Image source @ Visual China
Wen 丨 Xiaoqian
"The hot pot grunts, my heart flutters."
Winter is cold, and it should have been accompanied by a steaming Mandarin duck hot pot. However, the biting cold air dissuaded the young people who had "lazy cancer" attacks, but they could not resist the temptation of hot pot, and home hot pot became the first choice.
Therefore, I hurriedly clicked on the pot circle food exchange to meet three or five friends, held a hot pot party at home, and the rolling red oil was matched with the laughter of friends, instantly curing a whole winter.
Among them, as the pioneer of the vertical subdivision track of hot pot supermarkets, pot circle food hui has developed particularly rapidly.
Not long ago, "Pot Circle Food Hui" completed a new round of financing from Moutai Jianxin Fund and Wumart. In just 4 years since its establishment, Guoquan Food Hui has carried out 6 rounds of financing, with a cumulative financing amount of nearly 3 billion yuan (the latest round is undisclosed), becoming the new darling of capital.
With the out-of-the-loop of home hot pot, the pace of expansion of pot circle food exchange is getting faster and faster, more than 8,000 stores have been opened, following the pace of the pioneers, how long will it take to join a pot circle food exchange to return to the cost?
8,000 stores in pot circle food, a good opportunity for "home-made catering"?
Instead of being the same, be the first person to eat crabs. Founded in 2017, Pot Circle Food Hui is the first player in China to focus on the subdivision of hot pot supermarkets.
The outbreak of the epidemic in 2020 has made eating at home the norm, hot pot consumption has changed from going out to staying at home, and the demand for ingredients has increased significantly. Under the outlet of home consumption, the pot circle food exchange has achieved rapid expansion, opening more than 3300 stores in 2020 and more than 2000 stores in 2021, which has also become its fastest growing two years in the past two years.
Seizing this opportunity, the pot circle food hui created a new model of "home prefabricated catering", while occupying an advantage in time, with the help of marketing, making the speed of the pot circle food hui running faster and faster, the number of stores has also increased from more than 3,000 to more than 8,000, becoming the leader of the hot pot ingredients track.
Pot Circle Food Hui can be fired thanks to its pioneering hot pot ingredients supermarket track, it is worth mentioning that the "Internet sales platform + physical storefront + supermarket distribution" business model established by Pot Circle Food Hui.
At the sales end, the pot circle relies on two channels, online and offline, to ensure sales. Online, the pot circle relies on self-operated mini program malls, hungry mo, Meituan and other home carriers, radiating multiple consumption scenarios such as home, office, hotel, outdoor, etc., and more flexibly and conveniently provides people with the needs of eating hot pot barbecue.
Offline, the pot circle upgrades the store, cooperates with the store platform such as word of mouth, public comments, etc., and provides insight into a large number of user consumption data through big data, so that the pot circle food exchange can deeply understand a large number of user consumption data, accurately predict the changes in the user's home catering needs, timely develop new products, and achieve precision marketing.
Therefore, the mutual connection of online self-operated platforms is used to help franchise stores and upgrade to store conversion. At the same time, at the store end, the pot circle food hui has built a cloud shop management system and a supply chain management system, and strives to join the store only need to report the goods, and the next day can be delivered to the store, greatly reducing the inventory and capital turnover pressure of the franchised store.
Pot circle food hui to create a new consumption scene path, such as consumers through the pot circle food hui online APP to buy good hot pot ingredients for order, and then there will be takeaway delivery to the door, compared to supermarkets, fresh e-commerce and other hot pot ingredients, pot circle food hui to help consumers save their own groceries, choose vegetables, wash vegetables, cut vegetables, side dishes and other links, through cost-effective semi-finished ingredients and different taste style of condiments, at the fastest speed to provide consumers, so that home cooking catering becomes more relaxed and convenient.
Pot Circle Food Hui not only has a full range of one-stop hot pot barbecue ingredients, but also covers hot pot, barbecue-related condiments, hot pot utensils, barbecue utensils, etc., the ingredients and spices required for hot pot to pots and pans are one-stop matching, to achieve the full scene coverage of family eating.
It is reported that the pot circle food sink currently has 12 major warehousing centers in the country, forming a multi-specification standardized warehouse such as refrigeration, freezing, and room temperature, combined with an efficient logistics distribution system, radiating stores across the country.
With its own perfect food supply chain, it ensures the construction of all infrastructure construction of the food supply chain from the place of origin to the terminal store, and the direct delivery of each ingredient manufacturer reduces the price difference earned by middlemen, obtains the price advantage, and ensures that the ingredients in the store are complete, realizing the integration of the store warehouse.
The rapid development of the pot circle food exchange has brought new development ideas to the hot pot industry that was originally "stagnant" due to the epidemic, and perhaps home-made meals will become a new outlet.
Can the speed of joining the pot circle food to remit the original catch up with the speed of the Internet celebrity?
There is no doubt that the rapid development of pot circle food exchange relies on the franchise model.
It is reported that in January 2020, the number of franchise stores reached 1700, and by October 2020, the total number of franchised stores reached 5000, and in just 10 months, the number of franchised stores increased by nearly 3200. At present, its official release of the latest store data is 8000+.
In order to expand more rapidly, the pot circle food hui launched a "0 yuan" way to join, but also to the franchisee entrepreneurial support, in the face of this fragrant food attracted many entrepreneurs to enter.
However, there have been media reports before that its investment personnel claimed that "250,000 yuan of start-up capital, 10 months or 1 year to return the capital", but this commitment has been questioned by the outside world. So, how long is it possible to return the cost?
According to China Business Daily, behind the "0 yuan" franchise, the financial pressure of franchisees has not been alleviated. According to the company's franchise policy, the unified requirements are to choose a 70 to 100 square meters storefront, the preliminary decoration cost is about 75,000 yuan, the equipment cost is about 50,000 yuan, the store budget cost is about 40,000 yuan, the brand use deposit is 20,000 yuan (refundable), the first store is reported 80,000 to 100,000 yuan, and the service fee is 20,000 yuan per year (annual logistics cost). According to this calculation, excluding rent and personnel wages, the start-up capital of franchisees needs about 300,000 yuan.
Based on the principal of 300,000 yuan, if the franchisee wants to return the capital within 10 months, the monthly net profit of the store is at least 30,000 yuan without including rent and personnel wages. This means that the monthly turnover of the store must reach at least 100,000 yuan, which has certain requirements for the customer flow and unit price of the store.
According to the author's understanding, zhao hang, a franchisee of pot circle food in Beijing, has joined the experience. After Zhao Hang's store opened, it encountered the problem of differentiation in the off-peak season - the flow of the store in winter can reach 170,000 or 80,000 yuan, and in the summer, it can only be around 100,000 yuan. After deducting 15,000 yuan of rent, 20,000 yuan of labor and 4,000 to 5,000 yuan of electricity bills, Zhao Hang's store can only break even or slightly lose money.
Therefore, there is no definite answer to how long it will take to return the cost, but also depends on the location of the store and the many factors of customer flow. It can be seen that there are also many shortcomings in the business model of pot circle food exchange.
Net profit margin of 0.21%, crazy pot circle food exchange to compete with Hema and Dingdong?
With the stability and controllability of the epidemic, the early track dividend of the pot circle food sink has gradually disappeared, and some development problems have also begun to surface.
According to Three Whole Foods (002216. SZ) issued the "Announcement on the Purchase of Equity in Participating Companies and Related Party Transactions" in May, showing that in 2020, the pot circle achieved operating income of 3.061 billion yuan, operating profit of 10.4982 million yuan and net profit of 6.567 million yuan. Total assets amounted to $1,119 million, net assets to $729 million and net cash flow from operating activities to -$551 million.
In addition, although the pot circle food exchange is so optimistic about the capital market, in 2020, the operating income of the pot circle food exchange is 3.061 billion yuan, the operating profit is 10.4983 million yuan, the operating profit margin is only 0.34%, the net profit is 6.5671 million yuan, and the net profit margin is 0.21%.
Obviously, although the pot circle food sink is expanding rapidly, it is still in a state of loss. At present, it seems that the business model of pot circle food is very easy to be copied, and it lacks a strong moat.
In fact, such products as hot pot ingredients can generally be easily purchased in supermarkets, but before, general physical supermarkets did not provide delivery services, but at present, many large supermarkets have their own mini programs and online channels, as well as the function of buying vegetables by Hungry Mo and Meituan, so the pot circle food exchange is easy to be replaced.
It can be seen that it has no characteristics in the product, in a certain sense this is a track without threshold, not only the pot circle food sink is doing, some fresh supermarkets and fresh e-commerce operations also contain such products. And with the out-of-the-loop circle of pot circle food, the hot pot ingredient track is hot, so that many fresh e-commerce companies also want to share a piece of the pie.
For example, in the past two years, Hema has successively launched the "Hema Hot Pot" and "Ingredient Hot Pot" series, Dingdong Buy Vegetables has listed the "Dingdong Damanguan" hot pot private brand, and the daily excellent fresh APP has launched a hot pot channel. In the face of the fresh giant with rich experience in the supply chain, the supply chain that Pot Circle Food Hui is proud of may no longer be its advantage.
At the same time, under such a new format, hot pot ingredients supermarkets bloom everywhere, according to enterprise inspection data, in 2020, China's hot pot ingredients related enterprises the annual increase rose rapidly, up 216% year-on-year in 2019. At the same time, nearly 60% of the hot pot ingredient-related enterprises were established in the 2019-2020 biennium.
According to the statistics of the Catering Association, in 2020, the number of stores in hot pot ingredient supermarkets rose from 1,000 in 2018 to nearly 50,000.
After the track war ignited, competitors soon flocked to the scene, and the competitive pressure of the pot circle food exchange will undoubtedly only increase.
In addition, as mentioned above, the rapid expansion of the pot circle food exchange relies on the franchise model, but under the rapid expansion in the past two years, the franchise system has gradually exposed some problems.
First of all, the hot pot ingredients supermarket can not replace the hot pot dine-in in essence, the store is always the basis of catering, eating hot pot in the store is for many consumers to enjoy this special atmosphere.
From the perspective of products, the store is still the guarantee of the quality of the dishes. For example, the most common ingredients for hot pot: beef and raw ingredients such as hairy belly, whether in supermarkets or hot pot ingredient supermarkets, beef and hairy belly can basically only buy frozen or cold fresh, but in the store can eat fresh beef and hairy belly, in terms of quality can be described as a world of difference, these will affect the hot pot market supermarket traffic, resulting in making money more and more difficult.
From this point of view, there is not much time left for the pot circle food exchange, and the pot circle food exchange wants to continue to maintain the position of the leader in the future, no doubt only to continue to hand over new answers.
epilogue
It is certain that the innovative home-made catering model of pot circle food has brought a new path to the development of the hot pot industry, with the help of the opportunity of the times to develop rapidly, but the wind outlet has passed, leaving behind the thinking for the future, the pot circle food exchange still needs to establish a strong moat to be evergreen. For a large number of franchisees of the pot circle food exchange, the business on the outlet also needs to enter the game rationally.