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Voices of ACES Blog

A 'Latte' Juice | IBIP Day 10

ACE students discussing policy.

“Ring Ring,” its 7am and the wake up call never fails to come too soon.  Many of us are lacking on sleep at this point in time, but we always make sure to catch a nap on the bus.  Uni-President was our first stop of the day of the two beverage companies that we were headed to visit.  Uni-President manufactures beverages and packaged noodle bowls, comparable to ramen noodles in the US.  As we were touring different production lines, we learned that their beverages were all produced in house.  All the way from the bottle manufacturing, bottling the product, to labeling and packaging.  After our tours many people enjoy their coffee latté that was provided by Uni-President during our Q&A session.  The coffee latte was the little pick up everyone needed.

Next we headed to Brian Lin’s Company, Line & Tendency Corp.  Brian is a University of Illinois graduate and IBIP alum. When we arrived we were excited to see KFC waiting for us on the table for our lunch! Brian knew exactly what many of us had been craving: western food!  After Chinese food for many days, western food had never looked so appetizing.   During our Q&A session at Uni-President, a question arose concerning why they import their oranges instead of using a domestic supplier.  Brian thought a taste-testing exercise would answer this question better than anything.  We were given two small glasses, one containing orange juice imported from Brazil and one orange juice from domestic oranges.  Very quickly many of us noticed a bitter taste of the domestic orange juice compared to a sweet smooth taste of the Brazilian orange juice.  This hand on tasting spoke volumes compared to an explanation! After our taste testing, Brian gave us a brief overview of what his company did for multiple beverage companies in China.  Brian deals with commodities and procuring product for the many beverage companies to continue their production in China.  His company imports fruit then stores it in storage units. 

After a long day of juice companies and learning about what goes into supplying the Shanghai’s market, we were ready for a little down time.  Tonight we had dinner on our own and time to explore what drew our attention.  A majority of us decided to check out a restaurant called ‘Goodfellas’.   Plus it was Ben Sinele’s birthday and we all had to help him celebrate.  Goodfellas was rated number 1 on trip advisor for Italian food in Shanghai, so it was an easy choice.  We were pleasantly surprised when our food was served at how big the portions were and delicious the food was!  We all enjoyed pizza, pasta, or steak.  After we were finished with our meal, employees from the restaurant bought out a plate of tiramisu for a small celebration of Ben’s birthday.  In tradition, all 20 of us broke out the “happy birthday song” for the entire restaurant to enjoy.  It was a great way to end the night! We all hope Ben had an amazing birthday over in China!