Wu Guan Tang

品本味素食,做有担当的社会人 - To taste the nature vegetable; to be a man with social responsibility

Thursday 11 October 2012, by SunPeng, WangYing, Xi,Limin

5 inspired

A. The main facts about the activities of the company.

Wuguantang is a chain vegetarian restaurant located in China. The first restaurant was opened in Shanghai in 2004 and has had three branches over the country till now. By holding the philosophy as "enjoying a healthy lifestyle and showing responsibility to the society", WGT insists on providing best quality food for health maintenance. Meanwhile, considering itself as a member of the society, WGT also puts much effort on engaging in social responsibility issues.

B. The Ethical challenges this company is addressing.

1.To enhance the idea of health maintenance, from the first day the restaurant was established, it has devoted itself to offering people with more healthy food. WGT only uses organic rice and vegetables as its raw material and cooks them in the simplest way with minimum addictive.
2.With strong sense of responsibility, a weekly bazaar is held by WGT restaurant by selling personal idle items. The money get from the activity will be donated to the organization it has founded to help the orphans with their lives and education
3.WGT restaurant tries to operate with zero carbon footprint as well. Besides all the food materials used in this restaurant are characterized as low carbon materials, still there’s novation which encourages customers to transcribe the menu by handwriting. Meanwhile, the menu is for selling and the money got from which will be donated to charity.
4.WGT also tries to show its customers a way of living. Its environmental protection idea originates from the Buddhism and a ancient China philosophy. It is more like a lifestyle for people rather than a propaganda. It enlightens people to find a real happiness in their life not in the endless satisfactions purchase. People should live and feel right here, right now and find their peace in their lives.

C. What makes you believe this company is really ethical and why you trust it?

1. Business ethics can obviously been seen from WGT’s philosophy and operation system. The spirit of WGT is to use the ancient orient wisdom to solve the problem being faced by the people who live in modern society. Especially in nowadays China, most of people are anxious to try every means to pursue the "so called success" in materialism aspect.
2. Instead of influencing the people simply by its philosophy as the way of propaganda,they encouraged the customers to take part in various activities being organized by the restaurant to enable people to turn back to pursue the ethical principle and spiritual satisfaction spontaneously.
The activities that inspire us the most is the organization funded by the restaurant to provide assistance to orphans,what they do is not simply make some donation to orphans.They encouraged their customers to participate in the activity to raise the fund by selling their idle personal belongings and the revenue of the restaurant, then they’’ll arrange to visit the orphans to help them with their lives and educations periodically.
3. It’s common feeling about the participants that it’s not only the orphans who got the help by such activity, in fact the people who joined have been helped a lot to find the precious virtue covered in their hearts.It’s a way to help people to regain the joy of helping others rather than ask more and more from the economics and the society just for a material satisfaction.And its social responsibilities is fulfilled by recovering the missing link of the society, the link of unconditional love. It is really inspiring to see a company in the business-sphere trys to complete the missing social link by helping people who both need help from each other and trys to enlighten people to view their lives differently.

D.The possible challenges facing the company in the future and how you think this company may improve.

1. To guarantee the quality of organic food material isn’t easy work in China. The restaurant has their own secure and stable source in Shanghai to enable them to offer the genuine organic cuisine for customers.But from a long-term strategy, to open new subsidiaries in more cities means a big challenge to secure the purity of food material.
2. There’s a large number of loyal customers in Shanghai being attracted by the spiritual value adhered by the restaurant for a long run. How to form the group of loyal customers in the new opening subsidiaries by systematics value structure would also be a big challenge to the restaurant.

Bibliography

1. http://e.weibo.com/wuguantang?ref=http%3A%2F%2Fweibo.com%2F2607566431%2Ffollow%3Fleftnav%3D1%26wvr%3D3.6#!/wuguantang?ref=http%3A%2F%2Fweibo.com%2F2607566431%2Ffollow%3Fleftnav%3D1%26wvr%3D3.6&is_ori=1
2. http://www.folou.com/thread-815730-1-1.html
3.http://www.lejialife.com/archives/862

Start a new discussion

2 Discussions / 2 Messages

  • Wu Guan Tang 27 February 2013 at 18:28 , by strategicUPF

    I personally think that this company is making a huge effort because nowadays and specially in China, a country which is growing very fast and it is focused on consumerism and materialism.
    It is relevant that this company also wants to implicate the costumers, and not only shows that they are very ethical.
    Maybe they can help other people with the remaining food, if it is profitable or if is not the case, explain what the company does with the non
    profitable remaining food.

    In my opinion, the main challenge will be to try to maintaining the company sustainable when it begins to expand out of China. What type of strategy they will use? How they can manage the organic and natural food provenance?

    Will be This type of company successful in Spain?

  • Wu Guan Tang 13 May 2013 at 01:34 , by MariaInes

    The activity of Wu Guan Tang is truly inspiring, hence it is a company that distinguishes itself from the mainstream, by not deconstructing food to a mere product and by recognizing its public scope as an organization to help orphans, and promote living values, instead of brand recognition. Thus engaging in Society by recognizing a need for a more mindful way of living, contributing to it with its business, and engaging further by spreading it.

    In relation to the food, it provides quality vegetarian dishes made out of organic, natural ingredients, caring about the cooking process applied, all contributing to an enrichment of the eating experience the consumer will have. First, by the fully taste, secondly, by the purity of the ingredients constituting a meal, which will be transposed to the consumer, jointly generating a sense of happiness and peace.

    This positivity about the eating experience, is then promoted, though not as a mean for brand loyalty or reputation (as mainstream companies would do it), though instead as life values (Buddhism) to improve each person – or customer, life.
    Moreover, the importance of sharing is fostered through the bazaar and menu fundraising initiatives, which are small gestures for one customer, though considering thousands of customers, impact largely on the lives of orphans and people with needs. Example which if considered by even if a small percentage of the for-profit business existent would generate outstanding benefits for Society.

    All this evidencing the characteristics of Wu Guan Tang that make it mote for the new business to come:

    -  One that sees people and not customers;
    -  One that truly cares about each other well-being, and not only about their money;
    -  One that extends the benefits of its activity beyond the achievement of profits, through the adoption of environmental practices and social compassion initiatives.

    Thus making it as an example to bear in mind for entrepreneurs, and for all us as consumers, of what business should, and hopefully will be.

Location: Shanghai (China)

Sector: Accommodation and food service activities

Official website: http://e.weibo.com/wuguantang?ref=http://weibo.com/2607566431/follow?leftnav=1&wvr=3.6#!/wuguantang?ref=http://weibo.com/2607566431/follow?leftnav=1&wvr=3.6&is_ori=1

Key figures:

gross profit: 50%
number of employee: about 150
country of operation: China

Nbr. visits: 441

Nbr. inspires: 5