Today (January 17th), in Chongqing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, the direct brand of "Queuing King" in Chongqing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, Peijie Chongqing Hot pot completed a financing of 100 million yuan, led by Zhengxin Valley Capital, followed by Yisan Capital and Shanghai Linqi, and Taihe Capital served as the exclusive financial adviser.
This round of financing will be used for the expansion of offline stores, product research and development, brand building and talent team expansion, helping Sister Chongqing hot pot to promote the most authentic Chongqing hot pot from a regional brand to the whole country.
Based on the strategic layout of "becoming the first brand directly operated by Chongqing hot pot", it actually comes from the founder Yan Dongsheng's understanding and insight into industry feedback and user needs.
In the first decade of the 21st century, Chongqing hot pot rapidly expanded to all parts of the country in the form of franchises, but due to the uneven ability of franchise stores in taste control and the acceleration of the brand aging cycle, the number of new franchise stores was less than the number of closed stores. This lesson, "Sister Pei" also experienced.
After letting go of the franchise, Yan Dongsheng found that no matter how perfect the early construction was, the franchise store could not fully synchronize with the headquarters in the later operation. Due to the poor word-of-mouth feedback of franchise stores, which has affected the cognition of the brand of "PeiJie" throughout the country, Yan Dongsheng "took back" eight franchise stores at the end of 2019, and closed the franchise channel and fully invested in the direct operation model.
In his view, it is not only the environment and service that can support the catering brand, but also the most primitive and profound pursuit of food by consumers, and taste is the source of supporting the development of catering. How to ensure the taste, direct operation is an important condition for realizing the taste of Chongqing hot pot without distortion.
Yan Dongsheng, founder of Chongqing Hotpot, said: "This financing hopes to get post-investment empowerment from investors in terms of company management, business model, strategic direction, etc., to help us expand new stores and open up cities, and also to establish new taste standards for Chongqing hotpot." 'Pei Jie' has focused on the innovation and improvement of the bottom of the pot for many years, strives to find better spices and herbs, researches more advanced production processes, and adheres to the authentic traditional taste, I believe that only the ultimate product strength can gain long-term recognition and love from customers. ”
Gu Zhe, managing director of Zhengxin Valley, said: "Hot pot has always been the most loved food and beverage track for the whole people, but it will also be considered as a catering track with the most inner volume and the Red Sea, with hundreds of thousands of stores across the country, and various brands have emerged endlessly over the years. With the changes in user consumption behavior, the improvement of operation management brought about by the Internet, the improvement of supply chain, the improvement of talent structure, and the change of consumption scenarios, these factors have provided determined practitioners with different scenes and environments from ten years ago. The era of china's offline consumption chaining, branding and quality has just begun, and the hot pot track has just entered the era of 3.0, that is, the era of productism. The reason why 'Sister Pei' was chosen is precisely based on the fact that her genes are true productism and long-termism. ”
Lu Ruihao, an investor in Shanghai Linqi, said: "We are optimistic about the future development prospects of the hot pot industry, trust the super operation ability of the Chongqing hot pot team, and also recognize the product capabilities of 'Pei Jie', and invest in 'Pei Jie' to help 'Pei Jie' achieve the goal of Chongqing hot pot to the world." ”
Guan Lingzi, vice president of Taihe Capital, said: "Hot pot is not only a high-quality track with both scale and profitability in the catering field, but also one of the most competitive tracks, and differentiated positioning, high-quality control and strong brand grass cultivation can be described as the three difficulties of hot pot competition. And 'Sister Pei', in Chongqing, where the competition for hot pot is the most fierce, stands out with taste, and rapidly expands its reputation in southeast China, where catering consumption is the most picky, and is inseparable from its triple adherence: one is to take the product as the core, and continue to innovate in the bottom of the pot and ingredients; the second is high-precision operation, adhere to direct management and control, and create an excellent store model; the third is long-term branding, forming a symbol of Chongqing's food culture. And these are, in the final analysis, the persistence of the founding team's long-term doctrine and the determination to iterate on itself. People are the most important competitive factor in the field of catering, we believe that the Chongqing hot pot team of Sister Pei, sinking down, rushing out, can work hard in the hot pot field for a long time and grow rapidly. ”
Upstream journalist Liu Yong