WHIEDA: who stands behind the products
We went into government registries instead of presentations
Stories about Chinese companies always sound the same: factories, science, international standards, state support. You listen and understand there is nothing to hold on to. Not a single number you can go and check.
We came from the other side. We opened registries of four states — it turned out more interesting than the presentations.
A state licence, two Nobel prizes nearby, and an asteroid.
Behind the goods stands a Chinese manufacturer with a licence that cannot be bought, a trademark in the US Principal Register and a Russian legal entity with 2.3 billion rubles of turnover. Some loud numbers from presentations did not survive the check — we will tell that too.
You already searched. And drowned
Search results are either distributor sites with rapture or regional branch posts with numbers like “1000 patents” and “100 scientific institutes”. The trouble with these numbers is not their size. The trouble is that behind them there is no number, no registry, no link — the source is an advertising post, not a document.
What can be checked is different: licences, trademarks, legal entities, astronomical catalogs, certificates with numbers. That is where we went.
Six things that can be checked in five minutes
The company does not control any of these sources. Details open under each item.
More
Tianjin Hezhi Youde — also FOHERB, the main shareholder of the alliance — has held licence TJ20160005 since 2016, the seventy-fourth in the country. After a wave of pyramids in the 1990s China first banned the model entirely, then returned it through a permitting order: capital, payout structure and reporting requirements cut almost everyone off.
More
The mark was registered on 8 April 2025, the application was filed on 12 June 2024, and it was entered into the Principal Register — the main US register that does not take weak or descriptive marks.
More
Operating since November 2020. Net profit 838 million, taxes paid 346 million, autonomy ratio 0.66. No arbitration cases, no bankruptcy, no one-day-company signs.
More
The name is proposed by the discoverer and approved by a working group of the International Astronomical Union — fifteen professional astronomers. The rules directly forbid names that can be confused with a trademark or a product.
More
This is the mechanism by which a cell dismantles and recycles spent proteins. Professor Ciechanover took part in alliance events; details below.
More
The same graphene that stands in the computer-glasses frame as part of the PA6/G composite. The material was not invented by marketers: it received a Nobel Prize.
A licence you cannot draw
This is the most underestimated fact in the whole story, and acquaintance with the company should start here.
In China network sales are licensed by the state. After a wave of pyramids in the 1990s the authorities first banned the model entirely, then returned it — but through a permitting order. Requirements for capital, payout structure, product quality and reporting are such that fewer than a hundred licences have been issued for all of China.
Tianjin Hezhi Youde — the same FOHERB that owns the main share of the alliance — has held this licence since 2016, the seventy-fourth in sequence. The register of licensed companies and this company page sit on the site of the Ministry of Commerce of the PRC.
An asteroid was named after their scientific adviser
When we read this, the reaction was understandable: sure, and they were probably also given a star — the kind sold in gift certificates.
It turned out to be true. In the NASA small-body database lies object 8311 Zhangdaning (1996 TV1), a main-belt asteroid. It can be found by number in a minute.
An asteroid cannot be bought and cannot be ordered. The name is proposed by the discoverer and approved by an IAU working group of fifteen professional astronomers. The rules directly forbid names that can be confused with a trademark or a product — so this cannot be an advertising move by definition.
What usually does not match — matched here
Imports and distribution in Russia are handled by Harmony LLC, TIN 9701164645, Moscow, operating since November 2020.
The company has two owners: Qu Junsheng — 66.7% and Liu Ting — 33.3%, who has also been the director from the start.
Now check this against what the alliance says about itself. Qu Junsheng is the executive chairman of WHIEDA and president of Fohow (Tianjin) Pharmaceutical. Liu Ting is chairman of the Eurasian association and president of Health Priority, the person with whom it all started in 2015.
It matched. And this is not a presentation slide: information is filed to the registry under responsibility, anyone can see it, and it cannot be fitted after the fact to a pretty legend.
What is known about Aaron Ciechanover
Company materials mention Professor Aaron Ciechanover — Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2004, received with Avram Hershko and Irwin Rose for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation. The prize is confirmed on the Nobel Committee site.
What is reliably known is this: the professor took part in alliance events, and this is recorded in photographs with official banners. Contracts about his role are not in open access. The absence of a paper on the internet proves nothing either way. We say exactly what is visible in the pictures: a scientist of this calibre comes to the company events, sits at one table with its leadership and walks onto a stage under its logo.
How many countries there really are
Company materials mention “20+”, “30+” and “39+ countries”. We will not name an exact figure, and here is why: with ninefold growth in a year any named number will age before you finish this line.
Geography can be checked right now without any figure. The company runs local official sites in different countries — for example the British and Uzbek ones. Offices are open in Moscow, Istanbul, Astana, Almaty, Bishkek, Tashkent and Ulaanbaatar.
- “1000+ patents” and “100+ scientific institutes”. The source of these numbers is an advertising post of a regional branch. Documents do not confirm them, and we do not use them.
- “The world’s largest factory, 40,000 sq. m”. Four hectares is a decent production site, but “the world’s largest” does not survive a check. We drop the superlative and keep the area: this is a real high-altitude spirulina production that partners visit themselves.
- “Capitalisation of 500 million dollars”. A figure from the company’s own presentation slide; a private alliance has no independent audit. What can be counted: Russia alone gave 2.3 billion rubles of revenue in a year — about 25 million dollars. In one country out of several dozen.
What remains
A Chinese state licence that cannot be bought. A trademark in the US Principal Register. A Russian legal entity with 2.3 billion turnover and owners who matched the stated leadership. 55 documents that open by a link. An asteroid named by an international astronomical committee. A Nobel laureate on a stage under their logo.
And separately — a thousand patents and a hundred institutes that we did not find, and the world’s largest factory that in fact turned out to be simply large.
The difference between these two lists is the answer to what kind of beast this is. The company turned out noticeably more real than it looks in rapturous posts, and noticeably more modest than those same posts. In our experience this is the best possible result of a check: where everything matches perfectly is exactly where you should start to worry.