECOMMENDED FOR YOU
    PET Recycling Coalition releases first grants
    Letter
    to the
    Editor

    Do you have an opinion about this story? Do you have some thoughts you'd like to share with our readers? Plastics News would love to hear from you. Email your letter to Editor at [email protected]

    Most Popular
    1
    Berry CEO Salmon retiring
    2
    Thermoformer Genpak closing Ohio facility, cutting 67 jobs
    3
    Prices on the rise for PP, PVC
    4
    SK Battery America invests $19M in Georgia IT center
    5
    Singing the praises of family ownership
    SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE NEWSLETTERS
    EMAIL ADDRESS

    Please enter a valid email address.

    Please enter your email address.

    Please verify captcha.

    Please select at least one newsletter to subscribe.

    Get our newsletters

    Staying current is easy with Plastics News delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge.

    Subscribe today

    Subscribe to Plastics News

    Subscribe now
    Connect with Us
    • LinkedIn
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram

    Plastics News covers the business of the global plastics industry. We report news, gather data and deliver timely information that provides our readers with a competitive advantage.

    Contact Us

    1155 Gratiot Avenue
    Detroit MI 48207-2997

    Customer Service:
    877-320-1723

    Resources
    • About
    • Staff
    • Editorial Calendar
    • Media Kit
    • Data Store
    • Digital Edition
    • Custom Content
    • People
    • Contact
    • Careers
    • Sitemap
    Related Crain Publications
    • Sustainable Plastics
    • Rubber News
    • Tire Business
    • Urethanes Technology
    Legal
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Privacy Request
    Copyright © 1996-2023. Crain Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
    • News
      • Processor News
        • Injection Molding
        • Blow Molding
        • Film & Sheet
        • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
        • Rotomolding
        • Thermoforming
        • Recycling
      • Suppliers
        • Machinery
        • Materials
        • Molds/Tooling
        • Product news
        • Design
      • More News
        • K Show
        • Mergers & Acquisitions
        • Sustainability
        • Public Policy
        • Material Insights Videos
        • Numbers that Matter
      • Digital Edition
      • End Markets
        • Automotive
        • Packaging
        • Medical
        • Consumer Products
        • Construction
      • Special Reports
        • Processor of the Year
        • Best Places to Work
        • Women Breaking the Mold
        • Rising Stars
        • Diversity
        • Most Interesting Social Media Accounts in Plastics
      • Newsletters
      • Resin pricing news
      • Videos
    • Opinion
      • The Plastics Blog
      • Kickstart
      • One Good Resin
      • Pellets and Politics
      • All Things Data
      • Viewpoint
      • From Pillar to Post
      • Perspective
      • Mailbag
      • Fake Plastic Trees
    • Shop Floor
      • Blending
      • Compounding
      • Drying
      • Injection Molding
      • Purging
      • Robotics
      • Size Reduction
      • Structural Foam
      • Tooling
      • Training
    • Events
      • K Show Livestream
      • Plastics News Events
        • Plastics News Executive Forum
        • Injection Molding & Design Expo
        • Plastics News Caps & Closures
        • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
        • Plastics in Automotive
      • Industry Events
      • Injection Molding & Design Expo
      • Livestreams/Webinars
        • PN Live: Mergers and Acquisitions
      • Editorial Livestreams
        • Polymer Points Live
        • Numbers that Matter Live
        • Plastics in Politics Live
        • Sustainable Plastics Live
      • Ask the Expert
      • Plastics News Events Library
        • Plastics Caps & Closures Library
        • Plastics in Healthcare Library
        • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
      • Processor of the Year submissions
    • Rankings & Data
      • Injection Molders
      • Blow Molders
      • Film Sheet
      • Thermoformers
      • Pipe Profile Tubing
      • Rotomolders
      • Mold/Toolmakers
      • LSR Processors
      • Recyclers
      • Compounders - List
      • Association - List
      • Plastic Lumber - List
      • All
    • Directory
    • Resin Prices
      • Commodity TPs
        • Historic Commodity Thermoplastics
      • High Temp TPs
        • Historic High Temp Thermoplastics
      • ETPs
        • Historic Engineering Thermoplastics
      • Thermosets
        • Historic Thermosets
      • Recycled Plastics
        • Historic Recycled Plastics
    • Custom
      • Sponsored Content
      • LS Mtron Sponsored Content
      • Conair Sponsored Content
      • KraussMaffei Sponsored Content
      • ENGEL Sponsored Content
      • White Papers
      • Classifieds
        • Place an Ad
        • Sign up for Early Classified