"Savage Growth" E-cigarette Town

Li Jun is the founder of a large electronic cigarette manufacturer in Shenzhen. Shajing Town, under the jurisdiction of Bao 'an District, started and gradually expanded.

The data shows that Shajing, Songgang and Fuyong have become the world e-cigarette industry bases, producing more than 90% e-cigarettes for the global market.

1 65438+1October1,the State Tobacco Monopoly Bureau pointed out that at present, the domestic e-cigarette market is chaotic, the product quality is uneven, and a large number of products have serious quality and safety hazards such as unsafe ingredients, cigarette oil leakage, and inferior batteries. In particular, some e-cigarette enterprises add various additives at will to improve the attractiveness of their products, changing the taste of e-cigarettes and the color of cigarette oil, which seriously harms the physical and mental health of consumers, especially minors.

Nowadays, various regulatory policies on e-cigarettes are frequent, and e-cigarettes have once again embarked on a historical crossroads.

Golden Age of E-cigarette Town

According to the description of the World Health Organization, e-cigarette is an electronic nicotine delivery system, which delivers aerosol by heating solution for users to inhale. The solution usually consists of nicotine, propylene glycol, glycerol and odorant. In 2003, Li Han, a pharmacist in China, invented the world's first electronic cigarette and put it on the market, which was once all the rage.

Because the effect and safety of quitting smoking have not been verified, Ru Yan has been blocked and questioned by many governments, tobacco groups and the media. In 20 13, after years of losses, Ru Yan was acquired by foreign tobacco groups.

With the rapid development of "Ru Yan", a group of entrepreneurs smell the business opportunities of e-cigarettes and invest to build factories in Shenzhen to produce e-cigarettes. After seeing "Ru Yan" hit a wall in the domestic market, these entrepreneurs chose to export all their products.

Shajing, Songgang, Fuyong and other places under the jurisdiction of Shenzhen Baoan District have gradually become the world e-cigarette industry bases, and more than 90% of the e-cigarettes produced are oriented to the global market. According to the statistics of china electronic chamber of commerce Electronic Cigarette Industry Committee as of August last year, among the 678 domestic electronic cigarette manufacturers, Shenzhen accounted for 86.7%.

Shajing is the birthplace of this world factory. According to industry sources, there are at least four or five hundred e-cigarette foundries in this small town with a total area of 35.79 square kilometers and a total population of about 900,000. Just walk into an industrial park and you may find a small factory in the factory.

Zhu is one of the founders of the earliest e-cigarette foundry in Shenzhen.

"Around 2007, I brought a group of people out and started making e-cigarettes in manholes." Zhu believes that the "dumping" of cigarettes has hit a wall in the market because of over-promoting the "smoking cessation effect" of e-cigarettes. "In fact, in the world, until today, no one has said that e-cigarettes are smoking cessation products, it is just a substitute."

In 2008, Li Jun also entered the e-cigarette industry.

Li Jun said that at that time, there was no distinction between brands and foundries in the industry, and the e-cigarette factories in the whole industry "could be counted with both hands". "They are all very small, and there are twenty or thirty people in a company." His former boss will be very happy if he can produce 50 sets of electronic cigarettes a day.

"At that time, the e-cigarettes sold were either smoking or getting angry. So what? It doesn't matter, it is also making money. "

After working as a structural engineer for two months, it became very easy for Li Jun to produce e-cigarettes. "I can do it directly."

It took me three years to set up my own electronic cigarette factory. According to Li Jun, at that time, the first outlet of the industry had arrived. Spending thousands of dollars to register a business license, and then spending 29,800 yuan to register a platform on the e-commerce website is almost the whole cost of investing in setting up a factory. As long as the product pictures are posted online, overseas customers will place orders. The more pictures posted, the higher the exposure. Customers can start work after placing orders, and the money of component suppliers can be settled on a monthly basis. "Just brush your face."

"Just rent a ghost factory and work in private houses. One room, one living room, one month in 700 yuan. Please give birth to four or five people. "

The production line of electronic cigarette factory. Workers are injecting smoke oil.

Li Jun's first factory is located on the second floor of a car wash. He rented it at 1500 yuan. Except for the founding team, the factory does not need to hire other workers. When people are too busy, they will send some components to housewives or stores in nearby residential areas. "They help me pack all the simple things, take them in the morning and bring them back at night, and charge them by the piece. When we get here, we only need to weld the root line and we can deliver the goods. " This is the lowest way to start a business.

In addition to low rent and labor costs, in Li Jun's view, it is the status quo that Shajing, Fuyong and Songgang under the jurisdiction of Shenzhen Baoan District can become e-cigarette production bases.

"Whether it is a mobile phone, a drone or an electronic cigarette, in Shenzhen, as long as it is an electronic product, it can be manufactured." Li Jun said that Shenzhen had a perfect supply chain for the electronics industry, and at that time, it coincided with Shenzhen's transfer to the suburbs of manufacturing, electroplating, oil injection and other polluting industries, and Shajing and other places just took over these industries.

"At the right time, making e-cigarettes is like saving money."

A steady stream of overseas orders poured in. Customers place orders online and transfer the money directly to the company account. No one will ask to see where the e-cigarette at the inhalation port is made. Li Jun can't remember where the first order came from. He only remembers earning 500 thousand in the first three months.

20 13 to 20 16, the best four years of business. Customers need to pay the full amount before picking up the goods, and the factory can deliver the goods after half a year. "Every day at 1 1 point, there are more than 70 people waiting in line at1point. My goods are only enough to sell to 30 people, all of which are for export." Li Jun said.

It was an era when all foundries were "powerful". "At that time, you wanted to buy electronic cigarettes, right? Wait! " Li Jun said, "You can sell as many goods as you want."

Walk out of the house

After accumulating the original funds, the first generation of entrepreneurs in the e-cigarette OEM industry began to leave their homes one after another, and the small workshop-style production mode was gradually replaced by the assembly line of modern production workshops.

At present, Zhu's company is one of the largest e-cigarette manufacturers in China, with 1.700 employees, three production bases and a production area of more than 20,000 square meters, and has obtained the certification of international quality management system and international drug production management standards; Li Jun's factory changes to a bigger place almost every year, from 500 square meters to 1800 square meters and then to 6000 square meters. 20 15 recently, he moved, and the ordinary factory building was replaced by the dust-free workshop at that time.

At the entrance of an industrial park in Shajing Street, Baoan District, Shenzhen, more than a dozen labor agents looked at every strange face in the past. I heard that someone wanted to find a job in an electronic cigarette factory, and an intermediary immediately handed in a recruitment notice. "Working environment: long day shift, air conditioning workshop, sitting at work; Monthly salary: 5,000-6,800 yuan. "

"Just sitting for a long time has a backache." In an e-cigarette production workshop in the industrial park, Wang Tao (pseudonym) wears white striped overalls, a working cap and a disposable mask, and two index fingers are covered with a rubber sleeve. He is oiling cigarettes and assembling nozzle shells on the e-cigarette production line.

Electronic cigarette assembled by a large electronic cigarette factory.

The cigarette cylinder is placed in the middle of the station. He sucked 1.3ml of cigarette oil with a syringe. The oblique mouth of the needle clings to the cup wall of the cigarette oil cup, inserts the oil-absorbing cotton into it, and slowly pushes the piston downward. After refueling, aim the nozzle shell at the heating base, aim the nozzle at the glass tube in the middle cigarette oil cup, and finally calibrate it with an instrument.

This is a delicate job and requires a high degree of concentration. "There can be no bubbles in the syringe when oil is absorbed; The hole of the suction nozzle housing is aligned with the glass tube. If it is offset, it will lead to a large suction. " The column "Matters needing attention" in the station job description reads.

Wang Tao comes from Guangxi and is 2 1 year old this year. About half a month ago, I was introduced by a friend to the current e-cigarette foundry as an hourly worker, with an hourly fee of 20 yuan.

Under the guidance of this "old worker", it took him two days to basically master the whole process of "loading cigarettes with oil and assembling nozzle shells". Now, every 30 seconds, he picks up a new cigarette cup and goes back and forth 1000 times a day.

"He is not used to it, we have long been used to it, and he doesn't feel pain." Chen Jie made fun of Wang Tao's complaint about "backache". Sister Chen, a native of Meizhou, came to the e-cigarette foundry three years ago and was responsible for the same work as Wang Tao. "The monthly salary is four or five thousand."

"This batch of orders is not expected to be completed on time." Jiang Xiong said that due to the unstable supply of materials, the production capacity of the foundry is also unstable, sometimes 60,000 pieces can be delivered a day, and sometimes only 20,000 pieces can be delivered; If one brand of materials is not in place, workers will first produce another brand of e-cigarettes.

"the era of warlord separatism"

"There are still many small workshop-style factories. If I take you to them, you can just find 70 or 80. " Tong Dong said that this factory does not control raw materials, and the defective batteries eliminated by battery manufacturers will also be used by them.

Cheap cigarette oil was sold before. According to industry insiders, this kind of cigarette oil will "dry mouth, nausea and numbness of tongue".

Take some disposable e-cigarettes on the e-commerce platform as an example. According to him, such a cheap electronic cigarette "is nothing more than cutting corners from all aspects", "the worst materials are selected for cigarette oil, batteries and tobacco stems", and the production cost is only about four yuan. Specifically, e-cigarettes generally have more than three batteries, but the cost of inferior batteries is only about 80 cents; Cigarette oil from big manufacturers costs more than 300 yuan a kilogram. "To make 9 packs of 9 pieces, you can only use more than 30 yuan a kilogram of cigarette oil."

"I dare not use it for you." Tong Dong said that the manufacturer of this cigarette oil is not even a small workshop, but a black workshop. However, some people who want to smoke e-cigarettes but can't afford dozens or hundreds of them may choose cheap e-cigarettes with inferior cigarette oil. "It can only be said that it also smokes, but after smoking, it will be thirsty, nausea and numbness in the tongue." "The seller will also hang the smoke oil test report online, but it is actually bought."

"We can only arrange for more employees to put alcohol on the parts and then pack them immediately." Yu Qiang thinks this can make up for the influence of "similar environment".

Yu Qiang said that his factory only does OEM work, and the suppliers of raw materials such as cigarette oil, batteries and cigarette sticks are generally selected by himself and his customers. "There are good and bad materials, depending on what price you want, such as copper,' environmental protection (referring to food-grade materials) copper' and garbage copper. You can't get good things at a low price. "

A large electronic cigarette factory, a batch of completed smoke bombs.

"Because there is no standard, the quality of products of various brands on the market is uneven. Among them, inaccurate labeling of nicotine, excessive benzene series and excessive aldehydes and ketones are the three most common problems. " Wu Jie said that some electronic cigarettes still have problems such as excessive heavy metals and nitrosamines. "A brand of coffee-flavored e-cigarette formaldehyde exceeds the standard by dozens of times. Formaldehyde is a strong carcinogen and has a great impact on lung function after inhalation."

"We have also detected fakes that counterfeit our products, and the quality of cigarette oil is a mess." Wu Jie said that counterfeit products covered almost all the above problems, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were detected, which were "the most carcinogenic among Class A carcinogens".

"Not only e-cigarettes, but also food and medicine. The principle of adding an ingredient is' positive effect, no excessive risk, and the possibility of introduction into the body', and the above ingredients do not meet this principle. " Wu Jie said that some small manufacturers are "ignorant and fearless, and add everything". Those that will bring gimmicks to product marketing will be publicized publicly, and those that will change the taste of tobacco oil will be added secretly.

"Some small factories are very messy." Peng Hui (pseudonym), the head of an e-cigarette brand R&D and supply chain, thinks that under normal circumstances, when choosing a foundry, the brand should check whether the factory has ISO certification, GMP certification and other qualifications, and whether the raw material supplier has the qualification to provide food-grade raw materials. But two years ago, he visited a number of foundries in Shajing and other places and found that "only two or three of the ten have the above qualifications", and the control of raw materials in many factories "basically belongs to no control".

"In the e-cigarette industry, many things can be managed by one company. For example, for a product, you can use 100 people to control all aspects including the size of parts, but you can also produce this product by just letting one person check it. " Peng Hui said.

Looking forward to the national standard landing

Zhu said that in the absence of national standards for e-cigarettes, the market supervision department has no regulatory basis and law enforcement basis, and it is impossible to conduct quality supervision on them. "Even if you check, you can only check whether the manufacturer has a business license, whether it uses other product trademarks, and then enforce the law according to other laws."

According to people familiar with the matter, the National Standard for Electronic Cigarettes includes two documents: the determination of electronic cigarettes, electronic cigarette liquids, nicotine, propylene glycol and glycerol, and gas chromatography, which respectively regulate the smoking utensils and cigarette oil of electronic cigarettes. According to official website, the National Standardization Administration Committee, the competent department of the "national standard" is the State Tobacco Monopoly Bureau, and its designated institutions such as Zhengzhou Tobacco Research Institute of China Tobacco Corporation and China Tobacco Standardization Research Institute are responsible for drafting. The project is approved on 20 17, and the project cycle is two years.

For e-cigarette practitioners, once the national standard is implemented, it means that the industry has been officially recognized by the state, rather than living in the shadow of legitimacy after the "smoke" is dumped.

"If there is no national standard and no legal basis to supervise practitioners in this industry, something will happen sooner or later." Ou Junbiao, president of china electronic chamber of commerce Electronic Cigarette Industry Committee, said. E-cigarette Industry Committee was established on 20 17, and the output of member enterprises accounts for more than 90% of e-cigarette exports. In the first year of its establishment, the association formulated the General Specification for Electronic Cigarette Atomizer and the Specification for Electronic Cigarette Atomizer.

"But then I found that what we did was useless, because we set group standards and there was no legal support." What disappoints him even more is that the E-cigarette Industry Committee and many E-cigarette enterprises it represents cannot participate in the formulation of the national standard. "Nobody cares about us! Even if it is for us to make suggestions. "

In addition, some people in the industry are also quite critical of the specific provisions of the draft national standard. "There are many problems in this." A person in charge of tobacco oil research and development of a brand who did not want to be named said that the draft listed 1 19 tobacco oil additives, but did not explain why these 1 19 substances could be added, nor did it stipulate what products were deemed unqualified and how to deal with unqualified products.

"For the industry, the national standard is only a part. Prior to this, the regulatory authorities and access standards should be determined first. " The person in charge believes that the entry threshold is as important as the national standard. "I hope that medium-sized enterprises can reach this threshold, and enterprises that are unwilling to improve will naturally be eliminated."

Li Jun's office is currently located on the sixth floor of a building. Not long ago, he rented the first and second floors and wanted to continue to expand the company. But he dare not now. "GB doesn't come out, we always have a knife hanging on our heads. I don't know when to cut it. This time is the most uncomfortable. "

Due to the tightening of e-cigarette regulatory policies in the United States, Li Jun's production was affected, and there was only one order in 10.

"Confused. Confused, very confused now. " He felt trapped in the house. "There is sunshine outside the window, but I can't fly out, so I can only lie on the glass."