大学生创业:买猪肉送保险?

当你在商店购买猪肉时看到一个“买一送一份免费的”的标志时,你会想到什么?在中国西南地区一家商店,客户仅仅买一斤猪肉就能有15,000元人民币。这个想法来自两个刚刚进入这一行业的大学毕业生。

"Any customer who buys pork can get a 15,000-yuan insurance policy, no matter how much they buy. Even when they ask for a slice of pork, they can also get the insurance."

Gu Linlin is manager of a grocery store in Sichuan, southwest China. He says his store is providing customers with Food Security Liability Insurance, the first of its kind in the city. It aims to eliminate customers' worries about food safety. But is the insurance really accomplishing its goal?

"We give customers a membership card. When they pay for pork in our shop, the information will be recorded on their membership card. For example, the exact time that they buy the pork. The insurance pay-out is being issued to customers in the event that they become sick after eating pork bought in the our store."

Apart from the insurance, customers can trace the production history of the pork and even know who raised the pig.

It was Gu Linlin's idea to offer free insurance to customers who bought pork. He is not a veteran businessman, but a recent college graduate.

"I am a college graduate of Southeast University in Jiangsu Province. This is the deputy manger of our shop, Lei Tao. He graduated from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China."

So far, there are only three grocery stores in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, where more than 80 percent of the staff are college graduates.

Lei Tao says he had to think hard before accepting a job offer from the grocery store to sell pork and vegetables.

"My family opposed my choice of selling pork when I graduated from college. They thought after so many years of study, I should find a stable job after graduation. But I still stuck to my choice, as I believe I can bring innovation to the industry."

Because of fierce competition in the job market in recent years, more college graduate students have turned to jobs that are traditionally considered less valued.

Premier Wen Jiabao recently encouraged university graduates to start their own businesses, as the country is facing serious employment challenges. He said the government could normally create job opportunities for altogether 9 million people a year. But university graduates alone are more than 6 million.

Statistics indicate that the number of Chinese university graduates will reach an all-time high of 6.3 million this year, posing a grave challenge for the country's employment.

For CRI, I am Zhang Wan.