Not only instant noodles, but also convenience——
Let’s look at the convenience and fast food "seven-two changes" (decoding new consumer brand ②)
A convenience food shelf in a supermarket in Beijing.
Photo by our reporter Kang Pu
When it comes to convenient fast food, consumers often think of instant noodles in bags or cups. Although some flavors are drooling, the labels of "filling the stomach" and "not healthy enough" are lingering.
However, in recent years, with the rise of the "lazy house economy", this situation has quietly changed. "I am busy, I am lazy, but I want quality" consumers have more choices: hot pot, rice, ramen, pasta, New categories such as snail noodles have entered the track, and related brands have come together, greatly enriching the "family tree" of convenient fast food; adding cold water to self-heat, making convenient fast food less restrictive; focusing on healthy nutrition and comparable to restaurants The level of concept, making convenient fast food no longer as simple as a belly
How is the convenience fast food market fission?
How can new brands grow quickly and well?
This reporter will take you to explore related brands.
Discover new trends——
Segmented categories to seize business opportunities
Time to go back to 2016.
At that time, the “Big Brother” instant noodle category, which was convenient for fast food, was encountering Waterloo: sales reached 46.2 billion packs in 2013, and then began to show signs of decline, which had dropped to about 38 billion packs that year.
At the same time, the food delivery industry has sprung up and seized some markets: As of December 2016, the number of online food delivery users in China reached 209 million, an annual growth rate of 83.7%.
In the face of market trends, the convenience and fast food category seems to be a heroic decay.
How many opportunities are there on this track?
This is the innate environment of the Japanese ramen brand "Ramen Talk".
One day in September 2016, Yao Qidi and the other two co-founders came to a noodle shop for dinner. A bowl of ramen was served in a few minutes. The inspiration came: traditional instant noodles are not healthy enough, and it is difficult to satisfy consumption. Consumers’ taste needs for Japanese-style ramen; making it at home face problems such as long preparation time and inconvenience; ordering takeaway, the taste and freshness will be affected during the delivery process.
Can the ramen restaurant "move home" to bring deliciousness and health to consumers?
In 2017, ramen noodles with a square carton as the outer packaging, containing semi-dried fresh noodles, barbecued pork, bamboo shoots, fungus and other 8 side dishes came out and quickly gained market recognition; sales in 2018 exceeded 80 million yuan; In 2019, 16 million packages of products were sold; during the "Double 11" period in 2020, sales of close to 80 million yuan were achieved, more than double the amount in 2019.
Today, ramen is said to be the leading brand of instant ramen.
"We chose ramen as a subdivision track under the convenience and fast food category, and we are committed to building a'ramen restaurant at home'. We are fancy that there are not many brands in the domestic market before that. Ramen said it fills this gap." Ramen said The relevant person in charge told the reporter that consumer tastes have changed, and instant noodles cannot meet consumers' needs for health and rich experience. This is the opportunity for new brands and new categories.
The original intention of the pasta brand "Kong Ke" was similar to that of ramen.
The team's preliminary research found that instant pasta has a relatively high market share in foreign markets, but in China, convenient instant food is still mainly Chinese food.
Although there are also pasta brands in China, you still need to buy noodles, sauces, and condiments separately. "That is to say, the logic of selling pasta in China is essentially selling noodles." Said Wang Yichao, co-founder of Kong Ke.
Therefore, the team aimed at the brand-new category of instant pasta and opened up a new frontier in the “wasteland”.
A pack of 110 grams of pasta noodles, a bag of 150 grams of tomato meat sauce, and other different weights of sea salt, oil packs, cheese and chopped parsley. All the ingredients needed for an authentic pasta are included, no separate buy.
The main feature of Space Carving is "Michelin-class pasta can be made in 15 minutes at home", and the audience is defined among urban white-collar workers and young mothers who pay attention to texture.
In 2019, Kong Ke was welcomed as soon as it went public. For two consecutive years, "Double 11" won the top 1 in the instant pasta category, with a market share of more than 70%.
Make a good combination punch——
Online marketing and offline reach
Some people are advancing on the track that they have created; some even enter and break the game on the existing track.
In 2017, since the hot pot has been developed for more than two years, there are more than 40 similar products on the market, and there are many brands that operate physical stores such as Haidilao.
The latter has accumulated a number of customers for its products due to its offline business and has a natural sales advantage.
However, since the launch of Zihai Pot, it ranked first in search volume of Tmall’s self-heating category on "June 18" in 2020, and "Double 11" became the first fast food category with revenue exceeding 100 million yuan, competing in brands China successfully staged a "curve overtaking".
What's the secret?
In the opinion of Shi Fupeng, co-founder of Zihaiguo, “Internet celebrity products do not necessarily make great brands, but in the Internet age, the latter must have gone through the road of online celebrity.” To become an online celebrity, you must dig into online marketing.
Relying on celebrities to promote products, create an atmosphere of "half of the entertainment circle is eating from the hot pot", so as to obtain the "original accumulation" of traffic; advertisements are implanted in variety shows and film and television dramas, and product consumption scenes are shown to the audience to strengthen the sense of existence; By inviting KOL (Key Opinion Leader) and UP Master to share the tasting experience, a good reputation of the product can be established.
When more and more consumers regard "self-heating hot pot" as synonymous with "self-heating hot pot", "overtaking on a curve" is a natural fit.
However, online sales are not all.
To this day, traditional instant noodles are still the main force in the “convenient and fast food area” of physical supermarkets. If you want to reach consumers quickly, you cannot ignore offline sales.
What should I do if I want to eat quickly because time is tight?
"Post-90s" office worker Xiao Pan said that the easiest way before was to buy instant noodles at the convenience store downstairs.
Nowadays, there are not only a wide variety of instant noodles, but more and more new convenient fast foods are also appearing on supermarket shelves. Self-heating hot pot, various noodles, and red oil noodles are also enriching her choices.
At the end of 2018, since Hipot began to focus on offline channels, so far, online and offline sales have been 50-50%.
Not only the supermarket, "there are more daily life scenes worth exploring." Shi Fupeng said, "such as ski resorts, fishing gear shops, scenic spots, we are also in these places."
Ramen said that at the beginning of 2020, the products will first be put on shelves in boutique supermarkets such as Hema Xiansheng and Ole for mid- to high-end consumers; in the middle of the year, they will start a wider range of offline investment and enter large supermarket chains and convenience stores.
"You can't just be a'net' red brand." The relevant person in charge of Ramen said that on the one hand, everyone is a potential customer source for direct contact with physical products; on the other hand, due to logistics constraints, online shopping cannot be quickly received .
Convenient fast food is an instant food after all. "If consumers want to eat our ramen on the same day, but they have to wait three to five days for online shopping, convenient fast food loses part of its meaning."
Competition repurchase rate——
Improve appearance and polish taste
Regardless of marketing or channels, as fast-moving consumer goods, the ultimate goal is the repurchase rate.
In the era of "appearance economy", consumers pay more attention to the beauty of products. "Good-looking" has become an important dimension of product competitiveness. "Whether it is suitable for taking pictures" is a major factor for users to weigh the pros and cons of products. Kongke knows this:
Look at the packaging——
The box is about 30 cm long. It is visually divided into two parts, half of which is painted orange, with the words "AIRMETER" printed on it; half painted in white, with 5 horizontal orange stripes symbolizing pasta and the left side The font is flush.
This is the tomato meat sauce pasta package produced by Kong Ke, simple and neat, creating a simple beauty.
In addition, there are brown and white black pepper beef tenderloin pasta, red and white turkey pasta, yellow and white curry chicken pasta, etc. Several different products can be put together to form a color gradient.
Look at the value-
Open the box, open 6 small packages in order, simply cook and put on the plate, it is a restaurant-like pasta with bright color and rich aroma, which is mouth-watering.
On social platforms such as Weibo and Xiaohongshu, some users stack up empty deliberate noodle boxes of different flavors, and take photos and share them together with the prepared pasta. They are sighing that "like design", "you can take pictures without filters. Good results".
"Today, consumption and aesthetics are iteratively upgraded, and the'look and feel' of product packaging and cooking effects is very important." Wang Yichao believes that good design promotes communication and sales, and high appearance can be included in the "product content" to enhance brand memory point.
"The team has been researching how to make packaging and pasta products more'photogenic' and stimulate consumers' desire to buy. It can be said that our products are'reversely pushed' by short videos."
The appearance must be good-looking, and the product must be "beatable."
In addition to paying attention to appearance, convenience fast food brands cannot be satisfied with making "vase". To attract consumers, they need higher product quality to achieve "color, fragrance" and completeness.
The bottom material is the key to the quality of hot pot, and self-heating hot pot is no exception.
For this reason, Cai Hongliang, the founder of Zihai Pot, led the team to go deep into Sichuan and Chongqing, walked the streets and alleys to try hot pot, did a year of product research, and finally selected a base material made by a 60-year-old chef, which will be authentic Chongqing hot pot. "Ma, spicy, fresh and fragrant" are restored.
Nowadays, the red oil is tumbling, and there is a spicy heat. This kind of scene is no longer limited to hot pot restaurants. The smoke and fire can also be experienced when eating self-heating hot pot.
The snail noodle brand "Haohuanluo" also focuses on taste. The person in charge of the brand introduced that each brine ratio is formulated by Zhang Xiaoxian, the founder of the snail noodle industry for many years.
It is precisely because of this that the products under the Haohuanluo online store are full of praise such as "authentic Liuzhou flavor" and "I have eaten so many snail noodles, I still love Huanluo the most".
In addition, many convenience and fast food brands have worked hard on the raw material technology. The "dehydrated side dishes" that were not healthy enough due to the production process are now replaced by the "freeze-dried" technology that can maintain nutrients; the past high-oil and high-calorie noodles Cakes are now replaced by semi-dry fresh noodles with a shelf life of about 2 months.
As Shi Fupeng said, product strength is a barrier between brands.
Indeed, only by intensively polishing the quality of products can we rely on our strong strength to gain more consumer recognition.
Wang Jingyue