At the beginning of the new year, Huishijia opened its Geba branch into the Tianhe business district of Guangzhou. Located in a well-known hotel property on Xingsheng Road where there are many restaurants, this restaurant famous for its Ge Ge pot has already subverted people's imagination of restaurants.

Telling the story with "Legend of the Galaxy" not only relies on excellent dishes, but also the operator Wu Sheng invested heavily in the design and atmosphere of the restaurant, making people feel like they are in space, looking around, the stars are bright, and the food is piping hot The casserole is "squeaking" and the aroma is fragrant. This is not only a gourmet house, but also a social place.

　　Capital loves new stories.

Mid- to high-end catering brands represented by Huishijia are seeking new ways of survival, while chain catering brands represented by Haidilao are using "emotional value" to compete in the capital market.

Not long ago, Gu Ming and Mixue Bingcheng, the two major brands with the largest number of new tea drink stores, released their prospectuses on the same day, and Hefu Noodles launched its Hong Kong listing plan.

　　Behind the eagerness of restaurant owners to try is the surging trend of Chinese catering consumption.

New data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that in December 2023, catering revenue was 540.5 billion yuan, an increase of 30.0%; for 2023, catering revenue was 5.289 billion yuan, an increase of 20.4%.

　　Entering 2024, as a track with low barriers to entry, many practitioners, fierce competition, and high innovation intensity, how should catering owners make plans?

　　●Nanfang Daily reporter Li Jie, Ye Qihan and Zhou Renguo

　　Coordinating Zhou Renguo

　Nuggets “emotional value”

　　“In the era of productism, customers only care about the taste of the dishes, but that’s different now.” Recently, Duan Taiyang, the founder of Yuanjiang Water, talked to a crowd of media people inside the Guangzhou Yuanjiang Water Sky Garden Restaurant Agile Center, the first Michelin-starred Hunan cuisine restaurant in South China. Behind the brand upgrade are changes in the needs of consumer groups.

According to his observation, young people now pay more attention to the dining experience, and the market demand for mid-to-high-end Hunan cuisine has begun to appear, but the market is still relatively vacant.

At a time when Hunan cuisine generally promotes cost-effectiveness, how to build the competitiveness of mid- to high-end brands?

"The important thing is to provide 'value consistent with the price', meet the needs of different levels beyond 'appetite' and match the emotional value of higher prices."

　　Emotional value is becoming a key word in the consumer market, bringing new challenges and opportunities to caterers.

The "2023 Youth Consumption Survey" shows that nearly half of young people are willing to consume for emotional value. People have changed from simply "buying and using" to actively participating and immersed experiencers.

　　The new tea drink, known as the "social currency of young people", can perfectly meet the emotional needs of the younger generation due to its good looks, diverse tastes, fancy co-branding and other characteristics, thus becoming a powerful force for its market expansion, and thus Attracting many players from different backgrounds to compete.

It has become the most lively track in the catering industry, and an IPO war started at the beginning of the year.

　　Mixue Bingcheng’s prospectus disclosed that Snow King has become the only super IP in China’s ready-made beverage industry.

On Douyin, the topic #mixuebingcheng# has been viewed more than 29.1 billion times. As of the Latest Practicable Date, Mixuebingcheng has been viewed on WeChat, Douyin, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, Weibo, and Bilibili. The six major social platforms have a total of about 43 million fans, "the largest number in China's ready-made beverage industry."

The traffic brought by the popular image of Snow King, the extensive store network and the complete marketing matrix have greatly improved the marketing efficiency of Mixue Bingcheng.

As of September 30, 2023, in addition to having the largest number of fans in China’s ready-made beverage industry (the leading social platform), Mixue Ice City’s membership has also reached approximately 215 million; monthly active members will reach approximately 215 million in September 2023. 38 million.

　　In terms of emotional supply, leading catering brands Haidilao and Mixue Bingcheng are rivals.

Haidilao mentioned in the newly released "2023 Annual Inventory 'Remember the Original Hot Pot'" that hot pot consumption in 2023 will have more prominent social attributes and "emotional value".

Haidilao data shows that in 2023, most hot pot consumption will be parties, of which 2-4 people will account for more than 80% of the total, followed by 5-9 people, accounting for more than 10%.

"Go to Haidilao for your birthday" has become the first choice for many young people to celebrate their birthdays. In 2023, Haidilao will celebrate the birthdays of its 15 million members.

In November, Guangxi's "Subject Three" became popular on Haidilao. It was due to employees taking the initiative to perform performances to celebrate customers' birthdays. "Subject Three" has become a cultural landscape of national interaction that must be mentioned in the winter of 2023.

Attacking first- and second-tier cities

　　Guangzhou Tianhe CBD is bustling with traffic and constant flow. It is the "golden circle" that various catering brands are competing for.

Huishijia started in Haizhu District, Guangzhou, and first moved north to gain a foothold in Shanghai's catering industry. Now it has returned to Guangzhou to attack another core business district.

　　Duan Yangyang’s new plan for Yuanjiangshui in 2024 also emphasizes store expansion, opening 4 to 5 stores in Guangzhou, and will also expand into the Shenzhen and even North China markets.

　　Also heading to first-tier cities are “county brands” like Mixue Bingcheng.

But since last year, this “county brand” has begun large-scale “reverse” expansion, setting off a consumer boom in first- and second-tier cities.

According to the prospectus, as of now, Mixue Bingcheng’s stores in new first-tier cities and first-tier cities have accounted for 25.4% in total.

　　Meituan data also shows that in addition to brands such as Mixue Bingcheng, Wallace, and Tustin, a number of medium-sized brands originating from lower-tier cities and with around a thousand stores nationwide have also achieved rapid growth this year. increase.

Last year, the average store growth rate, order volume growth rate, transaction volume growth rate, and user number growth rate of county catering brands that broke into first- and second-tier cities reached 10.7%, 94.3%, 77.6%, and 84.5% respectively year-on-year. Leading the market.

　　"First-tier cities are a battleground for brands and a reflection of brand strength. No matter how high the cost is, they must be stationed." Xu Bo, secretary-general of the Dongguan Chain Catering Development Promotion Association, said.

　　However, it is worth noting that in the past, catering companies chose locations and shops in prime locations and were not afraid of high rents.

However, with the current theme of cost reduction and efficiency improvement, many catering brands have taken the initiative to give up their prime stores and use more diversified business models to offset the "lack of high traffic".

　　Chen Hongbo, founder of Red Food Network, said that after entering first- and second-tier cities, these new tea brands also have know-how in selecting locations.

They tend to choose street stores, community stores, campus stores, or in the "edge" areas of commercial districts.

Why choose "marginal locations" with lower rents? It is obvious that it can save high rental costs in prime locations and reduce business risks.

　　The "2023 China Catering Industry Annual Report" shows that among catering companies, the proportion of "streetside" layout is 53.2%; the proportion of "malls and shopping malls" layout is 42.6%; the proportion of "community" layout is 36.2%; "enterprises, schools and The proportion of the layout of "organizations" is 46.8%; the proportion of layout of "tourist attractions" is 13.8%; the proportion of layout of other locations is 16%.

Compared with before, the overall location choices in China's catering industry are more diverse.

The data also shows that the proportion of rental property costs in operating income of the surveyed companies has declined compared with the same period last year, and the average rental property cost has dropped to 7.7%.

　Fighting supply chain

　　Under the "involution" of the catering market, leading brands are accelerating their race to capture territory and entering the era of supply chain competition.

British economist Martin Christopher once said: "The 21st century is not a competition between companies, but a competition between supply chains."

　　"Supply chain is king" has become an industry consensus. A mature and stable supply chain is the guarantee for food safety, product development and standardization of catering companies. The first two are the foundation of catering, and the third is the foundation of catering chains. .

Therefore, catering companies are investing heavily in it.

　　According to the prospectus, Mixue Bingcheng, which has more than 30,000 stores, claims to have invested 5 billion yuan in its smart production, processing and export base and Asian headquarters projects, and plans to invest another 2 billion yuan in a new supply chain headquarters base in Hainan.

In fact, Mixue Bingcheng began to lay out its supply chain in 2012.

A mature supply chain is the key to Mixue Bingcheng's ability to open more than 30,000 stores.

　　On January 15, at the 2023 Supplier Conference held in Shenzhen, Gao Qinghui, deputy director of the Product Management Department of Haidilao Group, said: “In the future, we will continue to polish the supply chain partner cooperation system and achieve win-win development through innovative cooperation models in procurement and research. Haidilao Group Lao will also continue to provide support to supply chain partners, work together in aspects such as production efficiency and quality management, and explore more possibilities for the 'first mile' and 'last mile' on the hot pot table."

　　A high-quality and efficient supply chain is the core for improving product quality, upgrading product standards, reducing costs and increasing efficiency. It is also the key to breaking through in a competitive market with severe homogeneity. It even determines the radius of brand development scale and is the engine and core of brand growth. Competitiveness.

　　In the past year or two, many catering companies have gone public one after another. What they have in common is that they build their own supply chains.

The upstream breeding, slaughtering, processing and retail industries of Laoxiang Chicken, which is rushing to IPO, have supported Laoxiang Chicken's profits; "Snow King" Mixue Bingcheng makes money from the supply chain under the guise of tea drinks. The financial report shows that 87.08% of revenue comes from supply. chain income.

　　In contrast, well-known chain restaurant brands such as McDonald's, KFC, and Starbucks have all established strong supply chain systems.

As the domestic catering industry enters the era of supply chain struggle, the growth of more national catering brands is worth looking forward to.

(Nanfang Daily)