Hard working conditions “Bitter” strawberries from Spain

Status: 10.06.2021 10:56 a.m. The seasonal workers on site receive only a fraction of the price paid in Germany for strawberries from Spain. The strawberry farmers say: The supermarkets are pushing the price. By Reinhard Spiegelhauer, ARD studio Madrid Strawberries as far as the eye can see and an intense fragrance that is so strong that it is almost unpleasant. A small refrigerated truck is parked on the way between the fields. Two dozen of a good 100,000 seasonal workers stand between the green beds, pecking the bright red fruits during the season. “It’s difficult in Morocco,” says the single mother Fatima. As a harvest helper, the Moroccan receives the equivalent of only six and a half euros per day in her home country – over 40 in Spain. Fatima canceled the agreed on-site interview that morning. She answers the questions via voicemail. Because her boss told her she couldn’t just talk to journalists.

“We don’t know what our wages are”

Is there any other pressure? Yes, she says, anyone who collects a battered strawberry will be sent home or even not allowed to work for a whole day.

We don’t even know what the wages are. Some say 42 euros, others 40 euros. “No, no,” says Manuel Reina from the farmers’ association in the shadow of the refrigerated truck. Everyone would be treated properly. The strawberry farmers even provided free apartments:

If individuals do not adhere to the guidelines, then it’s like in politics, the police or administration. A few black sheep cannot be used to identify the entire province of Huelva. A Moroccan harvest worker harvesting strawberries in Cartaya, archive image. Image: Julian Perez / EPA-EFE / Shutterstoc

Union speaks of exploitation

Trade unionist José Antonio Brazo from the Andalusian Workers’ Union frowns. A few kilometers further on, from a railway embankment, he looks out over the endless sea of ​​greenhouses. Silvery shiny plastic film to the horizon. The collective wage is systematically not paid, says Brazo. “We’re talking about exploitation here. In every village here there is a figure of Mary who is venerated – but in reality everyone worships the mammon.” In fact, a study by the Löning sustainability consultancy in Berlin found that harvest workers are often poorly paid.

Study: Supermarkets’ price dictation

Manuel Reina from the farmers’ association defends himself: Actually, the farmers are the “pinched” ones. You take all the risk, he complains. They would have to advance everything and would not get a reasonable price for their product. Farmers hardly see anything of what consumers pay for. One to one and a half euros per kilo of strawberries that went over the counter in the supermarket for six euros. The price dictation is also discussed in the Berlin study. For trade unionist José Antonio Brazo it is clear:

The red fruits, the strawberries, they are no longer sweet, but bitter.

Intel is pushing partners to sell Intel Evo laptops using Tiger Lake chips. In 2020, Intel launched the 11th generation Intel Core mobile processors collectively known as Tiger Lake. This new chip is introduced with outstanding performance, real-world battery life of 9 hours or more using FHD screen, fast charging and stable response. The Intel Evo concept is a standard set for all high-end laptops equipped with this new line of Intel chips. Continuing from 2020, this year Intel has a plan to develop and boost sales for the Intel Evo brand. Intel’s partners will also be part of the plan, and Intel wants to give them promotional tools to sell more devices. Reply CRN Steve Long, Intel’s global vice president of computer sales, said that this year will be the year of investing in customers’ businesses. In addition to investments in Intel partners and products or programs, but also in market access. The tools Intel says will be the most advanced tools that give partners access to schools or educational institutions. These are the places that will need a lot of laptop devices to organize teaching for students. According to statistics, with 1.6 billion students in the world, only 5 out of 100 students have laptops to use. Alder Lake will be Intel’s next generation of chips to appear next year. The business segment also has room for growth in laptop sales as the need to work remotely from home is increasing and becoming a trend for many companies. As for the next generation of Intel chips, at the end of Q2, the Intel Lake H45 laptop will be released. For desktops, Intel will also introduce the first 10 nanometer technology Alder Lake processors. Demand for a laptop or Chromebook is growing, especially in the second half of 2021 and into 2022, as well as in the following years. Intel is expanding its policy to reach customers in different segments and deliver high quality products.

The “cloud fitness” boom continues.

On April 21st, the sports social platform Keep released the 7.0 version of the APP at the “2021 Spring Ring Conference”, and launched three new upgraded IP courses and the Keep smart spinning bike C1 Pro and Keep bracelet. B2 members enjoy two smart hardware products.

Huang Jingjing, vice president of Keep, said at the meeting that Keep will launch a celebrity coach team, and the interaction between coaches and users will also be upgraded, “I hope to create Li Jiaqi in the live fitness session.” In addition, keep’s premium live courses have been covered throughout the day, from 8 am to 22:00 at any time to meet the sports needs of users at different times.

Since its launch in 2015, Keep has been developing for 6 years and now has a scale of 300 million users. In January of this year, it completed a huge US$360 million round of financing. This round of financing was led by SoftBank Vision Fund, Hillhouse Capital, Gaodu Capital and other old shareholders such as GGV Jiyuan Capital, Tencent, Wuyuan Capital (formerly Morningside Capital), Times Capital and BAI Capital continued to invest more . After completing the financing, keep’s valuation reached 2 billion US dollars.

Recently, news broke that Keep has appointed a CFO and recruited directors of investor relations through multiple channels, and submitted a prospectus to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as early as the end of April 2021 to apply for listing in the United States.

Although Keep responded that: “There is no more news to announce.” But China’s sports social platform has indeed stood on the “outlet.”

Looking overseas, the share price of American online fitness giant Peloton has risen from US$27 per share at the end of April last year to the current US$99.93 per share, an increase of 270% during the year and a market value of US$29.43 billion.

And will Keep be the next Peloton? This is the question of people outside the industry and the expectation of many investors.

Liu Dong, co-founder and vice president of keep

After this press conference, Liu Dong, co-founder and vice president of Keep, had a dialogue with the media on the company’s current business segments and business monetization model. The following is the content of the dialogue, organized by 24/7 technology:

Q: This year’s technology fitness track is particularly popular. What do you think ?

Liu Dong: I think we are at a stage where there is no end and I don’t know what the future endgame will look like. It’s just that every company or track has a different approach.

Peloton leads the rise in the United States. I believe that no one in China will invest in a company that makes sports apps, but start investing in companies that have sports hardware. In the future, technology will change the experience. I understand that the sports experience upgrade will be upgraded from coaching, feedback, and interaction together, because it can restore the offline experience, but it may be upgraded based on feedback. If we look back a little longer, starting with Nintendo’s Switch, whether it is a gamified sport or a sporty game, I think there are many questions that can be explored.

For Keep, we are definitely catching what we are best at. We have coaches, so we will do live broadcasts. It is possible that this is a threshold. There are only so many coaches in China. Through online and offline, coaches can produce good content. Maybe this thing is more difficult, so we start with the hardest thing.

Q: Keep announced that its annual sales have reached 1 billion. Can you announce the specific revenue share, which is the largest revenue?

Liu Dong: One billion is the sales of consumer products, not including online business and advertising business. From a comprehensive perspective of the three businesses, the first is the consumer goods business, the second is the advertising business, and the third is the membership service business. Our revenue is composed of these three parts. The sales will be a little more than the other two businesses combined. Consumer products still depend on scale, but members’ business profits will be better.

Keep is currently profitable. Online is our largest APP investment. When members have online income, it is also a high-margin Internet product and service, so it can cover this part of the cost.

Consumer goods can increase users’ repurchase in terms of eating, wearing, using, and training. You buy clothing for sports and food for sports. In fact, repurchase is a relatively large increase. In addition, the gross profit of food and clothing is definitely better than that of smart hardware. The overall environment is a healthier.

On the other hand, our users are Keep APP users, and we may not need to grow like the growth of other consumer products, such as the growth method of Perfect Diary. The overall development is still in a relatively benign state, and it is indeed easier to make a profit in this state.

But whether we want to continue to make profits depends on our future plans. We believe that at this stage, we need to make some investment. From a strategic point of view, we have made it clear that we must do this on the platform, content, and smart hardware.

Q: Among consumer products, which category has the highest GMV? In terms of food, how does Keep compete with businesses that specialize in this type of product?

Liu Dong: Our biggest category is still smart products , Keep is serious about the experience direction, this thing users can feel, so the fastest growing is the smart product, and the largest share is also the smart product.

The homogeneity of food may be more serious. The entire supply chain in China is basically relatively transparent, so our food is more integrated with the scene, and we have not invented and created products. In fact, food is quite difficult. It is a fast-moving consumer product and needs to constantly reach users and tell him the latest tastes. It’s not like buying a dumbbell. I’ll search for it and evaluate which one is better. But our current scale is still more than 100 million. For a new Internet company, we think it is a relatively good result.

Our current consumer products are planned from eating, wearing, using, and practicing. In “practice” or “use”, there will be many different product categories, but we are still focusing on the family scene. Like basketball and football, each piece is very big, but we didn’t involve in this field. We believe that when the family scenario is not good enough, we will not do basketball or football, so there is some restraint in the expansion of the category.

Q: A few years ago, Keep did Keepland. What is its current position and contribution role?

Liu Dong: The original intention of Keepland in 2017 is parallel to the content connecting the family. A connecting family and a connecting city will allow you to train more. At that time, we defined it as “infrastructure.”

In the subsequent development, the consumer goods business or online business develops very fast, offline is a slow process, and the speed is certainly not as fast as other online businesses, plus the impact of the previous epidemic. So Keepland has been doing it all the time, just saying that it makes it more stable compared to faster business. I personally think that Keepland can be counted as an online live broadcast business, an incubator for the coaching team, or the “Whampoa Military Academy”, because the cognition generated there can be amplified through the Internet.

There are now 9 Keepland stores in Beijing, which has hardly changed from the previous figures. We will not shrink it or expand it excessively.

Q: A piece of data was shared at the press conference, serving 1.56 million. Is this a user who spends money on consumer goods on Keep? How much space is there in this field?

Liu Dong: There are far more than 1.56 million users who buy consumer goods, and 1.56 million are just users who buy smart products. If the scale is 1 billion per year, the number of users per year is about several million.

Maybe three years ago, we only had a scale of 30-40 million, and after three years we will reach a scale of 1 billion+. We will definitely continue to maintain this growth rate. Moreover, from the current ceiling, there is still a lot of room. For example, we mainly focus on e-commerce channels. Now we only focus on JD.com, Tmall and our own malls. Other platforms have not yet done so. Second, there are also channels for sub-sales, as well as live broadcasts, communities, and even offline. This space is still very large.

On April 15, the State Administration for Market Regulation announced that it would impose administrative penalties on Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical”) for implementing a monopoly agreement, with a total fine of 764 million yuan.

According to investigations, from 2015 to 2019, Yangtze River Pharmaceuticals reached a fixed agreement with downstream companies such as drug wholesalers and retail pharmacies by signing cooperation agreements, issuing price adjustment letters, and oral notices across the country (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions). The agreement on drug resale prices and the minimum resale price of drugs, and measures such as formulating implementation rules, strengthening assessment and supervision, penalizing low-price sales dealers, and entrusting intermediary agencies to monitor online drug prices to ensure the implementation of the agreement.

The State Administration of Market Supervision stated that the above-mentioned actions of Yangtze River Pharmaceutical Group ruled out and restricted competition, harmed the legitimate rights and interests of consumers and the public interest, and violated the relevant provisions of the Anti-Monopoly Law.

It takes pains to limit the price of medicines, and consumers will pay for it in the end

Specifically, Yangzi Pharmaceutical restricts the prices of drugs sold in retail pharmacies and distributors, including many best-selling products such as Lanqin Oral Liquid, Bailemian Capsules, and Astragalus Extract. These drugs are well-known and popular in people’s lives. Measured by sales revenue in 2019, Lanqin Oral Liquid ranked first in throat drugs, Astragalus extract ranked third in tonic drugs, and Bailemian Capsules ranked fourth in stabilized sleep drugs. These best-selling drugs are precisely the focus of Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical’s focus on price-fixing.

In order to supervise the sales staff and distributors to strictly implement the fixed and limited price policy, Yang Zijiang Pharmaceutical has taken great pains. Yang Zijiang Pharmaceutical has formulated a detailed price control system and dispatched sales personnel from various places to pharmacies to inspect and secretly visit drug prices. For drugs on Taobao, Tmall, and JD online platforms, Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical has hired a third-party intermediary company to supervise five key drugs (Lanqin Oral Liquid, Bailemian Capsules, Astragalus Extract, Epalrestat Tablets, Suhuang Cough tablets) online retail prices, and regularly submit online merchants’ price information monitoring and processing results to Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical.

If distributors at all levels, retail pharmacies, etc. do not comply, Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical will implement penalties such as deduction of bonuses, internal fines, out of stock, and suspension of reimbursement. At the same time, distributors and retail pharmacies have a certain degree of dependence on these best-selling products, and they have insufficient bargaining power for the fixed and limited price behavior of Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical.

Yang Zijiang Pharmaceutical’s fixed and limited price behavior seems to be divided from the interests of distributors and pharmacies at all levels, but in fact it raises the price of medicines, and consumers eventually pay for it. The economic analysis takes Shanghai as a sample and simulates the competitive retail prices of some drugs from Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical in 2018 and 2019, and compares them with the actual retail prices and hospital purchase prices in the same period. The results show that this behavior has caused significant drug prices. rise. Statistical analysis shows that the retail channel ex-factory price of Lanqin oral liquid (10ml*6 bottles) from 2015 to 2019 and the average terminal retail price from 2018 to 2020 have shown an upward trend year by year.

However, patients always follow the doctor’s advice or follow the pharmacist’s recommendation when purchasing medicines, so they are not sensitive to the price of medicines and often lose their interests without knowing it.

Anti-monopoly incidents occur frequently in the pharmaceutical field, and national law enforcement and supervision continue to be stricter

Due to the particularity of the pharmaceutical industry, it is difficult to form sufficient market competition from the production and supply of raw materials, the production of pharmaceutical companies and the marketing of pharmaceuticals. A small number of manufacturing companies control the production and supply of APIs. These companies take advantage of market dominance to obtain price dominance, and thus may form a monopoly. At the same time, the current pharmaceutical industry has formed a highly concentrated market pattern, and many pharmaceutical companies secretly manipulate market prices through monopoly agreements, leading to price increases or shortages of drugs.

Fortunately, in recent years, the anti-monopoly law enforcement supervision in the pharmaceutical field has continued to tighten, and news that pharmaceutical companies have been punished due to monopoly has been reported frequently in the industry. In April 2020, the State Administration of Market Supervision imposed administrative penalties on three calcium gluconate API distributors, Shandong Kanghui Pharmaceutical, Weifang Taiyangshen Pharmaceutical, and Weifang Puyunhui Pharmaceutical, for their monopolistic activities, with a total fine of 325.5 million yuan. In January 2021, Simcere Pharmaceutical abused its dominant position in the sales market of China’s Batroxobin concentrate API, and refused to conduct transactions with counterparties without justifiable reasons, ruled out market competition, and was fined 100.7 million yuan. Yuan Renminbi. In April of the same year, Tianyao Co., Ltd. divided the sales market of fluocinolone acetate raw materials in the form of agreement, and changed and fixed the price of fluocinolone acetate raw materials to eliminate competition that restricted the sales of fluocinolone acetate raw materials, and was fined 44,022,600 yuan. .

At the same time, the state has successively introduced a series of measures to strengthen supervision and increase penalties. In 2017, my country issued the “Guidelines for the Price Behavior of Short Drugs and API Operators”, which became the first price monopoly guide for the pharmaceutical industry since the implementation of China’s anti-monopoly law. Subsequently, the “Opinions on Further Doing a Good Job in Maintaining Supply and Stabilizing Prices of Drugs in Shortage”, “Antitrust Guidelines in the Field of APIs (Draft for Solicitation of Comments)”, etc. In January of this year, the China Chemical Pharmaceutical Industry Association (CPIA) released the latest “Regulations for Compliance Management in the Pharmaceutical Industry”, with anti-monopoly being the focus of it.

It is reported that Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical, which was heavily fined this time, is a leading domestic pharmaceutical company. The “2019 China Pharmaceutical Industry Top 100 List” released by the China Pharmaceutical Industry Information Center shows that Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical ranked first in China’s top 100 pharmaceutical industry that year. Has been ranked first for 6 consecutive years. It is foreseeable that heavy penalties for industry leaders will have a huge deterrent effect on industry monopoly behavior.

It is worth mentioning that, according to Jiemian News, Yangtze River Pharmaceuticals previously reported to the court that four companies, Guangzhou Hairui Pharmaceuticals, Hefei Medical Engineering and Pharmaceuticals, Hefei Enruit Pharmaceuticals, and Nanjing Haichen Pharmaceuticals, were suspected of monopoly of APIs. Prosecute. In April 2020, the first instance of the case was concluded, and Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical was awarded nearly 70 million in compensation. And a year later, Yangtze River Pharmaceutical lost more than ten times the money it had earned by suing others for its monopoly because of its own monopoly.

Cover news reporter He Fangdi

In September of this year, Chengdu will add an international high-end private school-Huatongcheng Aisi Se School, Pidu District, Chengdu. The cover news reporter learned from relevant parties today that the chief principal of Huatong Cheng Ai Sisi School will be the former Secretary of the Party Branch of Chengdu Jiaxiang Foreign Language School Jinjiang Campus and Vice Principal Wang Haiying. Executive Principal Lin Jiarui has served as the principal of Chengdu Zongbei Primary School and Hamilton The principal of Luhu Elementary School, the vice principal of Longjiang Road Elementary School, and the branch of Longjiang Road Elementary School.

Lin Jiarui

Wang Haiying

“The children will stay in the real lake-view dormitory, and you will see the scenery by pushing the window. Pitching and breathing are the essence of the world.” Yesterday, the cover reporter contacted the managing principal Lin Jiarui for the first time. Tongcheng Aisse School is located on the banks of the picturesque and beautiful Jingrong Lake. The school has first-class hardware conditions and a strong team of teachers. There is a special “children’s living room” where children can learn and communicate. , Casual chat, games and friends… After studying, rest and relax, nourish the body and mind, and nourish life.

The school is located in the core business district of the trillion-level electronic information industry functional zone. There are Fortune 500 companies and foreign-related enterprises and institutions such as Sony, Huawei, Intel, Siemens, and BOE in the area. In order to meet the educational needs of the children of high-end enterprise talents, achieve the educational goals of “Excellent Education Chengdu” and “Excellent Education Pidu”, and promote the implementation of the high-quality education deployment plan in Pidu District, this internationalization is supported by the government of Pidu District. , High-quality educational supporting projects came into being.

The school is jointly built by Huatongcheng Education Co., Ltd. and the high-quality international education brand American Asser Education Group. It gathers domestic and foreign middle, small and child education elites, will enrich the high-quality education resources in the region, and provide the society with differentiation and individualization. , Internationalized high-quality education. The campus has a total construction area of ​​85,000 square meters. The design is led by the famous architect Zhou Fangzhong and jointly created by top international design masters, which fully reflects the international design concept of “natural, open, flexible, and harmonious”. At the same time, it is equipped with super-first-class hardware facilities to create a well-crafted learning and living space for students.

Under the guidance of the core value of “student first”, the school will take “Let learning light up life, cultivate future citizens with sound personality and lifelong learning ability” as its own responsibility, adhere to “students as the main body, learning as the main axis, and The curriculum design principle of “excellent teachers as the leading and literacy as the goal” provides students with a curriculum system that respects the individual and teaches students in accordance with their aptitude. Relying on advanced Chinese and Western educational concepts, rich international educational resources and a strong team of teachers, we will cultivate students who are “physical first, character first, fluent in language, active in thinking, elegant in aesthetics, and technological innovation”.

[If you have news clues, welcome to report to us, once adopted, there will be a fee for remuneration. News report WeChat follow: ihxdsb, report QQ: 3386405712]