Haitian's soy sauce differed by market — and a bad PR defense cost 300 billion yuan

In September 2022, a video blogger known as Xin Jifei posted a video about 'synthetic blended soy sauce' that sparked widespread public concern about food additives in China. Soon after, bloggers compared Haitian's product labels in China against its products sold in Japan and found a stark difference: the Japanese-market soy sauce listed only natural ingredients — water, soybeans, wheat, salt — while the Chinese-market version contained multiple additives including flavor enhancers, preservatives and sweeteners.

The accusation of 'double standards' went viral during the National Day holiday. Haitian, China's largest soy sauce producer with a market capitalisation of nearly 400 billion yuan, faced a simple question: why did the company sell different formulations in different markets?

Haitian responded with three statements. The first, on October 5, argued that food additives are indispensable and that no conclusion could be drawn that Chinese food was inferior. It did not address why formulations differed. The second continued the same tone. The third, on October 9, again denied a double standard. All three were seen as confrontational — answering a legal question (does the product comply with regulations?) that nobody was asking, while ignoring the trust question (why are the formulations different?) that everyone was asking.

When the market reopened after the holiday, Haitian's share price collapsed. The company, once known as 'the Maotai of soy sauce,' lost roughly 300 billion yuan in market value. The case became a textbook example of how a defensive PR strategy can multiply a manageable issue into a crisis.