The hot pot industry is in a fierce battle, and the trend of subdivision is intensifying. The number of fish hot pot stores jumped to the first place in the subdivision category, so the competition is also more intense.
In today's increasingly picky consumers, how to make a different fish hot pot?
Issue 2686 overall
Restaurant owner internal reference Dai Lifen | wen
There are categories without brands, and the competition for fish hot pot is fierce
In the hot pot subdivision track, the development trend of fish hot pot is the most fierce.
Based on the general trend of healthy fat loss, the momentum of fish hot pot in recent years has been not small. According to the "China Catering Big Data 2021", the number of fish hot pot stores accounted for 12%, which has exceeded the hot pot categories of skewers, Chongqing hot pot and Sichuan hot pot.
Brands such as Xin spicy road and fishman fish boy have also gradually expanded their scale. In Chongqing, Hunan, Jiangsu and other places, there have been many regional fish hot pot brands.
In the era of quality upgrading, fish hot pot is also constantly subdivided, of which fish head hot pot has a more valuable sense of value, so it has more explosive potential.
Neisanjun combed the development process of fish head hot pot, which can be roughly divided into four stages:
The first stage is the growth period. Fish head hot pot originally originated in Anxi Town, Chengdu, and gave birth to local brands such as Pretty Fish Head and Fisherman's Courtyard. In 2008, a street of fish head hot pot appeared in Anxi Town, with a total output value of 5.5 million yuan.
The second stage is the stage of national chain brands, and the subdivision track is bigger and wider. Tanyutou hot pot, which also started from Sichuan, was at its most brilliant, with tens of thousands of employees, assets of nearly 10 billion, and more than 100 stores across the country, "throwing 'Haidilao' several streets"...
The third stage is the national popularization phase. With the trend of bullfrog category fire, the head of the American frog fish has spread throughout the country, and internet red brands such as brother and old official have also been born. But in fact, the center of gravity of the head of the beautiful frog is still the bullfrog, and the fish head is just a foil. Different ingredients, different characteristics, require different preparations to cook. According to the cooking method of the fish head of the frog, the frog is delicious, but the head of the fish is not so delicious.
Nowadays, it can be said that the category development of fish head hot pot is entering the fourth stage - the re-branding of Sichuan-style fish hot pot. After the gradual decline of Tan Fish Head, there is no longer a leading brand in the subdivision of Fish Head Hot Pot.
Distinctive "Fresh Doors"
Recently, Nei Shanjun visited a new brand of fish head hot pot in Wuhan, Xianlemen, which is quite distinctive.
The Wuhan store, called "Xianlemen", opened on Chuhe Han Street. This street is almost three steps a hot pot, five steps a roast meat, is the first stop of all well-known hot pot brands to conquer Wuhan.
The storefronts of the whole street are more market-style and Japanese simple style, only the door of the Fresh Music Gate is a bit "jumping", and a silver silver carp jumps out, a bit of ultra-modern futuristic sense, especially eye-catching.
The door is the first greeting of consumers, but after a personalized greeting, whether people can like it or not is a problem.
After visiting the store, we found that not only the design, but also the whole set of business ideas behind it, are quite valuable. Neisanjun will disassemble the brand from the perspectives of store style, products, profit model, marketing, and so on.
1) Image: The dining space is full of futuristic feeling, cutting to the general trend of catering aesthetics!
As soon as you enter the store, your first impression is the cheerful colors of orange red and blue green, and the young waiters are dressed in orange overalls. The contrast color sets off a strong sense of conflict and futurism, which is the popular cyberpunk style at present.
Most of the people who eat in the store are mainly young people, which is quite in line with the temperament of the store.
Of course, not only the tide, but also the traditional ancient style elements are integrated into the store design, such as red lanterns, cornice tiles, martial arts plaques, etc. Traditional culture + modern trend, known as the national tide, is to take into account the traditional culture of the "country", and the modern, the future of the "trend".
2) Product: the quality should be good, and the cost should be the best
On the back of the menu, Uchiha jun observes the origin of the ingredients of the main product. Its main product is silver carp head from Hubei Province.
Hubei is a "province of a thousand lakes", rivers and lakes are dotted, water quality is good for farmed fish, and the meat is tender. Silver carp is the first choice for the quality of the fish head.
How do you balance the challenges of high quality with cost?
Chen Yao, chairman of Xianlemen, told Neishanjun that in order to reduce procurement costs and achieve the unity of taste in national chain stores, the brand has adopted a centralized large number of procurement and unified distribution, using self-developed formulas and cooperating with factories to do deep processing.
Factory processing and distribution to the store, can the freshness of the fish head be guaranteed?
Chen Yao said: "The team has been studying fish heads for more than ten years, and due to the complex processing technology of fish heads, it is difficult for talents to copy, and they cannot be effectively copied to expand stores. After years of national inspection and repeated testing, we finally found a breakthrough, that is, through the food liquid nitrogen freezing technology. “
He further explained: "Liquid nitrogen freezing technology can quickly drop the temperature to below -100 ° C in two or three minutes, take it out of the equipment, put it in the freezer, and maintain freshness for about a week." Through this technology, the nutrients that can be locked are not lost, and the effect of high quality preservation is achieved, and the fresh and tender taste of the entrance is equivalent to live freshness. ”
3) Supply chain: stable quality, less labor, high gross profit
Neisanjun learned in detail about the supply chain of this store, mainly including two links: one is the source of raw materials, controlled by the brand; the other is the processing part, which cooperates with the local factory with large scale and mature experience in cooperation with restaurant enterprises, and directly distributes clean dishes to the store.
According to Xianlemen, the factory cooperation has brought efficiency improvements in three aspects to the door:
First, the processing links of the store are reduced, the labor cost is reduced, and the centralized procurement and unified processing of the factory are certainly lower than the independent procurement and processing costs of the store.
The second is to save the area of the back kitchen, to achieve 20% of the store kitchen, the front hall area to maximize the seat, greatly reducing the investment cost, is an ideal investment model.
Third, the control of gross profit margin is more accurate. If the technicians in the store are not good enough and waste more, the gross profit is uncontrollable. However, when placed on the factory side, there is no need to process after arriving at the store, and the gross profit of each store is very controllable. When gross profit is controllable, the profit model of the entire store can run through.
Chen Yao said: "Under the premise of ensuring the number of products in the store, we have spent a lot of time and energy to study the profit model of the "Xianlemen Mini Store". In the design of store space, the store that finally achieves about 200 square meters can still have 25 tables, with less labor, higher efficiency, and a significant reduction in the investment cost of opening a store. ”
4) Marketing: Leverage the star effect to quickly explode the national market
Not only are the stores and products very distinctive, but the marketing ability is the highlight of this brand.
At the entrance of the store, a large screen is very conspicuous, playing the blessings of various stars. The clerk told Neisanjun that the partner of the store was actually the star Jia Nailiang.
Recently, star brands have set off a wave of enthusiasm, especially hot pot brands. This is related to the current situation of the hot pot category. Hot pot has been in a state of red sea fighting for many years, and the difficulty of new brands to break through has soared. The model of opening stores one by one, in the current hot pot market, may have been squeezed out without waiting for the scale.
New entrants need to quickly build brand barriers, and the use of star communication potential is one of the ways. The cost of bringing in artists is very high, and the cost of creating IP is also very high, which is a brand barrier, because many people can't come in.
On the other side of the coin, there are also risks for celebrities to open stores. Before marketing, we must do a good job in quality, products and operations. When the basic skills are done, marketing is the icing on the cake. If not done well, marketing can backfire.
In the past, celebrities opened stores, either to let celebrities punch cards in the store, or celebrities invested in catering brands, but the operation team behind them did not keep up, and most of them eventually failed to operate well and led to closure.
Neisanjun learned that there is a team behind Xianlemen with many years of catering experience. Chen Yao has more than 20 years of experience in the catering industry, has experienced the establishment of brands such as Dayu hot pot with the team, and the core members of the team have also experienced the core management of catering enterprises such as Haidilao, Grandma's House, xibei and so on, with an average of about 20 years of catering experience.
With the help of the star effect, Xianlemen has a marketing foundation to quickly explode the national market.
Short video traffic reached people's interaction, which is another marketing strategy. Online, brands form a network popularity by mingling with traffic masters; offline, they drive fans to pay attention to the store and enter the store experience.
summary
The exploration of The Xianlemen has given the internal counselor a new thinking about the hot pot industry: the competitive landscape of the hot pot industry has changed. New entrants, want to go out of their own way, not only to play a differentiation, but also to be a resource integrator, link the resources of all parties, quickly push the brand to the country, occupy the brand market position.
In the subdivision track of fish head hot pot, various innovative brands are running, and we will wait and see whether Xianlemen can quickly become a fish head hot pot head brand in terms of mature catering experience and use star potential energy.