Brandmine Weekly Edition 21 · Tuesday, September 29, 2026 Hiding in plain sight. Not for long. |
Three stories this week, one question: what did each founder decide early, and what came of it? Pan Wei built the factory a year before the first shop. Eric Puno sold Yellow Cab in 2011 without ArmyNavy. In Tatarstan, two mayonnaise makers transferred their retail stakes in April 2018. By April 2021 a criminal case over that chain was under way, and no official outcome has been located. None of these were clean stories. Pan Wei's own broth claim became the scandal that cost her an estimated HK$3.3bn (~$420M USD) of personal wealth. A structural decision is rarely tested until years later, and not every test ends well. * * * Randal Eastman · Penang |
This Week's Lead Pan Wei 🇨🇳 China · Founder Before Pan Wei opened a single restaurant, she built a factory. In 1994, on a Hong Kong trade delegation to Kumamoto, Japan, a bowl of Ajisen ramen brought back the bone-broth noodles of her childhood. In Shanxi, where families of the era threw away pig bones, her mother had collected them and, at the instruction of her Guangdong-born father, simmered them overnight on a coal stove into a rich white broth. Pan didn't stop at the bowl. She toured the factory behind it and was struck by the scale behind a small bowl of soup. In 1995 she secured permanent licensing rights to the Ajisen name across mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao. She built a central kitchen first: a Shenzhen warehouse converted before any restaurant had opened. The first store opened in July 1996, in Hong Kong. The mainland test came the following year, at a food cart in Shenzhen's Window of the World, where Pan plated garnishes herself until her finger joints blistered. By 2007, Ajisen (China) Holdings listed on the Hong Kong exchange, 192 times oversubscribed. In 2008 she ranked first on the Hurun food and beverage rich list. Then, in July 2011, Chinese media exposed "bone-soup gate": the fresh-simmered broth Ajisen had marketed was reconstituted from factory concentrate. Ajisen acknowledged the concentrate use on 26 July. Within two weeks, an estimated HK$6.5 billion (~$830M USD) of market value was gone, including around HK$3.3 billion (~$420M USD) of Pan's own wealth. In her first full interview afterward, with NetEase Finance, she didn't reach for a defense. "I used to have a mistaken idea," she said, in translation from the Chinese, "that as a listed company we were already a transparent, public company." She said transparency now had to reach beyond financial data to products and factory processes. She remains chairman. ~HK$6.5 billion (~$830M USD) — market value erased within two weeks when the broth claim behind the brand was exposed |
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What It Means The early decision, the later testPan Wei built a factory before a single store existed, and the company later listed 192 times oversubscribed. In Tatarstan, the founders of Essen Production AG transferred their retail stakes in April 2018; by April 2021 a criminal case over that chain was under way and investigators had searched their production company. No official outcome has been located, though Business Online reported in August 2025 that one founder had avoided criminal prosecution. The sequence is the same in both, an early decision followed by a test years later; only Pan Wei's outcome is confirmed in the record. The claim that becomes the exposureAjisen marketed its signature broth as fresh pork-bone soup simmered for up to 20 hours; media reported, and Ajisen acknowledged, that store broth was reconstituted from factory concentrate, and the scandal cost Pan Wei an estimated HK$3.3 billion (~$420M USD). A public claim is a specific promise that a journalist or a competitor can test against reality. The stronger the claim, the more it costs when the claim and the reality diverge. The franchisee who took back controlEric Puno ran a Chowking franchise from 1989 and co-founded Yellow Cab twelve years later. When ArmyNavy began, he franchised it first to gain growth and brand recognition, because he lacked the cash to expand, then reversed to company-owned stores. His stated reason draws on his own franchisee years: operators scrimp, he says, and that ruins the brand. |
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This Week's Takeaway The structure a founder builds before anyone is watching is the one that gets tested when everyone is. |
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Also This Week 🇵🇭 Philippines · Founder Eric Puno Five furniture stores gone in the 1987 crash. Applied to Jollibee, got redirected to Chowking's store #19 instead — and rebuilt. |
🇵🇭 Philippines · Brand ArmyNavy Burger + Burrito Eric Puno opened ArmyNavy in 2009 while Yellow Cab was still for sale — and made sure the eventual buyer couldn't have it too. |
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By the Numbers | ● | 192x — how oversubscribed Ajisen's 2007 Hong Kong IPO was, 12 years after the factory was built |
| ● | About 2 years — how long ArmyNavy had been operating when Eric Puno sold Yellow Cab in 2011 without it |
| ● | ₽50.2 billion (~$584M USD) — Essen Production AG's 2025 revenue |
| ● | 42 countries — where Tatarstan's Makheev mayonnaise was exported as of late 2024 |
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From the Discovery Desk Brand and founder profiles on Brandmine are free to read, in English, with Russian and Chinese editions for most profiles. If this edition's founder decisions caught your interest, the founder profiles cover similar patterns across more emerging markets. Browse the founder profiles → |
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