China News Service, Beijing, April 3 (Reporter Zhang Su Yu Zhanyi) Sour bamboo shoots, beans, rice noodles soak up the soup, soaked in red oil, and exude a charming "scent"-the Ching Ming holiday is here, if you want to This year's selection of "Yingtuan 101", the young group of snail noodle fillings may rank "C".
Even though people have mixed praises and criticisms, other players may prefer to "shake away."
After all, after some merchants proposed to pack snail noodles into the Youth League, many Qingtuan factories refused to take orders for fear of complaints from surrounding residents because of the special taste.
The picture on the left is from the official website of Hema Xiansheng/The picture on the right is a screenshot of a reporter from Chinanews.com.
Zhang Sushe
Before and after the Qingming Festival is the home of the seasonal food youth league.
"Pounding the green grass for juice, and making a dough with flour, the color is like jasper." Especially in the Jiangnan area, which likes glutinous food, the green glutinous skins are soft and the wormwood is fragrant, always attracting diners to stop and have a taste.
The common fillings of Qingtuan are black sesame, red bean paste, lotus paste and so on.
In 2016, Xinghualou, Shen Dacheng, Wang Jiasha, etc., the time-honored pastry-making brands, launched the egg yolk pork floss green group, which suddenly became a major event in Shanghai.
In the context of purchase restrictions, some diners lined up for 6 hours to buy it.
In just a few years, the rookie provokes the lead.
The reporter recently searched the flagship stores of online shopping platforms such as Xinghualou, Shen Dacheng, and Zhiweiguan, and found that the young group with egg yolk and minced meat fillings occupies the top of the “shop’s best-selling biscuit cake list”.
“The changes in seasonal food have indeed broken the tradition. But as long as it is welcomed by modern people and the market sales are good, it is worthy of support.” Chen Xuezhi, senior vice president of the China Food Culture Research Association and editor-in-chief of the "Chinese Cooking Culture Classic", told Chinanews.com. Say.
The Youth League counter in a Hema Xiansheng store in Beijing.
A reporter from Chinanews.com learned that since the official listing in March, the snail noodle fillings and pickled fresh fillings Qingtuan have been out of stock.
Photo by Yu Zhanyi
In the past few days, reporters from Chinanews.com traveled to several Hema Xiansheng stores in Beijing and found that the snail noodles stuffed Qingtuan Qingtuan had been sold out.
A salesperson told reporters that since the official launch in March, the snail noodle fillings and pickled fresh fillings Qingtuan are no longer in stock.
The salesperson also said that compared to the “rookie” who made their debut this year with salted egg yolk, quicksand pearls and chestnut cheese, the sales and evaluation of snail noodles is not good.
Looking at the comments of netizens and the evaluation of the food public account, there are also quite "critic words" about the flavors that have emerged this year, such as snail noodles, hot and sour chicken feet, Buddha jumped over the wall, and green plum wine.
According to data from a food delivery platform, the order growth rate of pearl milk tea, pumpkin cheese, taro mash, etc. tends to be "milk tea-like" youth groups are more than 8 times that of previous years.
In fact, seeking innovation and change amidst controversy, "praise" and "bricks" all fly together, and "traffic" drives "sales", which is not new to traditional gourmet operators.
But why has this trend been so obvious in recent years?
Scholars and industry insiders interviewed by reporters from Chinanews.com summarized the following "doorways".
The dimension of "people"——
The "post-80s", "post-90s" and "post-95s" who grew up in the era of abundance have gradually become the main consumers, and their consumption concepts are quite different from those of their parents.
They are less sensitive to the pursuit of price, but more sensitive to the pursuit of quality; they are more willing to be "planted" by the Internet, KOLs (key opinion leaders), etc., of course, they are also fast at "pulling the grass"; they are not satisfied with big currencies , I like niche, individual, and interesting.
“Consumer groups are becoming more and more subdivided, people are becoming more and more personal, and they also require distinctive features and differences in food. Of course, businesses must design food more and more specifically.” Yu Changjiang, a sociologist at Peking University Say.
In his view, people's consumption habits always have both the impulse of "saving success" and "seeking innovation", and different consumption concepts are formed due to different generations and different lifestyles.
However, the biggest change in current consumer groups and consumption patterns lies in the formation of "food-eaters" groups, which have greatly changed the state and logic of the catering industry.
"The understanding of'food' for'eating' is no longer the'sufficiency' or'show off' model of the rich in traditional consumption theory, but a'principle of life' like value rationality." Yu Changjiang believes that food Developers have formed a relationship of echoing, interaction, compulsion, and game with "food", and jointly promote the complexity, diversification, refinement and nicheization of food and catering.
A reporter from China News Network photographed the ice cream Zhong Xuegao bought.
Zhang Sushe
A typical case is Zhong Xuegao.
The top has a "Hui" pattern, which resembles a Chinese tile. It uses different ingredients from all over the world to make "fresh" and restore "flavor". The ice cream brand has been targeting the "Chinese high-end brand" position since its establishment in 2018.
The marketing method is also unique, not only "online e-commerce attracts traffic, offline stores attract punch cards", but also continues to increase exposure with pop-up stores and cross-border joint names.
According to the self-report of the founder of the brand, by contacting food KOLs for tasting and joint promotion, he obtained more than 4000 notes on Xiaohongshu in just 8 months.
However, the competition is even more fierce for the selection of the "ice cream that rides the wind and waves".
In terms of taste, coconut ash, salted egg yolk, and lavender all lead the way, and the chili oil sword goes slant; in terms of shape, a "cherry blossom" ice cream in Yuyuantan with the TV tower as the background, and a red wall and yellow tile in the Forbidden City as the background "Spine Beast" ice cream, such as "Broken Bridge Meet", "Three Pools Reflecting the Moon", "Lingyin Lotus" ice cream, etc., are already the "standard equipment" for many young people's travel.
Located outside the Shenwu Gate of the Palace Museum, the "Forbidden City Corner Tower Coffee" came into being to better serve the tourists of the Forbidden City, aiming at the needs of "people".
In an exclusive interview with a reporter from Chinanews.com, the staff in the store, Ms. Guan, said that choosing coffee and catering more in line with modern lifestyles and the needs of Chinese and foreign tourists to create a catering culture with the cultural characteristics of the Forbidden City is also an indispensable part of the museum's high-quality development.
How to mine the "Forbidden City IP" in a young and modern way?
For example, Ms. Guan said that in the 45th year of Kangxi (1706), "Chokola" (ie chocolate) was brought into the palace by an Italian missionary under the name of a famous western medicine.
A few years later, the designer made a second creation on the cultural relics of the Forbidden City, and delivered a cup of creative coffee "Kangxi favorite chocolate" to consumers.
This spring, the Forbidden City’s turret coffee’s main "Spring Banquet", with the theme of "Begonia", the protagonist of spring flowers in the Forbidden City, develops drinks such as "Begonia Spring Sleep" and "Chunfeng Wanjin", and desserts such as "Muchun Strawberry Roll" and "Muchun Matcha" volume".
The store also provides a "punch-in and stamp" service, hoping to leave a good mark on customers.
This spring, the corner tower coffee of the Forbidden City will feature "Spring Festival Banquet".
The store also provides a "check in and stamp" service.
Photo courtesy of the Corner Tower Coffee of the Forbidden City
The dimension of "things"——
It is difficult for a clever woman to cook without rice. To give traditional cuisine "new ideas", it must have a material basis.
——The "pocket" should be rich.
According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2020, the national per capita consumption expenditure of residents will be 21,210 yuan.
Divided by consumption category, 30% of the expenditure is spent on food, tobacco and alcohol consumption.
——The "vegetable basket" should be plentiful.
Since the government proposed the construction of the "Vegetable Basket Project" in 1988, the long-term shortage of non-staple food supplies has been fundamentally reversed, and per capita vegetable consumption has become the world's first.
——The "supply chain" must keep up.
Let the tender, fresh and spiritual Tianmu Mountain Lei Sun from the soil quickly serve the table, the tips of the bamboo shoots are stewed with lard, soy sauce, etc. into thick oil red sauce, and the bamboo shoots, bacon, hoofs, etc. are cooked in a pot over a slow fire. Fresh, backed by the fast-developing cold chain logistics.
The industry estimates that by 2025, China's cold chain logistics market is expected to exceed 550 billion yuan.
——The "Internet" is also powerful.
Young consumer groups have a high dependence on the Internet, which also means that they are accustomed to unlocking new skills from the Internet.
Needless to say, well-known short video blogger Li Ziqi, food bloggers such as "Diary", "Little Brother in West Yunnan", and "Food Writer Wang Gang" are also tirelessly sharing their cooking experience, attracting countless fans to indulge in frying.
A reporter from Chinanews.com makes homemade Chinese and Western food according to the recipes of "net celebrities".
Photo by Yu Zhanyi
A reporter from Chinanews.com makes homemade Chinese and Western food according to the recipes of "net celebrities".
Photo by Yu Zhanyi
The dimension of "society"——
People take food as their heaven, and this sentence is really not just a comment in China.
To borrow the words of a food writer, "Eating is far more than satisfying our hunger, but also a blend of words and deeds, which is related to etiquette, and is almost faith."
As it says, eating habits are internalized in the blood of "flower growers", creating a unique spirit.
When normal life was suspended due to the new crown pneumonia epidemic, Chinese people who were isolated at home suddenly had a lot of free time and started to "eat".
The meat sandwiches are well-prepared, the cold skin is firm and smooth, the spicy hot pot is fragrant, and there are also rice cooker cakes that are popular on Weibo and the "Friends Circle Homemade Food Contest".
The newly released "2021 China Catering Industry Ecological White Paper" believes that although the epidemic has had a certain impact on the development of the catering industry, the fundamentals of its overall development have not changed, and it "accelerates the expression of online, chain, digital, and brand The development trend of globalization, retailization, foodization, and category barriers blurring."
On the other hand, as the economy and society develop, the aesthetic level improves, and the mentality becomes more mature, people will deconstruct and reconstruct the food culture in the reverse direction.
The "old brand" crisis is a typical case.
In the past few days, Goubuli Baozi closed its only store in Beijing, and its offline stores have been losing ground, causing concern.
According to a survey conducted by the China Brand Research Institute, China's time-honored enterprises have gone from more than 16,000 to just over 1,600. Even among the surviving companies, about 70% are struggling.
The commentary believes that the courage to step out of the historical halo and take the initiative to accept the market test is the first step that must be taken by the "old brands" seeking a new life.
When the century-old tea company Wu Yutai blended its scented tea with ice cream, the century-old drug store Tongrentang invited goji berry latte, American mangosteen, etc. to the "examination room", and Wufangzhai used magnetic levitation rice dumplings to "show out the sky"...despite its influence It remains to be seen how long the force lasts, but there is no doubt that as long as you dare to innovate, the "old brand" may be re-accepted by the market.
Chen Xuezhi, senior vice president of the Chinese Food Culture Research Association, said that relying on century-old brands to cultivate new varieties will make it easier to get market attention under the condition of guaranteed quality, thereby reducing the hard and tortuous road of brand cultivation.
At a Tongrentang counter in Beijing, in addition to selling medicines, the drink list shows "Goji berry latte" and "Little'heart' orange milk tea".
Photo by Yu Zhanyi
Of course, there is no shortage of criticisms surrounding “net celebrity” food, such as repeated exposure of quality issues, difficulty in defending rights when “pulling weeds”, gimmicks greater than substance, and some are too curious.
Pictures such as "Banlangen Instant Noodles", "Instant Ice Cream", and "Blue Coke Chicken Wings" are not included here, and those who are interested can search by themselves.
Looking forward to the future of the catering industry, the interviewed experts and industry insiders even advocated “tolerant rather than tolerant”.
"Anything new may feel a bit deviant, and it also has an element of experimentation." Yu Changjiang, a sociologist at Peking University, cites the process of so-called "popular change to custom" and pointed out, "As long as a thing settles down and becomes a habit, it will change. Become a'tradition'".
In his view, since it is innovation, there is no need to restrict the original specifications, but it needs to be regulated in terms of integrity.
"One is that it cannot be faked or adulterated. If it is said that it is'Banlangen instant noodles', it cannot be replaced by others; the other is that it cannot be promoted under the banner of the original brand. For example,'Spicy candied haws' cannot claim to be a certain'old brand' candied haws." He said.
Faced with the opening of coffee shops in tourist places such as the Imperial Palace in Shenyang and Temple of Heaven, both of which were built in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Ms. Guan, a coffee staff member of the corner tower of the Palace Museum, does not think this is a manifestation of "homogenization."
“Each subject is different, and I believe everyone can dig deep into their unique cultural connotations in their respective fields.” She said, “I hope that more “time-honored brands” and cultural travel partners will join the ranks of integrating, innovating and inheriting traditional culture and contemporary life. "
Chen Xuezhi, a senior expert in the food industry, pays particular attention to food safety and food hygiene.
He called for improving laws and regulations to regulate online sales and online food safety, and to increase penalties for illegal activities.
The government has also strengthened a number of regulatory measures.
Prior to this, many places have halted "gluttony, eating and broadcasting", and the online platform immediately made rectifications.
An activity being carried out by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate of China has also focused on areas of supervision over new online sales formats, such as "Internet celebrity endorsements," and "live delivery of goods," which involve food safety and regulatory loopholes.
Obviously, the original meaning of "refurbishment" is one drink and one peck, only to allow diners to eat at ease, rest assured, and comfortable.
Just like this time last year, even if the three meals made at home are not more exquisite and gorgeous than the outside, the "heart" contained in them is incomparable.
The taste of home is the most moving one in this "flavor world".
Homemade home-cooked dishes made by Chinanews reporters.
Photo by Yu Zhanyi
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By the way, the pots and pans that your family bought last year, steamer, oven, air fryer, etc. Are they dusty?
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