"What's wrong with hot dry noodles, what's wrong with hot dry noodles, why didn't the capital side come to vote for me?" Am I not fragrant enough? ”
In 2020, signs of capital entering the situation category began to appear. From fishing noodles and small noodles to mixed noodles, ramen noodles, and rice noodles, the interaction between capital and brand is getting closer and closer, but only the figure of hot dry noodles is missing.
Issue 2787 in total
Restaurant owner Neikan Sun Yu | wen
More than 20,000 hot-dry noodle "enterprises",
Why is there no capital in sight?
At the end of last year, after the completion of the 450 million yuan D round of financing, the noodle category has become a target project for capital at the beginning of this year, and 12 financing events have occurred so far. Moreover, brands such as Baron Rice Noodles, Wuye Mixed Noodles, and Meet Small Noodles have completed two rounds of financing in half a year. From the perspective of financing amount, it is almost more than 100 million yuan, the round is basically above the A round, and many investors are also frantically entering the game.
With the help of capital, a number of noodle brands have risen with the trend and embarked on the road of expansion. And the hot dry noodles seem to be "silent" for a long time. When it comes to hot dry noodles, first think of Wuhan, and recently Zhengzhou rainstorms, rescue from all over the country have arrived, and Wuhan, which has carried the epidemic, has also joined in, a sentence of "Peppery soup stands up, hot dry noodles come", hot dry noodles represent Wuhan.
The history of hot dry noodles is nearly 90 years, which meets the early needs of the jiangcheng Wuhan for nearly a century. During the epidemic period, it is said that hot dry noodles are refueled, in fact, Wuhan refueling and Hubei refueling have become synonymous with Wuhan.
The Jianghan Plain has been rainy and humid for a long time, and people are accustomed to adding alkali to the noodles to prolong the shelf life, which is also the initial form of hot dry noodles - alkali noodles. Around 1930, Cai Mingwei of Hankou innovated the way to eat hot dry noodles, adding tahini sauce to dry alkali noodles, and since then this invention has also laid the habit of Wuhan breakfast. At present, hot dry noodles are famous throughout the country as a special snack in Wuhan.
According to enterprise investigation data, there are 21,000 individual industrial and commercial households engaged in hot dry noodle related business nationwide, of which 3,027 are in Hubei Province, accounting for 14% of the national total; there are 16,000 in Henan Province, accounting for 75% of the national total. From the perspective of urban distribution, Wuhan in Hubei Province has the largest number of cities, reaching 1741. Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, has the largest number of 4717, accounting for 30% of Henan's total.
With a long history, special snacks, 21,000 enterprises, why has there not been capital in the market?
Even if it is "a thousand stores", it has not gone out of Hubei
What is the difficulty of "nationalization" of hot dry noodles?
It is understood that some regional strong brands, starting to layout other markets will usher in a good turnover, but with the end of the early taste, the turnover will show signs of falling. And this has also become a lot of hot dry noodles single category brands, afraid to go out of the region and embrace the shadow of the market.
On the one hand, 21,000 individual merchants of hot dry noodles have not run out of the national chain brand
Although the number of enterprises is large, the brand power is not enough. According to the understanding of Neishanjun, there are not many hot dry noodle brands that have truly developed to more than 100 stores, and the stores are mainly distributed in Henan, Hubei, Shanxi, Shaanxi and other noodle provinces.
Moreover, at present, most of the hot dry noodles are still husband and wife shops. The operating cost is relatively low, "I think the daily business is not bad, there is an income of more than 1,000 per day, but there is no loss." A mom-and-pop shop owner put it this way.
Searching on the Dianping App, Neisanjun found some hot dry noodle regional brands. For example, Cai Linji in Wuhan is a must-visit place for tourists; another brand, Evergreen Mai Xiangyuan, has also exceeded 1,000 stores, focusing on community stores; in Shanxi, Neishanjun found a store called Wuxiao Wu hot dry noodles that is widely spread around, most of which is located near colleges and universities.
On the other hand, the supply chain is still unable to support the ability to lay out stores across the country, and the cost is high.
Noodles are the core ingredient of a bowl of hot-dried noodles, and hot-dried noodles are mainly made of fresh noodles. If the brand is distributed throughout the country, it is also necessary to solve the problem of supply chain distribution in order to maximize the guarantee and restoration of the taste of hot dry noodles.
It is understood that the freshness and refrigeration time of fresh noodles is about 24 hours, and only 12 hours at room temperature. Therefore, not only do you need to face high logistics costs over long distances, but once it takes a long time, fresh noodles are prone to the risk of spoilage.
The taste of fresh noodles changes every hour, from the factory to the store, to the store storage, to the final sale to the customer every hour, its taste will change, so the quality control is difficult, the requirements for food safety are also particularly high. This places very high demands on the supply chain of hot-dry surfaces.
In addition, customers have not yet formed a brand recognition of hot dry noodles. There is no recognition of the brand, and everyone's cognition of authentic hot dry noodles is still wuhan's internet celebrity specialty snack, and the consumer group may be more of a tourist group going to Wuhan.
The popularity of the noodle shop remains high,
How do you get on this ride for hot dry noodles?
It should be said that in the current fierce competition, the innovation and transformation of hot dry noodles have long been put on the agenda.
"Junchen Zuo envoy", enrich the product structure
As a staple food, northerners are more accustomed to eating pasta at noon, hot dry noodles in Wuhan is "good morning", Henan hot dry pasta is "good at noon", relatively speaking, dinner is more awkward.
Netizens generally feedback that hot dry noodles look and eat dry, not as good as soup noodles to eat, so there will be few customers who choose to eat hot dry noodles at night, and it is not as comfortable as a bowl of wontons.
Moreover, if you casually enter a noodle shop, everyone will find that the noodle shop has not only one kind of noodles, but also their products are relatively diverse. For example, Wuye mixed noodles are more like a collection of noodles from all over the country, mainly mixed noodles, but also have dan dan noodles, oil poured noodles, rice bowls and other products.
For noodle brands, it is particularly important to enrich the product structure. Hot dry noodles, as an explosive product, are the position of "Jun" in the product structure of the product store. Stores also need to add some categories such as chutney, snacks and other categories to assist the "monarch" of hot dry noodles. Explosive products build brands, and other products enhance customer stickiness and increase turnover. In other cities, the consumption frequency of hot dry noodles is not high, and the addition of other categories can indirectly drive the sales of store products.
Multi-period operation, expand the scope of services
At present, hot dry noodle enterprises are mostly distributed in Henan and Hubei. Although the two provinces are next to each other, hot dry noodles also vary in terms of portion size, dry humidity, price and side dishes.
For example, Hubei is mainly breakfast, Henan is mainly Chinese dinner, like the early portion is smaller, about two or two sides, at noon it is half a pound of noodles; Hubei is dry, Henan is slightly juiced; Hubei 4-6 yuan per basic payment, Henan 6-8 yuan basic model and so on.
Wuhan hot dry noodles boss to make breakfast, cross-regional to do breakfast, lunch and evening three meals, in order to let the brand slowly take root, this has a very different operating model and service model, but also need a certain amount of time to explore and land.
Only by breaking through the regional restrictions can we make it possible to become bigger
A boss who deals in hot dry noodles said that some hot dry noodle bosses have thinking restrictions, believing that hot dry noodles are only suitable for Hubei, and other regions will not be "premature", which has led to the traditional brand of hot dry noodles only staying in Hubei Province.
Neisanjun saw from the public comments that although the stores of a brand evergreen wheat xiangyuan in Hubei are over 1,000, the stores are basically in Hubei. Not to mention the waist brands that have opened stores in about 100 stores, almost have not gone out of Hubei.
Obviously, this kind of self-contained playing style has long been unsuitable for the Internet era, and it is not like to be a local "tea face", after all, the brand power has not yet come out, and the marketing power does not seem to see.
Sometimes, the brand does not need rapid financing, because the number of stores is small, so that the store model in different areas will not be mature enough, the capital money comes in after the brand scale rapid expansion, but the basic skills are not stable, the foundation is unstable, it is easy to pull the enterprise bad. If you want to be an excellent brand with long-term stable development, the basic disk should be stable, there is a certain brand awareness and scale, and the capital re-entry may develop more smoothly.
Brand operation is the core breakthrough point
To become a chain brand, we must have a clear brand positioning and do a good job in brand operation. In the store decoration positioning, product marketing, service, etc., we must change the traditional hot dry noodle stores. For example, Ma Jiyong will be in the high-end consumption, imitate the Japanese ramen restaurant style, whether it is decoration style or color choice, are obviously different from the traditional ramen shop, instantly make the brand become high-end, but also more attractive to consumer groups into the store. And this has also become one of the factors that Ma Jiyong is favored by capital.
In fact, everyone's awareness of hot dry noodles is not low, but the awareness of the brand is not enough. Before Yang Guofu spicy hot and Zhang Liang spicy hot, everyone may not understand spicy hot. At some point in the future, it may become a flashpoint for hot dry noodles.