Yangcheng Evening News reporter Huang Ting

　　The leading domestic fruit retailers are known as "Nanbaiguo, Beixianfeng, Xihongjiu", and the three companies have been established for nearly 20 years.

Since last year, the battle of enterprises has evolved from the competition for market share to the competition of "the first fruit chain".

　　Recently, it is reported that Shenzhen Pagoda Industrial (Group) Co., Ltd. has resumed its listing plan and is expected to submit a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in April this year; the China Securities Regulatory Commission also disclosed on March 14 that Pagoda submitted an overseas initial public offering. Share approval materials.

Chongqing Hongjiu Fruit Co., Ltd. and Xianfeng Fruit Co., Ltd. have also disclosed relevant listing information before, but they have not been able to bear fruit.

　　Multiple rounds of financing are not enough to feed expansion ambitions?

　　In 2001, Yu Huiyong, who majored in agricultural vegetables, went south to Shenzhen and opened the first Baiguoyuan store, which was the first fruit franchise chain store in China.

A year later, Yu Huiyong chose the open franchise model, and Pagoda's stores entered a period of radical expansion. However, the phenomenon of franchisees purchasing cheap goods "scrambled" without permission was once exposed by the media, saying that Pagoda was shoddy and used domestic bananas. Act as imported bananas.

　　After this turmoil, Yu Huiyong called to stop the franchise model, and took back the control of the franchise store and changed it to self-operated.

In 2015, while completing the expansion of 1,000 stores, Pagoda also received 350 million yuan from Tiantu Capital, and 400 million yuan from GF Xinde and Qianhai Fund of Funds.

Just 3 years later, the company announced the completion of the 1.5 billion B round of financing. Investors include Zhongjin Zhide, Zhongzhi Capital, Zhongjin Huirong, Cornerstone Capital, Source Code Capital, Yuexiu Industrial Fund, Shenzhen Venture Capital, etc., with a valuation of 90%. billion.

That is, in this year, Baiguoyuan returned to the old road of the franchise model, and shouted the slogan of opening Wandian in 2020.

　　However, the implementation of the Wandian plan was not smooth. Due to the lack of new financing, Pagoda’s cash could not support the aggressive expansion plan.

According to Tianyancha information, in March 2020, Pagoda received equity financing from Pioneer Investments, which is the only financing that Pagoda has received since 2018.

According to the data of Jihai brand monitoring, as of August 1, 2021, Baiguoyuan stores cover 115 cities across the country, and there are 5,014 stores in operation, which is only half of the target of 10,000 stores.

　　In order to further support store expansion, listing is imperative.

In April 2020, Pagoda completed the shareholding reform. Two months later, it submitted materials to the International Department of the China Securities Regulatory Commission to start the listing process in Hong Kong. In November of that year, Pagoda signed a listing counseling agreement with Minsheng Securities, and planned to land on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange to start a business. board, but it was only recently that a new listing plan was announced.

　　Business is not good under the impact of community group buying

　　Pagoda's competitors are also racing to start the IPO road, and it is still unclear who will win the "first share of the fruit chain".

Hongjiu Guopin submitted an application for overseas listing to the China Securities Regulatory Commission in September 2020, and was officially approved on January 13 this year.

In February 2020, Xianfeng Fruit received guidance from CITIC Construction Investment on the initial public offering of stocks. There is still no latest news. When the news came out, it happened that Baiguoyuan planned to list on the Growth Enterprise Market, and the two giants competed for "" "The first share of fruit chain" has been widely discussed at that time.

　　Why are fruit chain brands anxious to go public?

Wang Peng, an associate professor at the Gaoli Research Institute of Renmin University of China, said that fruit chain brands started early and often had multiple rounds of financing. At this point, the founding team and the investors behind them all have aspirations for listing and monetization.

In addition, under the pressure of the entry of Internet giants and fresh food e-commerce, if the traditional brand chain stores do not seek to go public, they will face greater competitive pressure in the future.

　　In 2020, the community group buying war started. Daily Youxian, Dingdong Maicai, Meituan and other players flocked to the fruit retailing track, causing a great sense of crisis to Baiguoyuan.

According to data, the number of users of Baiguoyuan, which has been established for 20 years, is 70 million, and the fresh food e-commerce company under Meituan has exceeded 30 million transaction users in the first quarter of 2020.

In 2020, in order to meet the challenge, Baiguoyuan launched the "Panda Daxian" applet to enter the community group purchase.

　　In fact, my country's fruit industry is highly fragmented, and a large market share is still in the hands of vegetable markets and individual fruit shops, and brand chain stores account for less than 5%.

Retail vendors in traditional vegetable markets are aimed at middle-aged and elderly groups, while large supermarkets are aimed at young and middle-aged groups, while fresh food e-commerce is aimed at young people, resulting in a more dispersed trend of fruit consumption.

　　Ms. Chen, who lives in Tianhe, Guangzhou, told reporters that there is a Baiguoyuan store 300 meters away from her home, which is closer than the distance she goes to the vegetable market, but when she buys fruit, she often goes to the vegetable market to buy it, because the main consideration is the price/performance ratio .

The advantage of Baiguoyuan is that the appearance and packaging of the fruit are relatively good, and she will choose to patronize it every time she buys fruit as a gift.

　　Chinese food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng believes that the development of fruit chain brands has two very important dimensions, one is the brand effect, and the other is the scale effect.

Under the impact of community fresh food e-commerce, whether the products and services can be differentiated will become the core factor for whether fruit chain brands can successfully establish themselves in the market in the future.

"We should focus on the integrity of the supply chain, the innovation of scenarios, the improvement of the service system, and the strengthening of customer stickiness."

　　Offline stores reach out to fresh food

　　For more than 20 years, Baiguoyuan, which specializes in fruit tracks, has established a fruit standard system based on indicators such as fruit flesh, sugar content and appearance, and has strengthened the construction of direct-harvesting links at the origin.

As of last August, Baiguoyuan had deployed more than 200 fruit planting bases, 17 fresh food distribution centers, and a large number of transportation fleet resources across the country, further reducing the circulation cost and loss rate of fruit supply and sales.

　　The supply chain advantage is the trump card for the mid-to-high-end product positioning, but it also causes the cost of Pagoda to source procurement and cold chain logistics to be significantly higher than that of its peers.

For the fruit business with a small profit, the "three no-return" policy of no receipt, no physical goods, and no reason to return the fruit proposed by Pagoda is also a big burden. According to the refund data report released by Pagoda in 2019, that year The number of "three no returns" orders and the amount involved accounted for about 0.50%, and Pagoda and the franchised stores each paid 50%.

　　The reporter saw at the Baiguoyuan store in Tianhe, Guangzhou that unlike ordinary fruit stores, the fruits of Baiguoyuan are wrapped in plastic bags. In addition to fruits, the most common products on the shelves are Baiguoyuan's nut brand "The Ball of the Apes". products; at checkout, the clerk usually recommends customers to download the APP and register as a member, and introduces the online ordering method. It can be seen that the offline store is an important drainage channel for the Baiguoyuan fresh food platform.

　　Yu Huiyong once proposed to "do only one thing in life, and make fruit with one heart and one mind", but under the dual pressure of internal and external factors, it has become inevitable to explore a development path other than fruit.

In April 2019, Yu Huiyong announced that Baiguoyuan would enter the comprehensive field of fresh food, benchmarking Amazon, starting from a single category and gradually expanding to a full-category business empire.

At present, vegetables, seafood, cooked frozen products and other categories are also on sale in the next-day delivery section of the Pagoda APP.

　　How should fruit chain brands consolidate their market advantages in the next step?

Wang Peng suggested that brands should first carry out digital transformation, combine traditional offline stores to carry out in-depth cultivation, and enhance the digitization of supply chains and marketing and distribution links; secondly, localization should be done well. Customers do more offline activities; at the same time, the supply chain is firmly in their own hands to enhance quality control.