Wen 丨 e-commerce online, author 丨 Wang Yaqi, editor 丨 Si asked
Li Ziqi "disappeared" for half a year, and on the video website, her content update stopped on July 14, 2021.
6 months, enough time for the market to turn over a round of ups and downs. "Male version of Li Ziqi" Zhang student on Douyin crazy harvest traffic, also in the pastoral utopian style, his advertising quotations on third-party platforms have reached 500,000.
The countryside has become a traffic code, incomplete statistics, there are more than 20 bloggers who mainly shoot rural themes have emerged, "herdsman Daxi" from Inner Mongolia, "Qiu Jie" from Miao Township, "Luosang and Xiaozhima" who specialize in Tibetan cuisine, have all come out of their own characteristics.
And Li Ziqi, who first played the village card, is still deeply involved in a dispute with his old owner Hangzhou Weinian.
The latest development is that Wei Nian responded that "as early as more than a year ago, the company proposed the direction of Ms. Li Jiajia (Li Ziqi's real name) equity plan and cooperation model, and signed an agreement on the relevant share arrangement and cooperation fee with the consent of the shareholders. "But the other side did not accept.
Classmate Zhang and Li Ziqi
In this regard, Li Ziqifang retorted with the help of Li Zhikou (Weibo: her assistant): "Who dares to ask for shares in a company that has not even disclosed the contract truthfully to investors and shareholders?" "Ignoring the facts, full of spring and autumn, fighting a war of words is not interesting, we want to fight a lawsuit!"
At this point in the public opinion war, this unresolved lawsuit will not see results in the short term. On the foreign video website YouTube, Li Ziqi's account has more than 16.5 million fans, and in the video comment area, foreign netizens ask About Li Ziqi's movements every day, "We miss our beautiful princess Li Ziqi very much." The whole network of 115 million fans are waiting (Weibo + Jitter + B station + YouTube) She returned, but the foundry behind it may not wait.
Recently, Baijia Food, a foundry that makes sour and spicy powder and red oil dough skin for the "Li Ziqi" brand, submitted a prospectus to land on A shares. At the same time, its financial data in recent years has been disclosed, and the name of "Hangzhou Weinian Technology Co., Ltd." has been prominently included in its customer list.
"E-commerce Online" noted that there are many star companies in the list of shares of Baijia Food, which have successively received investment from Institutions such as Binfu Capital, Tongchuang Weiye, Qianhai Fund of Funds, Hillhouse Venture Capital, Moutai Fund, Zhongyuan Capital and Maxing Investment.
How can a traditional factory that once relied heavily on the offline "big fast consumption" playing method borrow the name of "Li Ziqi" to make its own brand and impact the "first stock of new convenient fast food"? The example of White House Food is probably a good research sample.
01, Plum Ziqi foundry
The full name of Baijia Food is Sichuan Baijia Akuan Food Industry Co., Ltd., which mainly has two major brands, "Akuan" and "Baijia Chenji", and its product matrix includes more than 200 items in 4 categories: instant noodles, convenient fans, convenient rice noodles, and self-heating food. From 2018 to 2020, the operating income of Baijia Food was 420 million, 630 million and 1.11 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 62.2%, and the net profit was 6.085 million, 23.649 million and 76.265 million, respectively, with a three-year profit growth of more than 1100%; in the first half of 2021, the revenue was 590 million, and the net profit after attribution to the mother was 21.929 million.
In the category of instant noodles, Baijia Food mainly plays non-fried instant noodles, which it says in the prospectus that it is "significantly different from traditional instant noodles in terms of form, taste, process", which is in line with the mentality of health and health; in the category of convenient fans and convenient rice noodles, it cuts to the market segment, focusing on the characteristic tastes of various places, and launches Chengdu sweet water surface, Guizhou Huaxi beef rice noodles, Xinjiang fried rice noodles, Lanzhou ramen and other commodities; in the self-heating category, it launches low-fat self-heating bean soup rice, self-heating barbecue and other products. It also meets the low-fat needs of young consumers.
Health, ready-to-eat, new crafts and local specialty food labels may be what attracts Plum Ziqi.
Judging from the prospectus, the cooperation between Baijia Food and Hangzhou Weinian will begin at least in 2020. The two sides signed the latest contract for commissioned production, and the contract period shows that from July 3 last year to July 2 this year, Baijia Food will provide products (plum and potato you play sour chili powder (bagged)) in accordance with customized requirements). Taking Li Ziqi's Tmall flagship store as an example, the product sells more than 2,000 pieces a month, which is the third most popular instant noodle in the store, and the main feature also emphasizes "traditional powder leakage process milling, hot water cooking and non-frying". In terms of price, Li Ziqi has 79.9 yuan and 7 bags in the store, with an average of about 11 yuan per bag. The Bai family Chen Ji's own sour chili powder is priced at 16.9 yuan and 5 bags, and the average bag only sells for about 3 yuan, which is equivalent to less than 30% of the former.
In 2020, the amount of food purchased by Weinian from Baijia Food reached 23.97 million, ranking among the top five customers under its direct sales model, and the customers who ranked at the forefront with Weinian, as well as three squirrels, Tmall, JD.com, Walmart, etc. Among them, the amount purchased by Weinian in 2020 accounted for 2.22% of the main business income of Baijia Food; by January to June 2021, this figure reached 20.5 million, and in half a year, it almost equaled the purchase amount of last year, accounting for 3.54%.
Left: Plum Ziqi sour and spicy powder; right: Baijia Chen Ji sour and spicy powder
From these data, we can get a glimpse of some of the revenue of Micron. A set of data that has been widely reported by the media is that the sales of Weinian's Li Ziqi brand exceeded 1.6 billion yuan in 2020. However, in the report of Tech Planet, Micro-Nian investors also revealed that Micro-Thought is actually not profitable in 2021. The other party said that Wei Nian "revenue in 2018 tens of millions, 300 million in 2019, 1.2 billion in 2020, the company needs to invest in sustainable growth, product selection, supply chain costs, promotion and marketing, offline channel laying, team, etc." In the first half of this year (2021), it was actually in a state of loss, with a loss of nearly 100 million yuan. ”
Regardless of whether the company's operation is breakeven, the gold absorption ability of Li Ziqi's consumer brand can be seen. If the purchase price is calculated according to the Bai family's own retail price of 3 yuan per bag, the sales volume of Li Ziqi's only sour and spicy powder in 2020 should be more than 8 million bags, and the gross profit will reach 64 million (calculated here according to all the purchased sour and spicy powder, the specific order is unknown). According to media reports, the current cumulative distribution of Li Ziqi is only about 40 million, which may also be the fundamental point of conflict between the two sides' demands.
02, not willing to do OEM
With the name of Li Ziqi's foundry and the big IP binding with its own traffic, how much benefit can it bring to the brand side?
The early Huaxizi borrowed Li Jiaqi, and the recent Fino coconut milk to eat the "Luckin Dividend", which seems to verify that the traffic marketing law is still effective. According to the official website information, the "Baijia" trademark was registered in 2000, and Baijia Food was established in 2016, but before the transformation in 2017, Baijia Food was actually in the stage of having products without brands, and the brand power was very weak.
Chen Zhaohui, chairman of Baijia Food, once said that the rise of takeaway, in the five or six years after 2012, the instant noodle market stagnated, and he proposed the concept of "new convenience food" in 2017 and began the transformation of the company. Also in the same year, Baijia Food formulated a three-year IPO strategic plan to accelerate the process of brand building.
In the development process of Baijia Food, Li Ziqi is more like an episode. The two are related on the promotion side, and more appear in the grass content such as Xiaohongshu, Weibo, and Zhihu. On the Little Red Book, #Li Ziqi Foundry # has more than 100 notes, and almost all the notes in the front line have thousands of likes, each of which will mention Guangxi Zhongliu, which makes snail lion powder for Li Ziqi, Sichuan Baijia (Baijia Food), Sichuan Baijia who makes sour and spicy powder, Hepu Yi who makes salted egg yolk bibimbap sauce, Manwei Dragon Kitchen who makes tomato pot bottom, Ah Kuan who makes red oil dough (also a brand of Baijia Food), Hangzhou Wanlong who makes lotus powder... Li Ziqi became an endorsement.
And the big IP strong binding, the deterministic side is to carry goods, the uncertain side is to produce "dependence", consumers may remember the same plum Ziqi, rather than white food.
Little Red Book Notes
In the past, consumers' sense of discovery was often obtained from social platforms such as Xiaohongshu, B station, Weibo, and Douyin, and finally placed an order on the e-commerce platform at the end of the traffic - searching for #Baijia Food # on Xiaohongshu can find more than 4900 notes, including various evaluations, Amway, and popular science content. As early as February 2020, when the live broadcast was the hottest, Baijia Food entered the super head live broadcast room, and the two live broadcasts sold 1.2 million bags of A Kuan red oil dough skin and 480,000 bags of Bai jia Chen Ji Gou soul rice noodles. In October last year, the product of the family, Red Oil Dough Skin, was jointly named with The Glory of the King, and hired the Professional Player of the King of Glory League (KPL) Yinuo @AG Yinuoovo as the "Hot and Spicy Official", and the related Weibo topics were read more than 800 million times.
No brand is willing to make wedding dresses for others, frequent dialogue with users, And Baijia Food is trying to gradually change from the logic of selling goods to the logic of doing brands.
Another evidence is that the distribution model of the original FMCG is very dependent on the offline distribution network, and is more inclined to sell goods, while the brand pays more attention to direct dialogue with consumers and will adopt a direct sales model. From 2018 to the first half of 2021, the sales revenue of Baijia Food's online channels was 190 million, 300 million, 660 million and 370 million, respectively, accounting for 63.6% of the company's main business income from 47.5%.
03. Crowded track
As a foundry, consumers will dig into it like a treasure, but as a brand, to make users loyal, the difficulty factor is multiplied, especially in such a crowded track. According to the "Food and Beverage Industry Chain Series Report No. 4: Consumption Outlet Is Coming, "Convenience +" Value Is Broad" report released by Guosen Securities Research shows that the market size of China's convenience food reached 450 billion yuan in 2019, calculated according to the average annual compound growth rate of 6%, it is expected that the convenience food market size will reach 630 billion yuan in 2025.
Lazy economy, home economy, coupled with the impact of the epidemic, convenient fast food because cooking is convenient and fast, easy to carry and preserve, rich and diverse tastes, which well supplements the demand for home diet, bringing more imagination space to capital and the market.
At present, there are three main types of companies that promote the rapid development of the new convenience food industry: cutting-edge brands, traditional brands, and cross-border brands. Cutting-edge brands such as Akuan, Ramen, Zi hi pot, etc., they are good at online brand marketing, traffic operation and IP creation, using innovative designs in technology, taste, packaging and other aspects to win the favor of early adopters and experience-oriented customers, but usually the establishment time is short, and the supply capacity and offline channel layout are difficult to compete with traditional brands.
Chen Zhaohui, chairman of Baijia Food
Traditional brands such as Master Kong, Unified China, Jinmalang, etc., have a strong brand effect, large-scale production capacity and mature production technology, but the proportion of online channels is relatively low, and the iteration of product research and development is also slower; cross-border brands such as three squirrels, good product shops, Haidilao, etc., in order to enrich customer choices, will not build large-scale self-built production capacity, but with the help of a relatively mature supply chain commissioned processing.
In contrast, the initial development strategy of Baijia Food is to make differentiated products, play a new type of convenient fast food positioning, and avoid direct competition with giants - according to the data of the top 500 private enterprises in China in 2020, the operating income of Jinmalang in 2019 will reach 21.85 billion yuan, while the market share of Baijia Food in 2020 will only be 1.36%. Relying on the strategy of multi-category, small-scale and differentiation, Baijia Food has steadily passed the initial stage of development of the company.
But its problem is also very obvious, in more than 200 items, the proportion of sales brought by large items is too high. In 2020, the sales of red oil dough skin reached 400 million, while the revenue of Baijia Food in that year was 1.11 billion, accounting for nearly 30% of the revenue scale. Baijia Food needs the next "red oil dough skin", and according to the brand's usual development ideas, it is easy to create an explosive product, it is difficult to create a matrix of explosive products, and before the next "red oil dough skin" appears, the investment in new and research and development cannot be stopped.
According to the prospectus, the funds raised from the listing will be mainly used for the construction of the health food industrial park and R&D center. The team will focus on the construction of intelligent and automated production lines such as lasagna noodles, steamed noodles, extruded vermicelli, coated vermicelli, self-heating rice, wet noodles, wet powder, and wet rice noodles, and build a large-capacity, high-specification, intelligent warehousing center, while introducing advanced formulas at home and abroad, and carrying out adaptive transformation and experiments.
Looking at the star capital behind it, Hillhouse is deeply rooted in the consumer goods industry, and Moutai has the reach of national sales channels. The blessing of capital can bring about the endorsement effect of channels and secondary markets. At the moment when Baijia Food impacted the "first stock of new convenient fast food", choosing a good product was considered to be a success of more than half, but the wine aroma is not afraid of deep alleys, people remember Li Ziqi, can they remember the foundry behind them?