Shanshan is referred to as the Lone Wolf, because he stays out of politics and
business groups, and rarely speaks to the media or makes public
appearances. Zhong Shanshan was born in Hangzhou, China in 1954 during
China's Cultural Revolution. He dropped out of elementary school and
attended the Open University of China. He was a newspaper reporter, in
construction and as a beverage salesman in the 1980s prior to founding
the pharmaceutical company Yangshentang Co. Ltd. He founded Nongfu
Spring in 1996 at Qiandai Lake in the Zhanjiang province. That area of
China has one of the cleanest and largest water reservoirs in the
country. He is the executive chairman of the bottled water company and
manages the company's human resources, sales, and branding.
Nongfu Spring's well-known ad campaign and the tag line, "Tastes a bit sweet," have been very popular in China. Nongfu Spring means
"Farmer's Spring" in English. The company promotes its water as having
natural minerals, making it different from purified water sold by other
companies. Zhong, 65, owns 84% of the company. Nongfu Spring got into
flavored water, tea, and juice in 2000. In 2019, it debuted its own line
of coffee under the Tanbing brand.
Through growth and the acquisition of other companies, Nongfu Spring has become the largest bottled water producer in China and is in the
top three in the bottled juice and tea market. Nongfu Spring has a
market value of $48 billion, making it a regional leader. For
comparison, the market cap of Coca-Cola is $249 billion and Pepsi has a
valuation of $192 billion.
Shanshan's Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise makes COVID-19 test kits. The company made its IPO in April in Shanghai. He
owns 75% of the company, worth around $9.4 billion.
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