Quality-price ratio dominates new catering trends
In recent years, consumer psychology and needs have undergone great changes, and health, rationality, simplicity, and practicality are becoming the mainstream of the market. The "Exquisite Savings" consumption model has received positive feedback from the market, and traffic is flocking to restaurants with better quality and price performance.
Meituan’s live broadcast room offers popular chicken gizzard meals for 68 yuan for two people, boiled fish meals for 4 people for 88 yuan, and Dianping’s instant sale of 78 yuan barbecue meals for two people... Recently, low-priced set meals are everywhere on the Internet platform, and consumers are "grabbing the wool" "It's a great pleasure to gather it.
Of course, consumers are happy to be able to eat delicacies that would have cost several hundred yuan at 20% or 30% off prices. But why is the restaurant so curled up? What exactly does exchanging price for volume bring? Is the quality of the food consumers eat in the low-priced set meal compromised?
High cost performance becomes the first choice
Yutu is one of the few black pearl restaurants in Chongqing. It originally catered for business banquets and family gatherings. This year, the restaurant launched a lunch buffet for 298 yuan per person, with dozens of dishes made to order, ensuring a certain attendance rate in the hall.
Li Anan, a consumer who works in Yubei District, told reporters that he had heard about Taitu for a long time, but he was reluctant to eat it because it was too expensive. After discovering that there is a package, I immediately invited my parents to experience it together. "The ingredients are carefully selected, the processing method is artistic, the environment is good, and the service is good. It is more impressive than the restaurants I have eaten in before." Li An'an said, "298 yuan is still worth it to experience such a meal."
The three words "affordable" describe the key words of current catering consumption. In the past two years, consumer psychology and needs have changed greatly. They no longer blindly pursue cheap prices, but want to find more cost-effective options. Healthy, rational, simple and practical are becoming the mainstream of the market.
When dining out, it is becoming standard for consumers of all ages to take out their mobile phones and search, check consumer reviews of different apps, compare prices, look for group buying deals, and then decide which restaurant to eat at. Haikou citizen Xia Xia said that now major online platforms have entered the catering industry, giving consumers unprecedented rights to know and choose. Consumers can easily know whether their food is worth their money through apps such as Dianping and Xiaohongshu. Since 2020, when she goes out to eat, she will carefully compare and choose on relevant apps in advance.
Information transparency intensifies competition
On the evening of March 17, the reporter came to a mushroom hotpot restaurant in Hufangqiao, Xicheng District, Beijing. This shop specializes in making native chicken soup with fresh mushrooms flown from Yunnan, which is in line with people's current health concepts. Queuing for meals is a common thing. "It seems to be very popular, and they are all buying in groups." Store manager You Xueyin told reporters that the store has launched group buying for two people on websites such as Dianping, and consumers who come into the store basically come for the discounts.
Similar situations are common during field visits. Most catering employees said that the catering industry is increasingly relying on Internet platforms to acquire customers and attract traffic. After all, consumers decide where to eat based on which restaurant is cheaper, has better food, and has good reviews. As consumers, they have enjoyed the consumption dividends brought by the Internet platform, but from the perspective of practitioners, this kind of direct competition under information transparency has indeed doubled their pressure.
A self-employed person who runs a hotpot restaurant told reporters that consumers are currently pursuing cost-effectiveness, and the catering industry as a whole has entered a period of low gross profit. Coupled with the information amplification effect of online platforms, catering prices will become more transparent. Except for large companies, the profit margins of other catering operators are becoming smaller, and involution has become the norm in the industry. In 2023, the national catering revenue was 5.289 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.4%. From January to October, the number of newly registered catering business entities reached 3.501 million, but the cumulative sales volume was 1.056 million. The catering industry is in the process of "retaliatory store openings" At the same time, with the closure of a large number of stores, the degree of involution in the catering industry can be seen.
Industry insiders told reporters that compared with other industries, stable market demand and low entry barriers make competition in the catering industry already fierce. Nowadays, consumers have higher pursuit of environment, dishes, cost-effectiveness and comprehensive experience, which is bound to put forward higher requirements for catering practitioners. Practitioners who cannot improve catering quality and profit margins can only quit the industry.
As price, service and other information becomes more and more transparent, the catering industry may enter a stage where profit margins are relatively stable, and the trend of consumers obtaining higher quality dishes and services at lower prices will continue. Zhou Xuebing, general manager of Yutu, told reporters that they have noticed changes in consumption trends. Even if the occupancy rate of private rooms increases in the future, they will continue to promote group purchases of single meals. “Individual customers who come to check in are more willing to write reviews and share notes, which can continue Bring traffic to the restaurant.”
Fine dining focuses on quality
Since the beginning of 2020, the development of fine dining has bucked the trend. Data from online platforms show that the recovery process of fine dining is faster than that of ordinary catering, with online visits increasing by nearly 20% compared with the same period last year.
Chen Yu from Xuhui District, Shanghai, said that fine dining focuses on food culture and dining atmosphere. From the selection of ingredients to the preparation and tasting, injecting cultural connotations and achieving perfection so that diners remember and want to come back is successful fine dining. This requires that the ingredients of the dishes are fresh, high-quality, well-made, and the dining environment is comfortable and pleasing to the eye. It not only satisfies dining needs, but also satisfies emotional consumption, which can not only please oneself but also share and socialize. It is a pleasure to enjoy a delicious meal in a beautiful environment with friends and family.
Chen Mei was once the "proprietress of Huanghe Road, Shanghai". She believes that catering is one of the showcases for the development of the entire national economy, and the high-quality development of the catering industry cannot be separated from the support of agriculture and rural development. She said frankly that if the store on Huanghe Road had the same quality ingredients as today, not only would many classic dishes be reproduced and passed down, but there would also be a lot more innovative, popular and popular dishes than today.
Zhang Xu, a resident of Xicheng District, Beijing, believes that the core of fine dining lies in quality, and catering operators must start with standardization and standardization to continue to provide consumers with high-quality products and services that can be refined and quantified. He said: "In the early years, Haidilao Chuquan was actually a representative of fine dining. It refined and quantified the dishes, services, and every aspect of dining, and even designed the waiting process for customers. This is exquisite reflect."
Liu Yongzhen, a consumer from Taiyuan, Shanxi, told reporters that whether a restaurant has a "clear kitchen" is an important criterion for him to measure whether a restaurant is exquisite. The "Mingchu" restaurant shows the dish production process in front of consumers without reservation, which can give consumers a strong sense of security. Watching the dishes you ordered being prepared with your own eyes gives you a sense of pleasure.
Through interviews with people of different ages, regions, and industries, it is not difficult to find that sophistication is not directly related to price. On social media over the past year, various ways to save money have become more eye-catching than showing off high-end products. The "Exquisite Savings" consumption model has received positive feedback from the market, and traffic is flocking to restaurants with better quality and price ratio.
As the main consumers of fine dining, young people pursue the purity, innovation and perfection of food, and their consumption ideas are full of individuality. When personalized consumption and emotional consumption become "rigid needs", fine dining will naturally be regarded by industry insiders as the most promising track for growth. How catering practitioners can meet consumers' personalized and emotional needs and build new catering service scenarios has become another must-answer question for catering practitioners.
Lin Guangzhi, the owner of a Cantonese restaurant in Guangzhou, told reporters that their average price per customer has dropped from about 350 yuan to 180 yuan now. He is now considering two things: first, how to adapt his existing business to the consumption habits of young people so that the restaurant can survive; second, how to look for incremental demand in emerging markets at the appropriate time.
Obviously, in future development, catering companies need to keep up with the times and actively embrace changes to better meet consumer needs and achieve sustainable development. Wang Jian, who runs a seafood restaurant in Beijing, said that as the Internet enters the catering industry, the establishment of service scenes is crucial. He said that by strengthening cooperation with Internet platforms, we will use digital technology to actively expand new service scenarios such as in-store packages, online reservations, and personalized private room reservations, and use lean management to reduce costs. In addition, he hopes that Internet platforms can provide exclusive traffic support through online marketing, platform subsidies, etc., to inject more vitality into the catering industry.
Yinsheng (Economic Daily)