Wen | AI Finance and Economics Agency Chen Chang
Editor| Yang Jie
"Yang Guofu's exposure of the store health problems this time, our franchisees are also surprised to see." But in fact, in our hearts, accidents are certain, it is only a matter of time sooner or later. After seeing Yang Guofu's spicy scalding exposed to the hot search of health problems, franchisee Han Li told AI Finance and Economics.
A few days ago, a video of a secret interview about Yang Guofu's spicy hot sauce rushed to Weibo's hot search. The unbearable health condition of Yang Guofu's spicy hot shop exposed in the video has caused many people to be uncomfortable: franchisees have not obtained health certificates to work, ingredients have been bitten by rats and continued to use, kitchen rags are washed at the same time, pig lungs are directly boiled without cleaning, and ingredient bags are directly boiled under the pot... As of press time, the video has been viewed 12.63 million times on Weibo and played 2.45 million times on Station B.
After the incident, Yang Guofu spicy hot official Micro urgently issued an apology statement, saying that the store involved had been closed for rectification, and the company had sent staff to supervise. AI Finance and Economics called Xu Mingzhe, deputy general manager of Yang Guofu Spicy Hot, to ask more questions, and he responded: "At present, the matter is still being further processed, it is not convenient to accept an interview, the Food and Drug Administration of Futian District, Guangdong Province has intervened to deal with it, and the matter has a final result and then reply." ”
In the domestic spicy hot river, Yang Guofu and Zhang Liang, who also started in the northeast, are undoubtedly "bellwethers". Today, they have opened more than 5,000 stores, and none of them have ever raised funds. Yang Guofu is busy with spicy hot sauce, which is to expand franchisees, not to "list". But in the eyes of many franchisees, they have become the object of Yang Guofu's spicy hot "harvest".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="105" > the safety and health issues behind the rapid expansion</h1>
In 2003, Yang Guofu opened a shop in Harbin called "Yang Ji Spicy Hot", which is the predecessor of Yang Guofu Spicy Hot. Due to the booming business, Yang Guofu's relatives and friends have also joined, and the number of stores has opened to 70 within two years. In order to unify management, around 2010, Yang Guofu officially decided to rectify the standard way of joining, and began to go out of the northeast after the store exceeded more than 1,000.
According to public data, as of the beginning of 2018, the number of "Yang Guofu Spicy Hot" stores exceeded more than 5,000, covering 36 provinces across the country. Also in this year, Yang Guofu set the company's headquarters in Shanghai. To date, it has more than 6,000 stores worldwide (the vast majority of which are in China). Even during the epidemic in 2020, it has not stopped the pace of expansion at all, compared with other declining offline businesses, Yang Guofu Spicy Hot has achieved "bucking the trend", opening more than 500 new stores in the first half of 2020, an increase of more than 100% year-on-year.
Yang Guofu's ambitions have extended to overseas markets, and he has now landed in 6 cities in 4 countries.
According to a report by China Merchants Securities, in addition to The number of stores opened by Yang Guofu in 2014 was briefly weaker than Zhang Liang's spicy hot, it has been pressing the latter since 2015 and sitting firmly in the position of "one brother" in the spicy hot industry.
But even in the process of rapid expansion, the common problem of the franchise model has also appeared in Yang Guofu's spicy scalding: the brand has been plagued by food safety and health problems more than once.
In 2017, when Yang Guofu was happy about the record achievement of "opening 2,500 new stores in five years", some media exposed that there were more than 20 Yang Guofu spicy hot spots on the takeaway platform that did not match the licenses, and a store in Dongdan, Beijing, was seized by urban management law enforcement officers in Beijing's Dongcheng District for dumping kitchen waste at will.
In 2018, a video was exposed on the Internet, in which a spicy and hot employee of Yang Guofu of a Guangzhou family sat on a high stool to cut meat, but his feet were on the board, his toes were on the meat, and his feet were full of garbage such as meat residue. The store's manager later admitted that the video did take place in their store, but said the male employee was a temporary worker, and the store would strengthen management in the future.
On the black cat complaint platform, 30 of the 47 complaints against Yang Guofu's spicy hot and spicy hot were related to food safety problems and foreign bodies in food, and many complainants said that they had eaten bugs, flies, mosquitoes, cockroaches, hair, nails, glass, wire, moldy noodles, etc. in food, and some consumers also said that they had eaten gastroenteritis.
Photo / Screenshot of Yang Guofu's secret visit to the spicy hot store, source: Weibo video
After the relevant video was exposed, a consumer who ate near the store involved told AI Finance and Economics: "I was eating, so I caught up with the relevant departments to come to the store to check the health license, employee health certificate, etc., and the inspector also urged the store owner to clean up quickly, otherwise it was not allowed to operate." He said some employees were checked on the spot without health certificates.
In the hot search video, the undercover visitor was told by the store that "you can go to work without a health certificate." Chen Tao, a Yang Guofu spicy hot franchisee, said that in his store, the staff's health certificate must also expire before it can be re-processed, even if it is processed, the time for the certificate to arrive also takes 7-15 days, which is a gap. Therefore, it is also common for there are clerks in the store who do not have a health certificate.
Jiang Baoshuang, a lawyer at Beijing Zhongdun Law Firm, told AI Finance and Economics that according to Article 33 of the Food Safety Law, food production and operation should meet food safety standards and meet the following requirements: food processing, packaging, storage and other places should be clean and tidy, and there should be corresponding disinfection, changing, washing, lighting, lighting, ventilation, anti-corrosion, dustproof, fly-proof, ratproof, insect-proof, washing, and equipment or facilities for treating wastewater, storing garbage and waste; with reasonable equipment layout and process flow, Prevent cross-contamination of food to be processed with food for direct consumption, raw materials and finished products, and avoid food contact with toxic and unclean substances.
"In the catering industry, there are often some operators who cannot meet the above two standards." Jiang Baoshuang said. For the above-mentioned illegal acts, there are three main types of legal penalties: administrative punishment, civil compensation and criminal liability.
However, some franchisees said that many accidents did not make Yang Guofu spicy hot to the quality control of franchise stores more carefully. Han Li said that after the latest video was exposed, the agent specially convened an online meeting to emphasize the need to strictly grasp health issues, but in her view, this is "more like taking the form, treating the symptoms rather than the root causes." She was a little discouraged by the various things she experienced during the franchise process.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="107" > "harvest" franchisees</h1>
For the general franchise chain enterprises, the brand franchise fee paid by the franchisee is the majority of its revenue. But Yang Guofu's spicy hot is not. Yang Guofu once said that in 2019, Yang Guofu's spicy hot revenue reached 1.3 billion yuan, and the franchise fee accounted for only 20% of it, and more income came from the brand's sales of seasonings, ingredients, kitchen equipment, etc. to franchisees.
According to the official WeChat public account of Yang Guofu's investment promotion, the latest franchise fee is: the franchise fee for first-tier cities in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen is 27,900 yuan / year, other prefecture-level cities and municipalities directly under the central government are 23,900 yuan / year, and township and county-level cities are 19,900 yuan / year; in addition, brand deposits ranging from 10,000 to 30,000 yuan are charged.
But these are only part of the expenses of becoming a franchisee.
Han Li provided AI Finance and Economics with a bill detail of her joining. These include 90,000 yuan for the company's decoration, 18,000 yuan for two display cabinets, 7,500 yuan for the five-head stove, 6,000 yuan for the collection of sets, 4,000 yuan for the refrigeration workbench, and so on. A total of 400,000 yuan of store opening investment, the franchise fee and deposit is less than 30,000 yuan, and the rest is all a variety of equipment and material costs. "Take the display cabinet, the price of Yang Guofu is more than double the price of the same manufacturer and the same model, and a store requires two standards, and the logistics fee must also be paid by itself." Han Li said, "And the display cabinet is open, there is no door, and many dishes need to be soaked with water in order to keep fresh, so they are particularly attractive to small bugs." ”
Many franchisees and industry insiders believe that it is precisely because the cost paid in the early stage is too much, in order to return the cost as soon as possible, Yang Guofu's spicy and hot franchisees are in other places "can save the province", which also leads to the frequent occurrence of food safety problems in many stores.
In addition, a number of Yang Guofu spicy and hot franchisees also told AI Finance and Economics that there are more problems in franchise store management, including store decoration "buried mines"; people who enter the store are not professional; the brand stipulates that ingredients cannot be purchased, but its designated supplier products have quality problems; agents privately increase the amount of food procurement for franchisees; and the purchased ingredients quietly increase in price.
Han Li said that according to her many years of experience in opening a restaurant, when the store is renovated, it is generally required that the electrical box cannot be placed under the cash register, the socket cannot be too low, and the drain pipe must not have water, etc., because there will be safety and health risks. However, when joining Yang Guofu's spicy hot brand, the decoration team of these companies did not do it, "After raising the question, the decoration team only said that the drawings were the company's unified requirements." Later, my shop also had problems, and the foreman and agent promised to solve it immediately, but usually it was delayed for several months. ”
Han Li revealed that the shop of another Yang Guofu spicy hot franchisee she knew had recently been driven by the landlord several times because of the serious leakage of water on the wall due to decoration problems.
Compared with these, the issue of food procurement is more important. At the time of joining, Yang Guofu's spicy and hot agent will tell the franchisees that after the official opening of the store, in addition to fresh vegetables, all ingredients and spices in the store must be purchased and used by the products provided by the company.
Yang Guofu has publicly said that there are two ways to provide ingredients, one is direct supply from the headquarters, and the other is provided by suppliers. Ingredients such as peppercorns, sesame oil, peppers, milk powder and other ingredients are uniformly purchased by the headquarters and sent to the store, and the postage is paid by the store itself; the frozen category is mostly recommended by the local agent to the corresponding enterprise, and the franchisee then orders from it.
But Han Li said that she found more than once that the frozen products and soy products purchased by the store from the frozen product suppliers forced by the local agent had a "sour smell". After she reflected to the agent, the other party "had a perfunctory attitude and still stressed in the group that it should not be purchased." In addition, the company's monthly routine inspection is also mostly to check whether there is a situation of purchased goods, "not the headquarters to send people to check, but the agent to check, and even the agent to send suppliers to check, once found, the fine of 2000-5000 yuan." These franchisees can't help but speculate that there is something "cat greasy" hidden between the agent and the supplier that outsiders do not know.
Franchisees also said that in order to sell more goods, agents will also privately increase the order volume far beyond the scope of their sales capacity on the purchase order drawn up by the merchant, and from time to time put pressure on franchisees in the group to question the reason for the small order volume. In 2021, Yang Guofu once launched a "self-heating spicy hot" product, and franchisees complained bitterly for this, because the agent urged them, "Each family wants to order 2,000 yuan of goods, if the store cannot be sold, the loss must be borne by themselves."
Franchisees complained that a restaurant brand like Yang Guofu Spicy Hot makes not the money of consumers, but the franchisee is the real "customer" on which it relies for profit.
Catering planner Wang Xing told AI Finance and Economics, "This is the game rule of brands and franchisees, and if you choose, you have to obey." Whether franchisees make money or not is related to multiple factors such as their own location. ”
Han Li has withdrawn from Yang Guofu's spicy hot franchise, but she said that the 10,000 yuan deposit company has not yet returned. In her Yungui region, according to the company's official data, there are 200 stores, and Han Li said that according to her observation, most of the stores have not been working for a long time. A store in a certain place in Yunnan that she knew had a monthly turnover of more than 100,000 yuan, but a net profit of only 30,000 yuan." AI Finance and Economics searched for the store address she provided and found that the store was on the "blacklist" of a local public account, and the reason for "being on the list" was also a health problem, such as a messy warehouse in the store and rat tracks, and live flies in the dining area.
It is understood that in the early training of joining Yang Guofu spicy, the training on professional skills is in place, but the lack of common sense training in food safety and hygiene, such as dishes need to be archived and stored in the refrigerator every night to avoid rats and bugs crawling in; for example, how to preserve the dishes, how to distinguish whether they are expired, etc. Merchants have not received the corresponding training, and can only judge by their own experience.
In order to maintain customer increments, Yang Guofu's spicy hot will also violate the most taboo "regional protection" principle of merchants. Chen Tao revealed to AI Finance and Economics that although the contract contained regional protection regulations similar to "each county can only open a few stores", when they asked whether they could open another branch, the agent replied "I have a way".
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="108" > challenge to the status of "spicy hot brother"</h1>
Han Li believes that at present, all the behaviors that she feels are "out of bounds" are the personal behavior of agents, "Yang Guofu himself does not necessarily understand the real situation, otherwise he would not be so laissez-faire management." But she also made various complaints to the headquarters many times during the operation, and basically every time the customer service would give her a complaint phone for diners. She said she was "getting discouraged."
By chance, Han Li contacted Xu Mingzhe, deputy general manager of Yang Guofu Spicy Hot, and she said that she also told all the problems once, and the response was "will reflect to the company to deal with it." But until now, she hadn't waited for the following. The media has publicly reported that since graduating from college, Xu Mingzhe has been with Yang Guofu and is considered to be one of the people who know Yang Guofu best.
Han Li said that when she opened the store, she opened the door every day with "hanging nerves" to welcome customers, "I am afraid that because of the raw materials that make guests eat physical problems, it will be difficult to deal with accidents." ”
Photo/Visual China
According to Tianyancha information, Yang Guofu, one of the shareholders of Shanghai Yang Guofu Enterprise Management (Group) Co., Ltd., holds 40% of the shares and is the ultimate beneficiary of the company. The company has not carried out any financing so far. In addition to the constantly updated store opening news, the company's most recent move is to officially launch the Tmall official flagship store in early 2021, selling self-heating spicy hot and hot pot base ingredients ranging from 30-40 yuan.
For this innovative initiative of the company, Wang Xing is not optimistic. "Yang Guofu's launch of self-heating spicy hot products is only the result of the market's follow-up. From another point of view, it is not very desirable to do cross-border retailing in catering, just as the so-called 'interlacing is like a mountain', and doing a good meal is the king. ”
According to the "China Catering Report 2018", niche catering food orders account for 63% of the overall catering market orders; while on the snack fast food track, the spicy hot field has attracted much attention, and it is a favorite food for white-collar workers and students on the takeaway platform. According to the narrow door restaurant eye database, there are currently 46 spicy hot brand stores in China, of which two brands have about 5,000 stores, and there are about 170,000 stores in the entire spicy hot track.
Capital also began to pour into the spicy hot track. Under the general trend of capital focusing on traditional catering in 2021, The Shanghai spicy hot brand Xiao man pepper, which was established in 2015, recently received tens of millions of yuan of A round financing from Qifu Capital. As of April this year, Xiao Man Pepper has expanded to 300 stores in many parts of the country, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hangzhou.
With the current brand power of Yang Guofu spicy hot, the merchants who want to join are still a steady stream. Founder Yang Guofu once said that he plans to open 10,000 franchise stores in the next 5 years, and achieve the group's revenue of more than 10 billion yuan.
Any brand has a certain life cycle. After the influx of new competitors and capital into this track, Yang Guofu, who does not raise funds, is spicy and hot, and can the profit model of relying on "harvesting" franchisees continue to stand firm? But at present, continuing to expand franchisees to "suck gold" seems to be Yang Guofu's most concerned about spicy hot.
(At the request of the interviewees, Han Li and Chen Tao are pseudonyms)
This article is originally produced by AI Finance and Economics, an account of Caijing Tianxia Weekly, without permission, please do not reprint it on any channel or platform. Violators will be prosecuted.