Ask AI · How does Tang Bingsen’s wind tunnel inspiration reshape Nongfu Spring’s R&D?

01、Nongfu Spring’s “wind tunnel” moment

Before becoming “Old Tang” (the nickname company employees use for him), Nongfu Spring founder Tang Bingsen was once a student at Beihang University.

In one class, when the teacher went over the history of “China’s first ‘wind tunnel test laboratory,’” the teacher couldn’t hide his excitement. At the time, Tang Bingsen only remembered the facts—wind tunnels are the most important pre-stage testing platform in the aircraft development process, and without them, there would be no J-10 or J-20 afterward. But at that time he didn’t understand the emotion behind it. It wasn’t until recent years, when Nongfu Spring built its own plants and laboratories and learned to become a mature consumer goods company, that Tang Bingsen gradually came to understand the teacher’s excitement.

“Over these years, the biggest challenge Nongfu Spring faces in making beverages is that there are many recipes to try and processes to explore, but they can’t be brought to fruition.” Tang Bingsen said candidly. The reason, he explained, is that the industry’s existing hardware facilities don’t support it—there are almost no small production lines that serve R&D only.

If not, then build it yourself. And that’s how Nongfu Spring’s Innovation Institute in Xianning came about. It is a factory built specifically for experimentation, with an investment of 200 million yuan for Phase 1 and nearly two years from start to finish. On March 30, the day the Innovation Institute was unveiled, Tang Bingsen shared this “wind tunnel” story, saying directly, “The capability of the test line is the company’s R&D capability.”

This innovation research institute of Nongfu Spring is precisely the first complete “wind tunnel system” for beverage R&D in the beverage industry.

In terms of functions, just like the aircraft’s “wind tunnel test laboratory” at the time, any ideas or concepts related to beverages can first be developed and implemented here, followed by small-batch production. Then, based on feedback, the company decides whether to move into large-scale mass production and bring the products to the market. Not only does product iteration become faster, but it also enables risks to be addressed earlier and keeps costs under control.

Supporting this flexible workflow is a precise and complete layout of instruments. Inside the research institute, there is a 3,000-square-meter R&D laboratory equipped with everything from liquid chromatography and gas chromatography to atomic absorption spectroscopy analyzers and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) readers; there is also a 1,000-square-meter technology and innovation factory line (a small-scale test workshop). It may be small, but it has all the organs—produced products’ flavors are infinitely close to hand-crafted results, enabling an initial validation of everything from lab recipe R&D to industrialization. There is also an 8,000-square-meter pilot plant, equipped with complete beverage processing modules. It is currently the healthiest beverage production line in China with the most switchable categories and the most comprehensive setup. It can serve scaled production of 11 major categories and 49 subcategories of mainstream beverages such as protein drinks, flavored drinks, and plant-based drinks.

▲ Image source / Caijing Tianxia

More importantly, with this innovation research institute officially put into operation, Nongfu Spring’s “Beijing + Xianning” dual R&D core layout has truly come to life. It is reported that in the future, this will become an innovation engine for Nongfu Spring’s core new products. It will take on key tasks such as new technology development and validation, small-scale and pilot testing, and continuous trial production—providing stable and ongoing technical support for product innovation in the group’s next stage.

02、Build a moat with heavy assets

Nongfu Spring is becoming increasingly heavy. This is a perception many people have had about the company in recent years. Building its own “wind tunnel test laboratory,” which took time and money, is only one aspect of it.

Looking back now, when Nongfu Spring first went viral, it relied on an internet-thinking approach to “attack from another dimension” against the traditional beverage industry. It was a light-asset business. But every coin has two sides. Light assets make it difficult to fully control the entire industrial chain. The fast-moving consumer goods industry is also a huge system with tightly linked components. Because the chain is long and the links are many, problems often don’t show up until later. After entering deeper waters, Nongfu Spring realized the problems and began to seek change, investing heavily to build factories.

From 2019 to 2021, Nongfu Spring built 5 of its own factories in five locations—Chuzhou in Anhui, Zhaoqing in Guangdong, Xiqing in Tianjin, Xianning in Hubei, and Dujiangyan in Sichuan—spending a cumulative 5.5 billion yuan. These factories corresponded to five major city clusters: East China, South China, North China, Central China, and Southwest China. In 2022, it invested in and constructed a project in Taicang, Jiangsu. There are reports that Nongfu Spring’s 7th factory is also being planned.

▲ Image source / Caijing Tianxia

Building its own factories is meant to keep the lifeblood of products in its own hands. Following a “prepare for the future” mindset, Nongfu Spring also proactively moved one step upstream in the supply chain, extending self-control to the ingredient side. For example, its wellness water brand “Good to Be” (好自在), which has attracted attention in recent years, has its own red bean base.

After capacity is secured, the next issue is channels. As more products are pushed to the market, Nongfu Spring needs more and more stable channels to absorb these products.

In the past, Nongfu Spring’s channel strategy had two keywords: online platforms and offline “new world.” By “new world,” it meant accurately covering convenience stores for office workers, students, and young people. But in the fast-moving consumer goods industry, the “old world” made up of small supermarkets, restaurants, and husband-and-wife shops—because locations are dense and penetration is deep—has always been the basic sales engine and the main battlefield that can’t be avoided.

In recent years, when facing the “old world,” Nongfu Spring has increased targeted planning. On the one hand, it actively develops scenarios such as schools, sports, catering, and scenic spots, helping distributors expand the radius of product exposure. On the other hand, for terminal stores, the company improves terminal sell-through efficiency through methods such as deploying smart vending/cold display units and special investments in husband-and-wife shops. By the end of 2025, its number of offline terminal outlets surpassed 1 million, covering more than 800 cities across the country.

While upgrading the supply chain and channel “coursework,” Nongfu Spring also did not forget to make its efforts heavy and deep on the product side.

In the past, Nongfu Spring used a standard internet-style approach for product R&D: data-driven, rapid iteration, and a horse-racing mechanism along with AB testing. This approach indeed produced some breakout products, but there were also plenty of failed cases.

On March 30, the day the Innovation Institute was launched, the second session of “Nongfu Spring Innovation Camp 2044” was held at the same time. At the event, multiple product managers mentioned the same word during their sharing: time. Behind this is a consensus across the entire Nongfu Spring. Now it no longer pursues quick stacking of products or growth through sheer volume. Instead, it sinks its focus into heavy R&D and building thick barriers—truly crystallizing a sustainable product methodology of its own.

03、Let go of volatility and return to the long term

Nongfu Spring isn’t just getting heavier—it’s also getting slower and steadier.

In the second half of 2022, in a hotel in Beijing, Nongfu Spring held a meeting about where its strategy would go over the next three years. All core executives attended. Discussions were concentrated during the day; at night, everyone returned on their own. The meeting lasted a full three days, and ultimately reached a high level of consensus: stability comes first.

This tone of seeking stability is reflected as well in Tang Bingsen’s own transformation. In the past, he was candid about his ambitions and sharp-edged. In recent years, at annual meetings, he gradually pulled back his edge. He admitted that the team needed to learn humbly from the traditional fast-moving consumer goods industry—because making beverages is a slow job.

What “seeking stability” means has not stayed at the level of ideas. Instead, Nongfu Spring has broken it down into a clear set of operating principles. In the most recently released internal letter, Tang Bingsen broke it down into three keywords: control SKU, control expenses, and control the price band.

In simple terms, controlling SKU means abandoning the strategy of widespread product coverage and concentrating resources on core SKUs and advantageous tracks. Earlier, Nongfu Spring spun off Beihai Pasture and focused on the beverage track—this is one example. Controlling expenses means saying goodbye to extensive, rough-and-ready deployment and pursuing a healthier input-output ratio. Controlling the price band is to protect channel interests and build a long-term, stable cooperative ecosystem.

The essence of this whole series of actions is that Nongfu Spring has shifted from chasing scale expansion to pursuing healthy structure. In recent years, against backgrounds such as consumption returning to rationality, the beverage industry collectively saying goodbye to high growth, and channels becoming increasingly fragmented, competition in the industry is shifting from “who can run faster” to “who can last longer.”

Of course, amid many changes, two main lines at Nongfu Spring have never changed: one is the health track, and the other is user thinking.

An industry trend report by Nielsen, “Deconstructing China’s Beverage Industry Growth New Momentum,” shows that health-focused development is becoming the most stable and clearest structural trend in the beverage industry. This is exactly the direction Nongfu Spring has insisted on since its founding.

From the early days of bubble water with “0 sugar, 0 fat, 0 calories,” to the later arrival of extraterrestrial electrolyte water and Good to Be wellness water, Nongfu Spring has been building a product matrix that covers multiple scenarios around health needs.

The innovation research institute now being put into operation places emphasis on the two words “health” as well. According to its introduction, one of the institute’s key focuses is to “IP-ize” formulations—accelerating the development of health functions such as antioxidant effects, improving immunity, reducing “three highs” (high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and high blood lipids), and slimming down and weight reduction.

User awareness is another direction Nongfu Spring has always adhered to. In terms of product development, Tang Bingsen has long emphasized that “we don’t make products because we follow the trend, but because of deep insights into users’ needs,” and that “‘whatever is hot, we make it’ is not part of Nongfu Spring’s culture.” At the “Innovation Camp 2044” event, Nongfu Spring even invited users to try the drinks on-site and offer feedback in person.

Looking back now, from internet newcomers who charged forward like wildfire to industry long-distance runners who steadily deepen their efforts, Nongfu Spring’s “heavier” and “slower” changes are, at their core, a renewed understanding of the laws of the beverage industry.

In a track where endurance matters far more than explosive power, stabilizing structure, holding onto trends, and staying close to users is far more important than short-term speed and scale. When the noise fades, the long-term way for this company to survive cycles and truly establish itself in the market is to do products solidly and build barriers patiently.

(Author | Linmu, Editor | Wu Yue, Image source | Visual China. This content is from Caijing Tianxia WEEKLY)