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Text | Parity
Recently, my cousin brought back a bird's nest for my mother, but the old man didn't know how to deal with bird's nest, so I checked on the Internet how to stew bird's nest.
I found that the publishers or replies of online and bird's nest-related content are all kinds of bird's nest merchants, including overseas purchasers, OEM OEM OEMs, fresh stewed bird's nest brand parties, etc.
Among them, there are nicknames that bluntly say "so-and-so bird's nest"; there are also names with more or less "swallow" keywords; what's more, at the end of the content, a link or QR code will be given to promote their products.
Behind such a complex bird's nest dealer, what kind of bird's nest market is it?
In recent years, even on the bird's nest subdivision tracks such as fresh stewed bird's nest and instant bird's nest, many well-known companies such as Xiaoxian Stew, Bird's House, and Swallow Kitchen have also been run. Several of them also reported that they will land on the capital market.
In line with the curiosity about the bird's nest boom, we visited some offline bird's nest sales points and sorted out the product business development status and business model of major domestic bird's nest brands. Try to answer three questions:
1. From a historical point of view, the origin of bird's nest, who brought fire to bird's nest? Scientifically, is bird's nest an IQ tax?
2, realistically, bird's nest is what kind of business, so that so many businesses flock to it?
3. Will a number of fresh stewed bird's nest brands emerging in recent years be better than the previous dry bird's nest brands?
<h2>Who was the first person to eat bird's nest? </h2>
Who is the first person in China to "eat bird's nest"?
Tracing the history of Chinese bird's nest, it can be said that there are many different opinions, some people think that the earliest consumption of bird's nest can be as early as the Tang Dynasty 1500 years ago, and some people believe that Zheng He, the great navigator of the Ming Dynasty, was the first person to eat bird's nest.
According to folklore, from 1405 to 1433, Zheng He went to the West seven times. On one occasion, his fleet encountered a major storm on its way to the Western Ocean and was forced to dock urgently on a desert island in the Malay Archipelago, where it was stranded for several days and severely short of food.
Zheng He inadvertently discovered that there were many white bird nests hanging on the broken rock cliffs of the desert island, so he ordered his subordinates to collect them, wash them and stew them with clean water to fill their hunger. A few days later, the crew was full of energy and ruddy colors.
Therefore, when the fleet returned to China, Zheng He specially brought a batch of this supplement, which was later called "bird's nest", and presented it to Ming Chengzu Zhu Di, and the result was Long Yan Da yue.
In the late 17th century, about 125,000 pounds (about 4 million) of bird's nests were imported into China from Batavia, Java, each year, coinciding with Zheng He's seven voyages to the West.
However, from the existing historical data, the history of Chinese people eating bird's nest is much earlier than that of the Ming Dynasty. Jia Ming of the Yuan Dynasty recorded in the "Dietary Instructions", "There are bird's nests, the taste is sweet and flat, and the yellow and black molds are poisonous, do not eat them."
The earliest medical book and ancient book that records bird's nest is the "Materia Medica" written by Wang Ang in the thirty-third year of Kangxi, "Bird's nest is sweet and flat, nourishes the yin and lungs, dissolves phlegm and stops coughing, supplements and can be cleared, and is a holy medicine for regulating fatigue." All diseases that cannot be eliminated due to lung weakness can be cured with this. ”
Up to now, the bird's nest industry has become a fairly mature industry, and China is also the world's largest consumer of bird's nest.
We visited Carrefour, Walmart and Hema Fresh in the Nanhu area of Wuhan to understand the status of bird's nest products in the current offline supermarkets.
Full of expectations into the supermarket, but also think that as a high-end health care products, bird's nest should be placed in the most conspicuous position, and even a row of goods will be specially taken out to fill the bird's nest to highlight its nobleness.
But the results were very different.
In the Hema fresh store, bird's nest products are placed on the two floors of the shelf, and the price is not as exaggerated as imagined, ranging from 89.9 yuan to 399 yuan, which is a price that the general public can accept.
Photo/Parity filming
Bird's nest products in Carrefour and Walmart are even worse. The total number of bird's nest products in the two supermarkets does not exceed 7, and in Wal-Mart, there is only one small shelf with 3 boxes of bird's nest products, and the rest is gone.
Compare the surrounding health care products such as white fungus, dates or various types of protein nutrition powders, and there are several rows of shelves. I have to say that the status of bird's nest in this kind of store is really not on the table.
We came to a Yanzhiwu store in Wuhan, and the scene inside was completely different from the bird's nest in the supermarket.
There are not many bird's nest products and bird's nest gift boxes that are quite high-grade, and the products are mainly fresh stewed bird's nest, rock sugar instant bird's nest, ready-to-eat sugar-free bird's nest and other different categories.
The price of the product also ranges from a few hundred yuan to tens of thousands of yuan, which is a big gap. The store clerk told us, "The price is mainly different from the product, according to the different raw materials, processes and processing methods of the product, the price is not the same."
"In the past, the best seller in my store is still fresh stewed bird's nest, as well as bird's nest monthly card, this kind of gift is convenient and very face-saving, the price is also moderate, now more and more new customers will buy bird's nest to taste, fresh stew and ready-to-eat prices are not expensive", the clerk said, the store's monthly card basically has fixed customers, old customers with new customers are also more, their own purchase of repeat customers in recent years has also increased.
During the hour we stayed in the store, two groups of guests came sporadically, and judging from the questions asked, they were all new customers who had not tried bird's nest.
In recent years, the domestic bird's nest market has been increasingly hot.
According to incomplete statistics, China's annual consumption of bird's nest is more than 700 tons, and the overall market size in 2019 is more than 30 billion yuan.
The bird's nest on the market can now be roughly divided into three categories: dried bird's nest, instant bird's nest and fresh stewed bird's nest.
Dried bird's nest is the raw material of bird's nest, which is sold after a simple plucking process and is not stewed. According to the shape, there are swallow cups, swallow strips, swallow horns, swallow crumbs and so on. Generally speaking, the quality of the swallow cup is the best, and the drawing is long after stewing, and the taste is good.
Because ready-to-eat bird's nest needs to be stored for a long time, it is generally stewed at high temperature, and then packed into a glass bottle after strict disinfection and sterilization. Since the storage method is similar to canned food, this way of stewing will lose the taste and nutrition of bird's nest to a certain extent. Last year's boiling Simba fake bird's nest incident, the protagonist is this kind of instant bird's nest.
Fresh stewed bird's nest, in short, is the merchant valet foam hair, valet stew, compared to the ready-to-eat bird's nest for the main "fresh" word. Due to the focus on fresh taste, many brands have been advocating simmering processes such as low temperature slow simmering.
Feel free to open a takeaway software, search for keywords bird's nest, and the corresponding business will come out. The process of ordering fresh stewed bird's nest is just like any takeaway in normal times. Orders are placed, stewed and then delivered to your door via a cold chain.
<h2>Bird's nest is not a miracle drug</h2>
Why is bird's nest so hot?
Probably in addition to being passed down by traditional concepts as a tonic holy product, it is also inseparable from the promotion of major film and television dramas.
In the whole book of dream of the Red Chamber, there are 14 references to bird's nest, all of which state that it has the effect of "moisturizing the lungs and nourishing the yin, dissolving phlegm and stopping coughing, and replenishing qi".
For example, the forty-fifth time mentioned that Dai Yu had a lot of cough, Bao Chao advised him to eat rock sugar bird's nest porridge. "Get up early every day to take one or two of fine bird's nest, five dollars of rock sugar, and use silver choleton to boil out porridge, if you are used to eating, it is stronger than medicine, and it is the most nourishing yin and qi."
The hottest court drama "The Biography of Zhen Huan" in the bird's nest is also everywhere, Zhen Huan's ups and downs in her life, always have the company of bird's nest.
When Zhen Huan was ill, the first warm male doctor in the play, Wen Tai, immediately sent ejiao bird's nest to his beloved huan to supplement; when Zhen Huan suffered and coughed often at Ganlu Temple, the king of Guojun sent bird's nest to supplement herself; when she returned to the palace pregnant, there was a milk bird's nest given by the emperor to protect the fetus; when she recited prayers to the child at night after giving birth, there were also four brothers who sent her bird's nest to nourish the gods.
Many netizens commented that it is precisely because of the bonus of bird's nest that Huan Huan can be beautiful as a flower, nourish and nourish the gods, and win the grace of the emperor.
The "Ru Yi Zhuan" has a more detailed description of the cooking of bird's nest: in order to please the emperor, Wei Promised, who had just been favored, specially prepared a bird's nest pot with a new ingenious method, and simmered three or two bird's nests with pigeon eggs and gold needles, and offered them to Qianlong. Who knew that he was criticized by the emperor for extravagance, and even let Concubine Xian guifei guide Wei to promise how to eat bird's nest in the end.
Does this bird's nest, which even the emperor calls expensive, really have such a great magic?
In fact, the nutritional value of bird's nest has long been wiped out.
Bird's nest, as the name suggests, is a nest made by swallows with their saliva with some fluff or grass leaves or plant rhizomes. In terms of composition, the protein content of bird's nest in the dry state is about 50% protein, about 30% carbohydrates, about 10% of water and minerals, and the rest are some impurities.
Carbohydrates are often referred to as sugars, which are generally used to provide energy, and are found in most foods. In general, 2 two bird's nests can provide 345 calories, which is equivalent to 2 two rice cakes or bread.
Although the protein content of bird's nest is 50%, although it is a bit high, the dried bird's nest cup needs to be soaked before it can be eaten, and it will not eat dry and chew bird's nest like eating tofu skin, so that the protein content becomes very low. Normally, if a person eats 4g of dried bird's nest every day, from the perspective of protein quality, it is far inferior to an egg.
The most mythical and most valuable nutrient in bird's nest is "bird's nest acid", of course, this is not a unique ingredient of bird's nest, it is a substance called sialic acid.
In 1940, biologists discovered a new substance in many salivary mucins and named it sialic acid.
Sialic acid is a derivative of a 9-carbon polysaccharide, which is also the main component of the structure and function of gangliosides and glycoproteins in the brain, of which the three most important core forms include: N-acetylurine, N-hydroxyacetyl neurine and 2-keto-3-deoxynonanoic acid.
For us humans, sialic acid refers specifically to "N-acetyl neurine".
Scientific studies have shown that the sialic acid component is one of the indispensable components for the growth of organisms, especially mammals, which can promote nerve and brain development, and because sialic acid in the human body will gradually decrease with age, the additional supplement of sialic acid can play a certain role in protecting and delaying aging in the brain, and resist Alzheimer's disease to a certain extent. In addition, sialic acid has a certain effect on maintaining the body's immune balance and enhancing resistance.
However, humans themselves can synthesize a certain amount of sialic acid to meet the needs of the body.
In addition, if you want to supplement sialic acid through food, bird's nest is not the only option, although the content of sialic acid in bird's nest is indeed higher than that of ordinary foods, accounting for about 10%. But lamb, pork, beef, eggs and other foods are also rich in sialic acid. In addition, breast milk is the most known substance containing sialic acid.
And when the bird's nest is foamed, just like the protein in the bird's nest, the sialic acid will be diluted very badly. If you really want to supplement sialic acid immediately, it is better to buy sialic acid products directly, and you want to compare dry bird's nest with too much price concessions.
In this way, the so-called tonic effect of bird's nest is actually extremely limited.
In the usual publicity of merchants, bird's nest will generally have a variety of ingredients that are of great benefit to the body, supplementing high-quality protein, bird's nest acid antiviral anti-aging and so on. These are actually exaggerations, staring at one of the ingredients in it.
Essentially, bird's nest is just one of many IQ tax supplements.
<h2>Once fell off the altar</h2>
If you say that you are not bad for money, you must insist on buying bird's nest, then you must pay attention to identification. Otherwise, if you buy fake bird's nest, it will be double the happiness of leeks.
In fact, even if it is a real bird's nest, there will be risks in the processing process. Natural bird's nest contains bird feathers, bird droppings, branches and some other impurities, and the process of removing these impurities is cumbersome.
In order to clean up the bird's nest, there will be black-hearted merchants who add chemical reagents such as industrial hydrogen peroxide and sulfur dioxide to bleach.
After the bird's nest is bleached, not only will the protein be oxidized and inactive, which will greatly reduce the nutrition of the bird's nest, more importantly, the bird's nest after bleaching will retain excess lead, mercury and other heavy metals, which seriously threatens the health of the eater.
I don't know how many people still remember the "Poisonous Blood Swallow Incident" in 2011.
On August 15, 2011, the Zhejiang Industry and Commerce Department conducted a sampling test of the blood bird's nest circulating in the market, and when the results of more than 30,000 blood bird's nest test came out, everyone was stunned: the blood swallow, which has always been known as the best bird's nest, has a nitrite content of up to 10,000 mg/kg, and the standard of nitrite in national food safety is that it cannot exceed 70 mg per kilogram.
That is to say, the blood bird's nest nitrite exceeded the standard by more than 140 times, and the samples that year were all big brands of bird's nest, including "Swallow House", "Qinghetang" and so on.
Subsequently, CCTV and Xinhuanet continued to investigate and visit the bird's nest industry, and found that these so-called blood bird's nests are all Southeast Asian bird's nest manufacturers imitating the formation mechanism of natural blood bird's nest and fumigated with swallow feces. Black-hearted merchants are mad for profit.
In addition, there are also many studies that show that the protein and residual impurities in bird's nest may become allergens, increasing the risk of allergies in eaters.
A study in Singapore of 868 children with acute allergies showed that bird's nest has surpassed seafood as the largest source of food allergies in Asia and Southeast Asia.
Once, bird's nest fell off the altar because of food safety problems caused by the pursuit of profits by merchants.
<h2>Nowadays, the red is still fraught with problems</h2>
Will bird's nest brands such as Xiaoxian Stew and Yan Xiao Kitchen, which are hot in the market today, be better than the bird's nest that has food safety problems in the past?
In recent years, more and more ready-to-eat bird's nest and fresh stewed bird's nest have entered the public's field of vision. In addition to the old bird's nest Tongrentang, Yan's House, Yan Doctor, Yan Xiao Kitchen and many other brands have also sprung up like mushrooms, and the front is the Net Red Fresh Stew Bird's Nest Brand Xiao Xian Stew.
Before similar fresh stew and ready-to-eat bird's nest came out, in the eyes of the public, bird's nest has always been a kind of existence: bird's nest is dry bird's nest, and it is necessary to go through the tedious process of picking, washing, soaking, and stewing to eat fresh bird's nest. Later, with the development of the industry, ready-to-eat bird's nest sprung up, but there were pain points such as the inability to take into account the freshness.
In 2014, Xiaoxian Stew seized the opportunity to establish the fresh stewed bird's nest brand, through overwhelming advertising and marketing, video promotion throughout the elevator and the planting of grass by many traffic stars, which set off a wave of fresh stewed bird's nest among many pregnant mothers and mothers, and Xiao Xian Stew also became one of the well-known fresh stewed bird's nest brands.
According to the data of Tianyancha, Xiaoxian Stew Brand Company now belongs to the C round of financing rounds and has obtained 6 rounds of financing.
Photo/Source: Sky Eye Check
In 2015, Lin Xiaoxian, the founder of Xiaoxian Stew, under the sponsorship of investors Liu Jun and Hongtai Fund of 1.5 million, opened the angel round of investment in Xiaoxian StewEd Bird's Nest.
In July 2016, under the leadership of Qihoo 360, 2049 Group and other investors, Xiaoxian Stew obtained tens of millions of yuan of Pre-A round financing. In 2017, Xiaoxian Stew won the 20 million yuan A round of investment from well-known actor Chen Shu and Mengquan International Fashion Group.
As of the end of March 2021, Xiaoxian Stew has completed the Series C financing of many investment institutions including CMC Capital, IDG Capital and so on.
Under the crazy blessing of capital, the development road of Xiaoxian Stew is smooth. During the 618 period in 2019, the sales of Xiaoxian Stewed Fresh Stewed Bird's Nest increased by 497% year-on-year, and the sales of the Tmall platform alone increased by 465% year-on-year, ranking first in the sales of bird's nest on Jingdong and Xiaohongshu platforms for many years.
Statistics for October 2019 show that Xiaoxian Stew sold 580,000 copies in 5 minutes in Via's live broadcast room. On Double 11, 2020, Xiaoxian Stew announced that its fresh stewed bird's nest sales exceeded 465 million yuan, an increase of 263% year-on-year.
In order to create the identity of the connector of the high-end consumer circle, Xiaoxian Stew is willing to spend a large price to do brand marketing. Zhang Yuqi, Cecilia Cheung, Jing Tian and many other celebrities have recommended Xiaoxian stewed bird's nest on the Little Red Book.
In 2020, Lin Xiaoxian, the founder of Xiaoxian Stew, who holds the qualification of a national first-class health manager, appeared in the live broadcast room and personally brought goods to Xiaoxian Stew Live.
However, at the time when Xiaoxian Stew was making great progress, the operating profit did not increase, but there was a loss.
In addition, a notice directly held the development momentum of Xiaoxian Stew, and the image of Xiaoxian Stew plummeted, and an unprecedented credit crisis appeared.
On November 25, 2020, the Beijing Chaoyang District Bureau of Statistics punished Beijing Xiaoxian Stew E-commerce Co., Ltd., an affiliate of the Internet celebrity bird's nest brand Xiaoxian Stew, for providing untrue statistics by Beijing Xiaoxian Stew E-commerce Co., Ltd.
The specific penalty content is as follows, "The operating profit of your unit in the 2019 Financial Status (E103 Table) for the current year (3231) index report is 32939 thousand yuan, and the number of inspections is -32934 thousand yuan, a difference of 65873 thousand yuan, and the error rate is 200.02%. ”
In this regard, Xiao xian stew responded on the official Weibo that it was the personnel who reported the negative value of the "operating profit item" as positive, resulting in data deviations in the financial statements, and the company did not have any subjective willingness to provide untrue financial data, and apologized for the mistakes in the work.
At the same time, Xiaoxian Stew also responded to the company's operating profit loss in 2019, saying that it was due to a large-scale strategic investment in the supply chain and client experience.
As early as June 2020, Xiaoxian Stew was suspected of fraudulently using jiamingjia's company name and food production license.
Jiamingjia Green Food Technology Co., Ltd. posted a statement on its official WeChat, saying that between June 2016 and September 2019, Xiaoxian Stew had stolen the company name and food production license information in the name of "entrusting Jiamingjia processing" without the company's knowledge.
Jia Mingjia also said that the company stopped the production of sanitation meals as early as 2016, and it was impossible to produce bird's nest without relevant staffing, no equipment, no raw materials, and no quality control inspection of bird's nest products.
"Inexplicably, it has become the top three domestic bird's nest processing."
Subsequently, on June 12, Xiaoxian Stew responded on Weibo that the content of the statement released by Jiamingjia Company was seriously inaccurate, which brought confusion and misunderstanding to some consumers. But it is obvious that Xiaoxian stew is light in avoiding the heavy and does not respond positively to who is processing and producing bird's nest.
In July 2020, Wang Hai, an Internet celebrity who exposed the Simba fake bird's nest incident, published an article on Weibo entitled "Xiaoxian Stew Deception Revealed: According to the test results, the content of Xiaoxian Stewed Bird's Nest in Xiaoxian Stewed Bird's Nest is about 0.6%!" The long article of "" directly "sent" Xiaoxian stew on the hot list.
Wang Hai posted his chat records with Xiaoxian stew customer service, Xiaoxian stew official customer service said that the content of dried bird's nest in Xiaoxian stew fresh stewed bird's nest porridge is more than 3.5g, 0 added, bird's nest solid content is greater than or equal to 90%, and show data show that the sialic acid content in bird's nest porridge is 2.1g/Kg.
But then in the Shenzhen Institute of Metrology and Quality Inspection and Inspection report was beaten in the face, the report showed that the content of sialic acid in Xiaoxian stew was 0.6g/kg, which was far from the content said by Xiaoxian stew customer service.
On November 20, 2020, Wang Hai once again pointed the finger at Xiaoxian Stew, bluntly saying, "There is no difference between Xiaoxian Stew and Simba Bird's Nest, this is the IQ tax!" The sialic acid content in the small fresh stewed bird's nest we submitted for examination is only 60 mg per 100 grams, which costs about three cents! So how much does it cost to sell for every 100 grams of sugar water? The answer is $279! ”
For Wang Hai's questioning, Xiao Xian Stew did not give a positive response. But the Beijing Municipal Supervision Bureau gave the answer.
On April 29, 2021, the Beijing Chaoyang District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau announced a fine for ten false publicity acts in Beijing Xiaoxian Stew E-commerce Co., Ltd., which was fined 200,000 yuan and given a warning.
In addition to the three selling points of false production, Xiaoxian Stew was also detected to have a total colony of 150,000 CFU/g, exceeding the implementation standard "Q/CYXXD0001-2020 Fresh Stewed Bird's Nest" with less than 100,000 CFU/g, and the health condition was not good.
In July 2020, Consumer Reports sent eight types of fresh stewed bird's nest to an authoritative third-party agency to check the total number of colonies, E. coli, preservatives and other safety indicators.
The test results of 5 fresh stewed bird's nests such as Yan Zhiwu, Tongrentang and Dr. Yan are ideal, but the three brands of Yan Xiao Kitchen, Xiao Xian Stew, and Muscle Live have exceeded the standard, and the total number of colonies in Muscle Live has even reached 300,000 CFU/g, more than twice the standard index.
From the current situation, the emerging fresh stewed bird's nest brands such as Yan Xiao Kitchen, Xiao Xian Stew, and Muscle Work are not better than the traditional dried bird's nest brands in terms of food safety and other issues.
<h2>Write at the end</h2>
Zheng He probably would not have thought that a bird's nest that was accidentally discovered on a desert island in the past had given birth to such a large market in the future.
With the improvement of people's living standards, the tonic bird's nest in word of mouth has become a popular luxury supplement into a mass food through the spread of film and television dramas.
But modern science has long proved that in terms of nutritional value, bird's nest is not much different from ordinary food.
Historically, dried bird's nest, which is not close to the people, has not only harvested IQ tax, but also frequently had serious problems in food safety in the selection, processing, storage and other links.
Nowadays, the instant and fresh stewed bird's nest brands such as Xiaoxian Stew, under the name of high-end tonics, are not only a mystery to food processing party, financial fraud is full of doubts, and food safety is also repeatedly broken.
Those consumers who spend high prices for health and beauty to buy bird's nest as a tonic, I am afraid it is difficult to imagine that bird's nest may not only not have the outstanding miracle effect, but also fail to meet food safety standards.