On September 23, at the "3rd China Catering Marketing Power Summit", "2021 China Catering (Category) Top Ten Brands" was officially announced. Among them, the unveiling of the "2021 China Top Ten Grilled Fish Brands" has rekindled the industry's attention to the grilled fish category.
Who are the top ten brands of grilled fish in China in 2021? What is the market structure of grilled fish outside the list? What new gameplay and dynamics are presented today?
This article was originally published by Red Food Network (ID: hongcan18), author: Zhou Mo.
In recent years, in the list of explosive large single products, grilled fish can definitely occupy a place.
In 2013, the category of grilled fish began to become popular, and a large number of grilled fish brands emerged across the country. Nowadays, after nearly a decade of development, what kind of development pattern has the grilled fish market shown? Who has become the most powerful brand in the category at present? Perhaps, we can get a glimpse of one or two from the list of "2021 China's Top Ten Brands of Grilled Fish".
The head brand is developing smoothly!
2021 China's top ten grilled fish brands unveiled
On September 23, 2021, the "2021 China Catering Category Top Ten Brands Annual Ceremony" was held at the China World Summit Hotel in Beijing. The "2021 China Catering (Category) Top Ten Brands" award was unveiled at the ceremony site, and a total of 200 catering brands in 20 categories won this honor.
In the "2021 China Grilled Fish Top Ten Brands List", Tanyu, Half-Day Demon, Fish Cool Live Fish Grilled Fish firmly occupy the top three positions, followed by several major brands outside Jiangcheng Border, Oven Fish, Grilled Craftsman, Tando Grilled Fish, Ling Fox Chong Kiln Grilled Grilled Fish, and Spicy Addiction.
Red Food Network (ID: hongcan18) found that compared with the "2020 China Grilled Fish Top Ten Brands", this year's top ten brands of grilled fish have not changed much overall, and the two new faces of artisan grilled fish and spicy addiction have been newly listed, while the willing person hooked and fish non-fish has fallen out of the top ten brands. In addition to the slight adjustment in the ranking of the rest of the grilled fish brands, the overall change is not obvious, the fish, half a demon, the fish cool live fish grilled fish, the river city outside the grilled whole fish and the stove fish still occupy the top 5 position.
In the first echelon of brands, each grilled fish brand you catch up, the index is not much different, and finally Tanyu won the first place with a brand index of 901.3, and won the 2021 China Grilled Fish Top Ten Brands Laurel.
It is understood that Founded in 2013, Tanyu has always been known as a phenomenon-level brand in the grilled fish market, and its opening has set a catering myth of "the highest record of 16 times a day and a turnover of 180,000 / day", which still makes everyone relish.
With years of solid brand operation, today's Tanyu has become the brand record holder of selling 10 million grilled fish a year, and has achieved the first place in the grilled fish market share in the country, with a cumulative service of more than 100 million people.
In addition to fish exploration, the strength of other grilled fish brands on the list should not be underestimated.
Half-Day Demon Green Pepper Grilled Fish won the position of "Tanhua" with a brand index of 874.2, and it is worth mentioning that Half-Day Demon has the shortest establishment time among the top three brands (founded in 2015), but it is the brand with the largest number of stores (800+) in the top ten brands. On the past "Eleventh" National Day, 60 new stores in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and other provinces and cities opened simultaneously, which made its brand potential rise all the way.
△ Image source: Half a day demon grilled fish official blog
With a brand index of 865.7, it has been 16 years since its establishment, from the fourth place last year to the top three positions, and is a well-deserved veteran brand in the grilled fish track. Like the half-day demon, Yuku Live Fish Grilled Fish has long adhered to direct operation, and the total number of stores has exceeded 200, and the distribution area is mainly in the new first-tier cities.
In addition, the "griller" who is deeply rooted in the southwest market has firmly occupied the first throne of the southwest grilled fish category with a spicy grilled fish, and has steadily occupied the minds of local consumers; "Outside the Border of Jiangcheng" has insisted on direct operation for 16 years, and has successfully laid a piece of its own in Beijing, Shanghai and other places.
Through the list of "2021 China's Top Ten Grilled Fish Brands", we can see that the current grilled fish track has precipitated a number of highly competitive head brands, but from the perspective of these brands, whether it is the size of the store or the brand awareness, the grilled fish market has not yet given birth to a national chain brand with a scale of a thousand stores, and the future market space for grilled fish is still very large.
△Image source: Photo Network
From the explosion to the calm,
Grilled fish category into the bottleneck period of development?
Data show that the demand for grilled fish reached 1.105 billion at the end of 2013. The Red Food Brand Research Institute has also done statistics, and the market size of grilled fish categories will reach more than 100 billion in 2020. Obviously, grilled fish is also a large category at the level of 100 billion.
However, from the perspective of the listed brands of "2021 China's Top Ten Grilled Fish Brands", the volume of grilled fish players is not large, and there is not even a chain brand with thousands of stores, why is this?
In the view of the red food network, perhaps this has a great relationship with the development characteristics of the grilled fish category.
The Red Food Brand Research Institute has previously sorted out the four stages of development of the grilled fish category:
Before the outbreak of grilled fish, the grilled fish category was in the extensive operation stage for a long time, and it was not until the late 1990s that the grilled fish category officially rose.
Around 2013, the grilled fish category slowly ended its extensive operation, really exploded and entered the development stage of branding and chaining, and brands such as fish exploration, stove fish, and grillers were established during this period.
After that, the popularity of the grilled fish category soared, reaching its peak in 2016, and the total number of grilled fish stores in the country once grew to nearly 60,000. At that time, many catering people asserted that the grilled fish product was full of vitality and could be fired for another ten years!
However, the popularity of grilled fish, which has experienced its heyday, began to decline since 2018. At that time, many grilled fish brands in the market were eliminated due to serious homogenization and supply chains.
At the same time, the rise of new Internet celebrity explosives such as crayfish, bullfrogs, and sauerkraut fish has made the popularity and attention of the grilled fish category decline for a while, and many people have the illusion that the grilled fish category has been "not hot" and "not ok".
At this stage, many grilled fish brands have also begun to expand cautiously due to the limitations of various factors, and grilled fish brands have begun to enter normal operation.
Although the grilled fish category has entered a period of calm development, its market space is still vast. Many grilled fish brands have begun to transform and explore, and silently exert efforts by building and consolidating their own supply chain and management system.
Since being acquired by Mesono Investment in 2018, Jiangcheng Bianwai has begun to cultivate internal strength, focusing on the layout of the supply chain and talent training system; Half Day Demon has reached cooperation with the Shuhai supply chain, eliminating the intermediate cost of procurement and highlighting its cost-effective advantages in the same category.
Entering 2020-2021, a number of extremely powerful head brands began to soar, such as Tanyu still opening 48 stores against the trend at the peak of the epidemic in 2020; half a day demon opened 60 new stores in 15 cities on the day of the eleventh National Day that just passed.
At the same time, some catering brands are still optimistic about the category of grilled fish and have begun to focus on the grilled fish market.
For example, In August this year, Jiumaojiu launched a new brand of "Lai MeiLi Green Pepper Grilled Fish". Because of the back of the Jiumaojiu Group, there is more money and strong strength, and some insiders even bluntly say that Lai Meili is expected to become the king of China's grilled fish in the future.
Even if the popularity of grilled fish has begun to decline since 2017, the enterprise investigation data also shows that since 2018, there are still nearly 10,000 newly registered enterprises in the grilled fish market every year.
Obviously, although the grilled fish market has entered a period of steady development, there are still many entrepreneurs who are optimistic about the future development of their market.
Exploration and breakout, how many possibilities is there to grill fish?
The grilled fish category, which once had a highlight moment, is still worth looking forward to. Red Food Network (ID: hongcan18) observations found that
Many grilled fish brands are actively exploring new directions and ways out.
1, do addition, with "grilled fish +" to break the pattern of large items
"Single product is king" was the main outlet of the catering industry in previous years, and the grilled fish category also rose up on such an east wind at that time. However, with the change of catering consumption demand, many single-category catering stores have begun to seek more possibilities.
Among them, the grilled fish brand Tanyu has also begun to do some exploration.
In 2019, Tanyu began experimenting with adding barbecue products to its stores. On September 28, 2020, Tanyu once again tried to add hot pot to the store, and promoted "eat both grilled fish and hot pot" as a slogan.
△ Image source: Tanyu Guanbo
At present, Tanyu has formed a layout of multi-product matrix such as "grilled fish + barbecue + hot pot", and this attempt has also brought a lot of popularity to the stores of Tanyu.
In the past two years, half a day demon has also launched the "grilled fish + shabu + barbecue + cold dish" model, in addition to selling grilled fish, but also the young people like barbecue, shabu-shabu into one, so that consumers have more choices and imagination space.
2, do subtraction, with a more focused, more extreme single product play to improve efficiency
When many grilled fish brands hope to use the "grilled fish +" model to break the limitations of large items, some people choose to do the opposite, by focusing on a taste, or even an ingredient, with the "ultimate single product" style of play to break through.
For example, the griller, since the establishment of the brand has always been deeply rooted in the taste of spicy grilled fish, and now has formed a major feature of the brand, and ranks first in the southwest grilled fish category.
Jiumaojiu's brand Lai Meili green pepper grilled fish is also very representative in the gathering.
Like Tai'er Sauerkraut Fish, which insists on making only one kind of sauerkraut fish, Lai Meili also sells only one kind of fish (Jiang Tuan Fish) and only 4 grilled fish flavors (green pepper flavor, classic spicy, dried roast minced meat and tomato sour soup flavor) to choose from.
△Image source: Red Food Network Photo
This focus that does not give customers room for choice seems to be "overbearing", but in fact it is hidden: a fish has relatively lower requirements for the supply chain, which is conducive to the stability of the product; on the other hand, it can make consumers more aware of what the characteristics of the brand are, which is more helpful for restaurant operation and brand promotion, and at the same time alleviates the customer's choice difficulties; the third can also greatly improve the efficiency of the back kitchen.
3. Fast food for regular meals: the small portion system and one-person food are parallel
In order to cater to the new changes in the market and find a new growth curve for enterprises, many grilled fish brands based on meals are also currently removing some "too heavy" things, through streamlining menus, launching single packages and other business methods, so that stores are gradually "lighter".
Red Food Network observation found that the current grilled fish market not only appeared in some special "one-person food" and "small portion system" fast food grilled fish brands, but also many dinner-based grilled fish brands joined the exploration of the fast food market, such as fish exploration, grilled fish, etc. In the past two years, a person's grilled fish package product has been launched on the takeaway platform, and the sales are good.
△ One person eats grilled fish, picture source: fish takeaway
4. Break through from different dimensions such as supply chain, marketing methods, brand upgrades, and product innovation
Red Food Network found that in addition to the above three main directions, there are many grilled fish brands that strengthen brand selling points from different dimensions such as supply chain, marketing methods, brand upgrades, and product innovation, create brand differentiation segments, and try to find new exploration and breakthrough directions.
For example, in terms of ingredients, grilled fish brands with supply chain strength still take grilled live fish as the selling point to strengthen the core barriers of the brand, while some brands that have not formed a supply chain system generously admit that the store is chilled fish, and enlarge the bright spots of fresh fish safer to attract consumer attention.
At the level of brand upgrading, Tanyu has opened LAB concept stores in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, whether it is decoration style or product collocation, which subverts the playing style of standard stores, making consumers feel refreshed and full of personalized experience.
Conclusion
From the rise to the outbreak, and then to the precipitation period, many grilled fish brands are currently practicing their internal skills, exploring new ways out and directions, and the grilled fish category is expected to be popular again. In the future, who will have the most strength to become the real leader of the grilled fish market? Time may give us the answer.