In 2021, working as a chef in the city seems to be getting harder and harder to make money. The epidemic is not over, and work may be stopped at any time; the intensification of restaurant chains has squeezed the market share of traditional restaurant companies and affected ordinary chefs in the industry.
Many chefs began to explore the way out of the future: some chose to change careers and start over again; some chose to return to their hometowns as chefs and develop their own businesses.
This article was originally published by Red Kitchen Network (ID: hongchu66).
Author: Jiang Liu
Image source: Provided by the interviewee Lao Yu
With the improvement of living standards, there are more and more rural banquets, more and more large, 100-day banquets, birthday banquets, wedding banquets, funeral banquets... The local society maintained by the network of acquaintances is inseparable from the township banquet, and the township chef has gradually become a popular profession.
The popularity of the profession of township chef has also attracted attention at the national level. In 2015, the state officially issued relevant documents and began to promote the standardization and professionalization of rural kitchens. Many places have set up rural chef associations, and regulate the township kitchen industry by requiring village chefs to join the association, holding health certificates, reporting and annual skills training, food safety knowledge training, regular assessment, and providing free health examinations and occupational insurance.
After the policy promoted the standardization and professionalization of township kitchens, the township banquets also gradually changed from the barbaric growth state of extensive and unregulated in the past to a rural industry. The chef team does not just go to the door to stir-fry the cauldron dishes, but also includes the development of menus, procurement of ingredients, the organization of manpower, cooking and serving, providing pots and pans, tables and chairs benches, and one-stop service of the venue.
In this context, returning to the countryside to become a full-time village cook is becoming the choice of many chefs. Many chefs in the city have found business opportunities in it, choosing to return to their hometowns to work as cooks and receive village banquets, and gradually explore another career path.
Red Kitchen Network learned that in recent years, many professional chefs have chosen to return to their hometowns to do rural cooks, the reason is very simple, one is that they feel that they have professional skills, and the teachers who have been out of the village in the past have more advantages in production and experience; second, they have been out for a long time, and they can take the opportunity to return to the family.
Lao Yu and Cheng Hairui are one of the members of the transformation from professional chefs to rural chefs.
In 2016, Lao Yu, who was a head chef in a restaurant in Jinhua City, once took a leave of absence to return to his hometown to attend his cousin's wedding. At that time, Wucheng Township had just set off a wave of township banquets, and the places, tables, chairs, and banquets were all undertaken by the local township kitchen team.
But the taste of the dish that day was very general, and after Lao Yu learned about the price with his cousin, he thought: The original profit is so high, if I do it, it should be better than this.
Therefore, after further investigating the market, Lao Yu chose a cheap rent venue in the county, purchased a batch of tables, chairs, benches and kitchen equipment, and then used the contacts accumulated over the years to advertise in the circle of friends and relatives and friends: to undertake various rural banquets.
The light advertising is naturally not enough, Lao Yu took advantage of the opportunity of another cousin to get married, and took the initiative to take the cousin's wedding banquet for free. From planning to production, guests and hosts enjoyed themselves, and the fame of Lao Yu's family banquet soared overnight.
Although it is a free service, Lao Yu has achieved the purpose of practicing hands, spreading and human affection, not only helping relatives, but also impressing guests with services and dishes, and making a name for themselves through word of mouth.
Compared with Lao Yu's relatively smooth start, Cheng Hairui's road to rural kitchen is somewhat tortuous.
After working hard in Zhengzhou, Henan Province for many years, he became a family, and rarely returned home. In 2015, the National Day rarely returned home, and the child faced his father, who had not been seen for a long time, but seemed to be somewhat resistant. The child's uncle looked in his eyes and found Cheng Hairui the next day. The two couples sat and drank, and he invited Cheng Hairui to go home to develop and start a business together.
That time home, Cheng Hairui also participated in several township banquets, and found that unlike in the past, due to the developed traffic, everyone preferred to go to the county restaurant to eat rather than set up a banquet in the village at home.
Considering that he had been separated from his lover and children for a long time, and that it seemed that there was indeed a great deal of potential for a village banquet, Cheng Hairui was moved.
After careful discussion, the two hit it off immediately, and Cheng Hairui came up with technology and team to open a township banquet restaurant in the county town.
Image source: Courtesy of interviewee Cheng Hairui
Since it is to be done, it is necessary to do a big job, and there are more than a dozen people in the service team alone. However, at that time, due to no publicity, only a dozen tables could be picked up occasionally, and the cost pressure was very high.
Therefore, Cheng Hairui found a bus, village by village to carry out propaganda, as long as he received an order, he used the bus to provide free shuttle service, every 10 tables to send 1 table, each table to send drinks... By providing various preferential services, Cheng Hairui's township banquet restaurant has slowly gained word of mouth.
Although the two started with twists and turns, the results proved that doing a township kitchen and holding a village banquet was indeed much better than working in the city and getting a dead wage, and the income was much better.
Lao Yu just started to work alone, a year can do up to 1,000 tables, and then he formed a small team, a good day can receive 4-5 orders a day, a year to do 3,000 tables of banquets is not a problem, each table of pure profit can have 200 yuan, "after the fame rises, basically the local and even surrounding counties and cities will only find your home." ”
Cheng Hairui told the Red Kitchen Network: "It is much better than working in the past, the income has tripled, after all, it is also its own business, you can be the master, as soon as you finish it, you will collect money immediately, there is no arrears, you can also return to the family and take care of your family." ”
However, making a village cook is not a drought and flood protection.
First of all, according to traditional customs, most of the "good days" are concentrated in the second half of the year, and in the first half of the year, they can only rely on individual customers and scattered orders to survive.
Secondly, if you encounter some special years or emergencies, you may face a situation where there is no grain harvest.
Just like last year's epidemic and this year's flood, it has brought almost a devastating blow to Lao Yu and Cheng Hairui.
In the first half of last year, the epidemic situation and the off-season, the old Yu family banquet has never been opened again. In order to subsidize the family, Lao Yu tried to go out to set up a stall to sell cold drinks. The first day the income was good, and the next day it was notified that stalls were prohibited. Fortunately, the epidemic subsided in the second half of the year, and Lao Yu and the team survived.
This year, Cheng Hairui's situation is even more difficult, and the flood in Henan in the middle of the year has made the already bleak off-season even worse... After the flood receded, the price of ingredients rose, and then in the second half of the year, the epidemic recurred, and many banquets were cancelled, even if they were to be done, they were reduced. In desperation, Cheng Hairui had to increase his income by raising prices and refining dishes.
The impact of the epidemic in the past two years has not only affected business, but also made it more difficult to hold township banquets, not only to face stricter supervision, but also to stop at any time because of the ban.
In fact, even if the impact of the epidemic and the flood is ignored, chefs who return to their hometowns to cook and engage in village banquets will also encounter bottlenecks and dilemmas in development.
The village kitchen is promising, but it is also a human being. In the final analysis, the township is still a humane society, and if you want to form a reputation in the local area, you can't do without "people".
As a township cook and a village banquet, the first problem to be solved is human sophistication, which is indispensable to all kinds of ushers and send-offs, and good relationships.
When Cheng Hairui started, in addition to relying on providing various intimate services, there is also an important reliance, that is, from time to time, the "heads and faces" of each village are invited to the restaurant to eat and drink for free, on the one hand, let them taste their own craftsmanship, on the other hand, of course, it is to do enough human feelings, so that these "head figures" have a banquet, or who has needs, can think of themselves at the first time.
Lao Yu's method is to often participate in the activities of the local village kitchen association, on the one hand, of course, to increase popularity, on the other hand, to promote the brand through the influence of the association.
In addition to the sophistication of people, the rapid development of the township banquet market in recent years, the competition between the village chefs has become more and more fierce.
Compared with the gap in the market 5 or 6 years ago, more chefs have returned to their hometowns to do hometown banquets in recent years, and they have set up their own teams and brands. Lao Yu told the Red Kitchen Network that excluding the surrounding counties and cities, there are hundreds of people in Jinhua City alone who specialize in township banquets.
How to compete with peers and win in the competition is also a big problem.
Lao Yu sighed that in the past, the threshold of family banquets was low, the tables and chairs, tableware were borrowed and rented by the host's family, and the teachers and masters could move for two or three or ten thousand yuan, and they could eat enough, and there were not too many requirements for the color and aroma of the dishes, "We go back, the taste alone can beat the teachers."
But now more and more professional chefs have joined, which has raised the threshold of family banquets a lot. Lao Yu said that now do the township banquet, tableware, equipment, etc. are basically all-inclusive, basically similar to what the hotel does, "There is no cost investment of 300,000-400,000, you can't compete with others." ”
Cheng Hairui also sighed: "In the past, we competed with teachers and masters as a dimensionality reduction blow, and now we compete with our peers, which is the inner volume." ”
The township banquet market did roll up, and the way Cheng Hairui's team started was completely copied by other peers. Peers have their own advantages, but the service methods and activities are similar, and the villagers have been benefited, but everyone is equivalent to returning to the same running line.
On the other hand, market demand has also changed. Compared with the previous only need to do "fast food, eat well", now to run a township banquet, to be able to arrange the scene and tableware plating, so that the host family has face, but also in the banquet site to create an atmosphere, such as arranging singing, magic, dance and other performances, so that young people have fun, and even need to be like Lao Yu can help customers plan a complete wedding process.
Obviously, just cooking can no longer meet the needs of the township banquet market, and now the township banquet must have comprehensive capabilities such as planning, packaging, and publicity, so that it is possible to break through in the competition.
More importantly, doing a village banquet also has to bear certain risks. Especially when there is a problem in food safety, it will be a devastating blow to the chef.
There was once a master who personally experienced the food poisoning incident of the township banquet, although everyone only vomited up and down, and the distant neighbors did not pursue legal responsibility, but the township kitchen team that undertook this township banquet was directly yellow, and no one was willing to find them to hold a banquet.
Although the income of being a village cook when there is a banquet is still good, this profession also faces various risks and problems. Whether it is sophistication, peer competition, or planning the balance of payments in the off-season, and improving the anti-risk ability of themselves and their team, it is the preparation that chefs must be prepared to transform into a rural chef.
Will returning to the hometown as a township chef for a village banquet be the future way out for the chef?
In some places where there is no large-scale township kitchen team, perhaps it is still a blue ocean, and the skills and experience of chefs honed from the kitchen in the city can form a dimensionality reduction blow to the township kitchens that are scattered and brave, and doubling the income is not a dream.
But in some counties and cities that already have various village kitchen teams, is there really an absolute advantage in terms of skills? If you rush back, I am afraid that it will only aggravate the internal volume of the local township banquet market, but you may not be able to get a piece of the pie.
How do chefs decide? I am afraid that we must understand and investigate the current situation of the local township banquet market and be prepared to resist risks in order to come up with an answer.
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