Wen | Zhang Mengyi of "Finance and Economics"
Editor| Yang Jie
Lu Zhengyao, who "started his last business", was in trouble again. The chain noodle shop he founded, Fun Noodles, recently closed its first store in Beijing at Phoenix Hui Shopping Center. The store information has also been removed from the shelves of public channels such as Meituan and AutoNavi.
When fun noodles were born, they were once full of aura. After Luckin Coffee was out, Lu Zhengyao gathered the former Shenzhou Department and Luckin Coffee's centaurs to start incubating this project. At the same time, the "eating noodles" investment boom in the venture capital circle has risen, and the industry has speculated that the "fun noodles" that have stepped on the wind will continue Lu Zhengyao's usual way of playing, quickly achieve scale expansion, and become the "next Luckin" in the catering industry.
However, in just half a year, Fun Xiaomian has experienced financing difficulties and name changes, and the pace of expanding stores is relatively slow.
When the first store in Beijing was exposed to close, Lu Zhengyao had already embarked on a new "pre-made dish" track and began to promote the "Tip of the Tongue Workshop" project.
The concept of pre-made dishes is in full swing, and Lu Zhengyao can accurately step on the stroke every time. However, can he continue to replicate Luckin's "success model" in the catering industry?
Interesting little noodles of "cold"
At four o'clock in the afternoon, the food area on the basement floor of Beijing Phoenix Hui Shopping Center was deserted. In one of the humble corners, the first store of the food project "Fun Noodles" founded by Lu Zhengyao, a capital tycoon and founder of Luckin Coffee, is located here.
Today, the store's sign has been changed to "Fun Bayu", but there is no longer any shadow in the store. The callers at the front desk and the screen at the cash register were pitch black; the back kitchen lights had been extinguished, and the cutlery was packed and stacked aside.
The staff of Phoenix Hui Shopping Center said: "At the end of December last year, Fun Noodles moved away and has not been open since New Year's Day. ”
(Photo: Photo by Caijing Tianxia Weekly)
It is understood that on August 8 last year, the first store of Fun Noodles in Beijing was officially opened, and some of the meals sold were also given a "66% discount" discount. On the same day, Fun Noodles, located at No. 16 Financial Street, Jiangbei District, Chongqing, was also opened for business. After Luckin Coffee was eclipsed, Lu Zhengyao once again went out to start a business, and "Fun Small Noodles" quickly attracted a lot of attention, and the discussion of whether it can become the next Luckin has also risen on the Internet.
But in less than half a year, the first store in Beijing has come to an end.
The decrease in passenger flow caused by the epidemic may also be a major factor affecting the business of fun noodles.
The clerk of a noodle restaurant next door to Fun Noodles said that with the reduction of the flow of people in the mall, the business of catering businesses on the basement floor of Phoenix Hui this year is more deserted than in previous years, "My family's turnover at night can only sell to 1,000 yuan, and the business of Fun Noodles is estimated to be no better."
The clerk of another spicy hot shop believes that there are too many noodle businesses and the competition is too fierce. "Several of them sell pasta and compete with each other for customers."
"Finance world" weekly noted that in the phoenix shopping mall only one basement floor, five noodle shops have been opened. But so far, only the interesting small noodles have been closed.
At the beginning of its birth, fun noodles once attracted much attention from the outside world. In May 2021, there were media reports that Lu Zhengyao summoned the original Shenzhou Department and Luckin Coffee to launch a new entrepreneurial project, focusing on noodle business. According to the report, according to people familiar with the matter, Lu Zhengyao's strategy for making noodle restaurants is to "open 500 stores across the country" and "make a food city, and eventually form an online app."
After the official operation of Fun Xiaomian, according to the initial plan, its first batch of stores will successively enter 14 cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hangzhou, and the first batch of expansion targets will be 106. The second batch of expansion plans will be launched on August 18, 2021, entering eight cities, including Fuzhou, Hefei, Changsha and Nanchang.
Suddenly, the outside world has been holding their breath, whether the interesting small noodles will replicate the expansion trend of Luckin Coffee that year.
Like Luckin Coffee, fun noodle stores are generally small in area, the decoration is Japanese simple style, and users also need to order through small programs. But its style and Luckin also have a big difference: the location of fun small noodles, like the first store of Beijing Phoenix Hui, is positioned in the food court on the basement floor, facing the low-end customer group; compared with other stores in the stall, it has not started a "price war" in terms of meal pricing.
Many consumers believe that the food of Fun Noodles is "featureless and expensive". In Beijing's fun noodle shops, the per capita consumption is more than 30 yuan, in terms of the positioning of its white-collar working meals, the pricing is still more expensive, higher than the per capita consumption of about 20 yuan of the same type of noodle restaurant "drunken noodles".
However, the follow-up financing speed and store expansion of Fun Xiaomian are completely different from Luckin Coffee.
In 2021, capital falls in love with "eating noodles". On the flour catering track, a wave of investment has been set off. However, the financing news of the interesting small side has not been released for a long time.
In early September 2021, the company's second urban expansion plan was abruptly suspended.
In September, a news of "lack of money in fun noodles" was exposed. According to media reports, "Fun Small Noodles" is seeking financing of 100 million yuan, and the valuation of this round of financing fun small noodles is 1 billion yuan. On October 20, according to Tianyan' investigation, there was an industrial and commercial change in The Tip Technology Co., Ltd., an affiliate of Fun Xiaomian, and the registered capital of the enterprise increased from 10 million yuan to 198.7 million yuan, which seems to have won the support of investors.
In November 2021, less than three months after the official operation, Qu Xiao Noodles was renamed "Fun Bayu", adding hot pot pot and other dishes to the original small noodle products. On the catering track, the incident of brand renaming is rare. However, for the renaming of the interesting small noodles, many people in the industry are positive. After all, in their opinion, this is better than the original "fun small side" positioning.
Zhu Danpeng, an analyst in the Chinese food industry, said, "Pasta itself is a traditional Category in China, it is not an imported product, and it cannot form a high-end brand image, and the entry threshold is also low; the category of small noodles is even more difficult to differentiate." Unlike ramen, which already has head companies such as Nishibe, there are also ingredients and regional ethnic characteristics to bless them. Coupled with the low cost performance of small noodles, it is the reason why its stores are cold. ”
Top-level design expert Sun Wei said: "The renaming of Fun Noodles means that it will reposition its brand, focus on the characteristic flavor of Sichuan and Chongqing, and directly reflect the taste and characteristics on the brand, and focus and attract consumers more." The addition of categories such as hot pot pot can also increase the unit price and gross profit margin of customers. This means that its top-level design is more reliable than the original. ”
However, the development of "Fun Bayu" is not smooth. At present, according to the "Fun Bayu" Mini Program, its number of stores in the country is 33, which is far from the goal of "500".
Lu Zhengyao once had great expectations for the food project. He once revealed to the outside world that the tip of the tongue technology is his "last battle before retirement", hoping to treat it as a long-term career and not to be too capitalized; and to change the style of the past, requiring "every store to have a profit before it can continue to open a store."
But Lu Zhengyao did not invest too much in the noodle project with a "single-minded" attitude. After testing the water for more than half a year, Lu Zhengyao set his sights on the new prefabricated vegetable track.
Lu Zhengyao is eyeing the new outlet of pre-made dishes?
Not long ago, according to media reports, the Tip of the Tongue Technology Group was incubating the new project of prefabricated dishes "Tip of the Tongue Workshop".
According to the official introduction, the tip of the tongue workshop through the origin of the procurement of first-hand fresh raw materials, processed into semi-finished products, through the cold chain transport to the retail terminal, consumers as long as the simple cooking can enjoy the food; and the price of prefabricated ingredients and raw materials directly purchased by supermarkets is close, the price of fast cooking dishes is only 50%-60% of the price of general restaurants.
On January 10th, the first store of "Tip of the Tongue Workshop" opened in Beijing, selling main products including prepared ingredients and quick cooking dishes, the main slogan is "Everyone is easy to be a chef", and launched a "new store opening, 30% off for the whole site" promotion.
According to the Tip of the Tongue Workshop App, there are more than a hundred SKUs in the Tip workshop, and the price of the products is cheaper than ordinary pre-made dishes, ranging from 10 yuan to 46 yuan, and most of the commodities are priced below 30 yuan. Customers place orders for 49 yuan, and the store also provides free delivery services.
(Source: Screenshot of the Tip of the Tongue Workshop App)
It is worth noting that the tip of the tongue workshop has opened up the franchise model. According to the Tip of the Tongue Workshop App, the threshold investment amount of franchisees is 30,000-110,000 yuan. Because the threshold is not high, the internal employees of the tip of the tongue workshop revealed that there are many people who come to consult. On January 9, the tip of the tongue factory also held a merchant joining meeting in Xiamen.
According to media reports, according to the recruitment plan, the initial goal of the tip workshop is to develop to 3,000 stores in the early stage of 2022. Many people in the industry believe that Lu Zhengyao wants to use this way to improve cash flow.
Wen Zhihong, a partner at Hejun Consulting, believes that Lu Zhengyao's entry into the prefabricated vegetable track is likely to hit a wall on a small surface. "Prefabricated dishes are actually standardized and industrialized. Its model is through the industrial production of the back-end central kitchen, and then through the supply chain logistics distribution to the front-end, the sales method has been retailed, so it is easier to achieve rapid scale expansion of prefabricated dishes. It may be that Lu Zhengyao realized that traditional catering is not easy to standardize after making small noodles, so he began to further consider making pre-made dishes. ”
But in any case, the prefabricated dish that Lu Zhengyao aimed at has already stood on the cusp.
According to Tianyan, the number of registered enterprises engaged in prefabricated dishes in 2015 was 4,000; but by 2020, the number of newly registered enterprises reached 12,500. Hema fresh data shows that the proportion of "post-95" young people buying semi-finished dishes has reached twice that of "post-65s". Guohai Securities believes that in the next 6-7 years, the total B-end and C-end market size of domestic prefabricated dishes can reach 50,000-6 trillion yuan.
Capital that loves the "table" is also optimistic about this outlet. Since last year, there have been financing news for prefabricated dish projects including Meizhou Dongpo, Three Meals with Ingredients, Zhenwei Xiaomeiyuan, Wangjiadu Food and other brands.
In April last year, Suzhou Weizhixiang, which focuses on the research and development, production and sales of semi-finished dishes, went public and became the "first stock of prefabricated dishes". Within one month of listing, the stock price of Weizhixiang rose nearly 4 times, and the price-earnings ratio exceeded 100 times.
But the pre-made wet market is still in the early stages of development. Consumers have not yet formed consumption habits, and it takes a long time to educate the market.
Some prefabricated vegetable merchants have told the "Caijing Tianxia" weekly that the domestic food processing technology has been greatly improved, with a sterile production environment, the taste recovery and nutritional recovery of frozen products can almost be consistent with the ready-made catering, and the shelf life of 6 months can be achieved on the basis of not adding additional food additives; however, there are still many consumers who believe that the prepared food is "not healthy and nutritious enough" and positions it at the low-end consumption level.
At the same time, as with pasta, there are already a large number of players gathered in the pre-made market. In addition to start-up companies, many large and medium-sized catering companies are also eyeing the field of prepared dishes, such as Babi Food, Weizhixiang, Qianwei Central Kitchen, etc. They have been working in the catering industry for many years, or have supply chain advantages, or have a deep understanding of local cuisine.
Lu Zhengyao's "tip of the tongue workshop" wants to chase this outlet, and may have to go through a long trial and error stage.
Can't replicate the "Luckin model"?
Lu Zhengyao has successively sent Shenzhou Car Rental, UCAR and Luckin Coffee to the capital market. The companies he founded, whether it was Shenzhou Car Rental or Luckin Coffee, had a similar set of business methods in those years - seizing the wind, rapid financing, and crazy expansion.
At that time, the rapid progress of Shenzhou Car Rental and Luckin Coffee once shocked the industry. In 5 years, the operating vehicles of China Car Rental have reached 45,000, becoming the first in the industry; 7 years after its establishment, China Car Rental has been listed on the Hong Kong stock market. Luckin Coffee has created an amazing growth rate of "opening 2,000 stores a year, opening 4,910 stores in two years, and going public in the United States after 18 months of establishment".
However, with the explosion and delisting of Luckin Coffee, the Shenzhou system building collapsed, and Lu Zhengyao's "capital game" also failed.
However, Lu Zhengyao, who has tasted the "sweetness" of Luckin coffee, still chooses to plunge into the catering industry when he starts a business again, and as before, he closely chases the new "outlet" that continues to appear.
Therefore, when Fun Small Noodles was first founded, the industry had speculated whether Lu Zhengyao would imitate Luckin's rapid scale expansion model in new catering projects. But it is clear that Fun Xiaomian did not embark on rapid financing and crazy expansion like Luckin Coffee.
At present, no financing news has been exposed to the fun noodles and the tip of the tongue workshop, which seems to mean that Lu Zhengyao wants to continue the previous "burning money model" and it is difficult to get capital support.
"Luckin can get rapid development, whether it is offline intensive store opening or online customer acquisition, it is through the way of burning money to expand." After the financial data fraud incident of Luckin Coffee was exposed, Lu Zhengyao's subsequent entrepreneurship will also be greatly negatively affected. However, if the project financing is not smooth, it is difficult to continue the previous money-burning method. Wen Zhihong said.
In fact, after the opening of the shop, It did not fight a subsidy war like Luckin. In Lu Zhengyao's plan, the supply chain factory that the tip workshop is preparing to build also burns money, and the decoration cost of the catering store is generally higher than that of Luckin Coffee, and his new projects want to rely on the burning money to go on, and the difficulty is also higher.
Can Lu Zhengyao play with new food and beverage consumption? At least, the investment logic of noodle offline catering is also very different from the "Internet catering model" that Luckin Coffee relied on to start in that year.
Sun Wei said: "The core of the Luckin model is digital chain operation and the top-level design of big data. But in projects like Fun Face, this model is not appropriate. The products of catering are diverse, which is much more difficult than the standardization of coffee. To make pasta, you need to be steady and steady, do a good job of making a profit for a single store, and cannot be rigidly set up in the model of digital chain coffee. ”
The outlet of new consumption of catering rises and falls, and the changes are also extremely fast.
After the establishment of Fun Noodles, the popularity of "eating noodles" in the venture capital circle has made many people remember it vividly. From Wuye mixed noodles, meet small noodles, MaJi Yonglanzhou ramen, Chen Xianggui beef noodles, to drunken noodles, and Fulao noodles, the financing news about noodles, one after another.
But in fact, the powder noodle category is not the only track that capital bets on. From tea and coffee to skewers, roasted desserts, marinated flavors, and prepared dishes, the "taste" of capital is also changeable.
As a high-frequency consumption, it is not difficult to understand that catering continues to be favored by capital. However, the catering consumer market is changing rapidly, internet red shops are emerging one after another, new subdivisions are emerging in an endless stream, and after the end of the capital dividend period, it is not easy to run out in the fierce competition.
The "high mortality rate" of the catering industry also stems from its great difficulty in management and operation. Wen Zhihong said that traditional catering, especially catering projects involving dine-in, product diversity, operation need to consider both the production of products in the back kitchen, but also the service of the front office, but also involves the supply chain system, food safety and other aspects of the problem, than coffee, tea and other projects are much more complicated; so traditional catering to "run" up, it is not easy.
Because operational details are difficult to control, catering companies often face life and death tests in the process of expansion. In the view of Wu Zhiwei, CEO of Zhandao Capital, catering companies should provide services, improve operational efficiency, solve talent and management problems while providing products, in which funds can only solve half of the problems at most, and the rest need time to polish. "Pasta financing looks hot now, but many companies are still early to success, and these essential problems have not yet been solved." He stressed.
Lu Zhengyao, who is good at chasing the wind outlet, also needs to be careful to be trapped in the wind outlet.
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