Yihong Zhao, the CEO of China’s healthy bagged-tea brand, Besunyen, was awarded the Outstanding Entrepreneur of the Year Award at the 12th China-US Business Summit.
Zhao is one of eight winners of the award in China and the United States, and he’s the only entrepreneur from a health-focused industry to win the award this year.
“Yihong Zhao's ability to stand out from hundreds of candidates and win as the Outstanding Entrepreneur of the Year comes from his unparalleled skills in innovation, demonstrated by his leadership at Besunyen Holdings Company Limited in the past 20 years, and his brilliant performance in his role,” said organizers of the 12th China-US Business Summit in a statement.
In 2000, Zhao founded Besunyen in Beijing. Today, the company has become a one-stop enterprise, mainly focused on the R&D, production, sales and promotion of “health teas.”
Based off his knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine, Zhao selects Chinese herbal medicines for Besunyen tea products – while considering the homology of both medicine and food – and combines them with Chinese tea and modern industrial technology to develop products. Two of the company’s key products are Besunyen Detox Tea and Slimming Tea.
Besunyen’s market share has been at the forefront of the health-focused bagged tea industry for several consecutive years, per the company. In 2021, its market share was 22.38 percent and 13.89 percent for its two key products, respectively, and the teas still rank high today.
As CEO, Zhao said he regularly seeks to expand and optimize Besunyen’s unique product line by forming joint ventures, R&D and operations with pioneering health care products and over-the-counter drugs in Europe, the United States and Japan.
In his 22 years of entrepreneurship, Zhao has developed 10 patents that have become the Besunyen brand’s core competency. Among them are two patents, including a “health tea that improves gastrointestinal functions and its preparation method” and a “weight loss tea and its preparation method,” which apply to the company’s two main products — Besunyen Detox Tea and Slimming Tea.
Besunyen has cumulatively sold more than 5.585 billion bags of tea products, exceeding 7.494 billion in sales (Renminbi currency).
Offline, Besunyen is sold through 142 distributors, selling in nearly 500,000 pharmacies and supermarkets in China. The company also opened 122 stores on 35 e-commerce platforms for online sales.
Besunyen's bagged teas are also sold internationally in various markets such as France, Italy, Germany and the United States.
While developing Besunyen, Zhao said he has strived to expand and strengthen the slogan of “the first brand of functional healthy tea,” while promoting the concept of “herbal health.”
To learn more about Besunyen, visit Besunyen.com.
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