In less than half an hour, the turnover has exceeded 2,000 yuan.
Boss Xiao's 9th live broadcast on the short video platform did not have too many greetings. The live broadcast was his fried shrimp scene at the beginning.
I saw that 4 pounds of sunflower oil was poured into a large iron pot weighing more than 20 pounds. Boss Xiao was in charge of frying shrimp, and the staff next to him explained the steps-Shaanxi Hancheng Dahongpao, Erjingtiao pepper, Fujian pepper king... The seasonings used are blurred out one by one along with the fried shrimp.
The red crayfish overflowed the screen, and the sales in the live broadcast room were also a hot scene.
"We now buy 300 kilograms of goods every day, which can be sold out on the same day, mainly through takeout. Occasionally, when an order comes in but it is out of stock, I will discuss with the customer whether to send it tomorrow or refund it first."
Boss Xiao told the Beijing News Shell Finance reporter that each live broadcast only lasts for two hours. One reason is the hard work of frying shrimp, and the main reason is that the crayfish are sold out.
Since May, the crayfish market has entered a new round of peak season.
The Beijing News Shell Finance reporter interviewed practitioners and learned that due to the decline in production and other reasons this year, the purchase price of fresh crayfish has entered an upward channel.
From restaurants to processing plants, the fierce buying of raw materials has made the price of crayfish "change every day".
The crayfish with its own Internet celebrity attributes has spawned a 100 billion incremental market.
In this track that has not yet taken the lead, competition has intensified, and price wars are imminent.
Live crayfish with goods, 300 catties "slow hands"
At 5:00 in the morning, Boss Xiao got up as usual, stocked, loaded, and unloaded. After the whole process, it was 11:00 when he got home.
Make up for sleep and prepare for the "hard battle" in the afternoon: live frying crayfish and selling goods.
Preparing ingredients, boiling chicken soup, boiling butter, and frying shrimp... In the back kitchen of the three Chang Ying brothers and in the live broadcast room, while Boss Xiao was frying shrimp, the live broadcast team was busy with live broadcasts and sales.
When the Shell Finance reporter visited, a staff member was taking pictures with a mobile phone, and at the same time, he constantly interacted with netizens in the live broadcast room, introduced the ordering method, displayed fresh crayfish, seasonings, and answered questions.
Boss Xiao revealed that he can fry up to 180 kilograms of crayfish a day. "No matter how much, I really can't do it. If you look at this pot, you may not be able to handle it." During the interview with reporters, he had another small pot in his hand. Lobster is out.
Engaged in the catering industry for more than 20 years, Boss Xiao has been in the meat business before, but only last year began to test the water with crayfish at the recommendation of a friend.
Therefore, he has always called himself a "primary student" in the field of crayfish.
He told Shell Finance reporter that the purchase price of crayfish changes every day, "I always get the goods from a seller and order one day in advance. The seller pulls 11 tons of crayfish from Jiangsu, and it can be sold out in the morning. Sometimes our store The 300 kilograms in the store are not enough, and I will temporarily want to add more goods. Often they are out of stock. Beijing does not need to store them in storage. The seller ships them on the same day and sells them out that day.”
At 7:00 am on July 4th, Shell Finance reporter received the price list of crayfish market released by Qianjiang Aquatic Products Company. The price is 31 yuan/catties.
On June 30, the price of similar products was 26 yuan/catties.
In 4 days, the increase reached 19%.
Shell Finance reporter learned that "prices go with the market every day" is a rule of thumb in this industry.
A crayfish aquatic product manufacturer told reporters that in July, the production of crayfish will gradually decrease, and the price will continue to rise.
According to the "China Crayfish Industry Development Report (2022)", in 2021, the total output value of my country's crayfish industry (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions) will be 422.195 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22.43%.
The output value of the tertiary industry, mainly catering, was 303 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 36.49%.
Competing for supply: the factory is close to the breeding base
Shell Finance reporters learned from the crayfish product processing side and the catering industry that this year, the competition in the procurement of live shrimp by processing plants is very fierce.
In mid-June, the person in charge of the Hubei crayfish processing factory told reporters that there was a reduction in the production of crayfish this year. , an increase of about 30% year-on-year.”
Regarding the large fluctuations in prices, the person in charge analyzed that consumers prefer small shrimp, but farmers want to raise shrimp for profit and sell them again, and the market is in short supply.
In response to the market situation this year, Li Jian, founder of Xinliangji, said in an interview with Shell Finance reporter that due to factors such as weather, farmers have reduced production more, so prices have risen.
The purchase price of fresh crayfish has increased by about 20% year-on-year, and cooked crayfish has naturally risen at the same time.
Production has declined, and the market is in short supply, and raw material purchasers have begun to compete for the supply of farmers.
And there are secrets to successfully grabbing supplies.
"We have reached in-depth cooperation with shrimp farmers and established a long-term supply relationship. When it comes to the market season, we will start work." Li Jian said that as a prefabricated ingredient brand, Xinliangji has been running the entire industry chain from the very beginning. Layout, factories are located near crayfish breeding bases, such as Hubei, Jiangsu, Sichuan, and the annual output of crayfish can reach tens of thousands of tons.
Crayfish is the first popular product of Xinliangji, and it occupies half of the country's food warehouse so far.
Li Jian told reporters that in the process of production and sales, the most difficult part of crayfish is to keep fresh.
Consumers tend to value the Q-elastic and smooth taste of fresh crayfish.
"For catering companies, procurement, transportation, storage, and preservation are difficult, and customers' pain points are our opportunities." At present, Xinliangji has an exclusive cold chain, which is characterized by fast transportation and high convenience.
Shell Finance reporters noticed that the current crayfish consumer market has formed a comprehensive market for fresh crayfish, fresh crayfish locked in liquid nitrogen, crayfish shrimp, seasoned shrimp, etc., through distribution, retail or e-commerce channels, and finally enter the catering terminal or directly to consumers.
The crayfish product catalog provided by the aquatic product manufacturer shows that the classification of liquid nitrogen quick-frozen crayfish includes quick-frozen freshwater whole-limb shrimp, shrimp tails, dry-frozen shrimp tails, seasoned shrimps, and washed shrimps.
Among them, the price of medium-sized quick-frozen freshwater whole-limb shrimp reached 42 yuan/catties, much higher than that of fresh shrimp.
However, for many small-sized crayfish or crayfish tails, most of them will be processed into seasoned crayfish and sold through e-commerce platforms to enter the catering market.
Young people urge "red" crayfish, why are leading enterprises absent?
April to September is the peak season for eating crayfish.
In Li Jian's view, crayfish has the attributes of an Internet celebrity, and it is largely due to young people that it has become an Internet celebrity product.
"The crayfish first became popular as a late-night snack. This is a party method that young people like very much. In addition to being suitable for taking pictures and posting friends, the unit price of the product is not low, and it also satisfies the show-off psychology of diners and attracts young people. Favoring has become the first step to becoming an internet celebrity." Li Jian said that as a seasonal product, it creates a sense of scarcity, so consumers will want to eat crayfish at a certain time every year.
"As a popular category, crayfish has strong user attention and user stickiness, and the audience is young. Many Internet platforms push crayfish as a popular category, largely to improve their own product matrix. This enhances user stickiness. From the perspective of the entire industry and the consumer side, crayfish will become a new normal category for e-commerce platforms to a large extent in the future." said Zhu Danpeng, an analyst in China's food industry.
With the blessing of popularity, the enhanced cold chain transportation capacity, and the standardized development of the crayfish product itself, Li Jian believes that the market space is still very large, and the track can achieve long-term stable development, and plans to start hundreds of millions of funds for two months of in-depth product promotion , to create popular crayfish products.
In an incremental market with a scale of over 100 billion, Li Jian has already felt that the market competition is becoming more and more intense.
"Supply chain companies like us mainly supply products to restaurants. In recent years, on the one hand, supply chain companies have begun to take care of BC, and on the other hand, many restaurants have begun to develop their own crayfish products, which has led to a fight in the C-end market. It is very fierce, especially in the offline market competition among catering companies, and price wars are not uncommon." In Li Jian's view, at this time, the industry is fighting for brand influence, and if you want to stand out, you need to be famous.
However, the crayfish has been lively so far, and it has not yet been able to run out of a leading enterprise.
In this regard, Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, believes that the core problem is the low threshold for entry.
For most brands, it's not difficult to make a difference.
In addition, due to the low threshold and the low degree of differentiation in a perfectly competitive market, it is naturally difficult for crayfish to emerge as a large-scale chain brand.
In Zhu Danpeng's view, regional and seasonal restrictions are the main reasons why it is difficult for crayfish to spread all over the country. "Small and scattered, frequent chaos" is still the current situation and pain point of the industry.
Wang Silu, a national senior food inspector, also pays attention to the safety and taste of crayfish-related food.
He told reporters: "In the process of cooking crayfish, the cooking temperature must reach 100 ℃, and it must be heated continuously for more than 20 minutes to ensure that it is completely cooked."
As a practitioner, Li Jian said that the supply chain of crayfish is more complicated.
It is not cultivated in the whole country. It is difficult to realize the circulation of live shrimp throughout the country. The tastes of different places are also different, and the restrictions will be relatively high.
The development of the crayfish field still depends on developing more crayfish processed products that consumers like.
Beijing News Shell Finance reporter Yan Xia