The hot pot track reproduces the financing of hundreds of millions of yuan.
On January 17, Chongqing Hotpot Direct Brand "Pei Jie" announced the completion of a financing of 100 million yuan A, led by Zhengxin Valley Capital, followed by One Three Capital and Shanghai Linqi.
It is reported that this round of financing will be used for the expansion of offline stores, product research and development, brand building and the expansion of talent teams, helping Peijie to promote the most authentic Chongqing hot pot from a regional brand to the whole country.
In the past six months, a number of hot pot head brands have entered the "deep water period", and the popularity of catering investment seems to have declined. But as the number one category in China's huge catering market, the imagination of the hot pot track is far from over.
"Century-old shop" established for 8 years, "ancestor of net red hot pot restaurant" in Chongqing
Although the old hot pot was established less than 10 years ago, it actually has a history of 100 years.
According to the founder Yan Dongsheng, the old hot pot of Sister Pei was originally a hot pot restaurant opened by her grandmother "Sister Pei" in Chongqing in the early days of the Republic of China. In 2013, he took the ancestral recipe inherited from his grandmother and re-started a business, named "Sister Pei Old Hot pot".
After that, the old hot pot of Sister Pei continued to try the marketing of young and trendy, which made Sister Pei quickly "go out of the circle", known as the "ancestor of the net red hot pot shop" in Chongqing, and won the title of "Queuing King" in Shanghai, Shenzhen and other markets.
In the "Little Red Book" APP of the young people's grass planting position, there are thousands of articles about the old hot pot of Sister Pei; it has also done pop-up marketing with Buick; in addition, the old hot pot of Sister Pei has also chartered a train body on Chongqing's "Net Red" Track Line 2, and in 2018, the Spring Festival has wrapped up the pillar in Chongqing T3 Terminal, marked with the slogan of "Go home late, Sister Pei is waiting for you".
Brand marketing is one of the longboards of Peijie's old hot pot, but founder Yan Dongsheng knows that product strength is the core competitiveness.
All along, Peijie Old Hot Pot firmly regards "authentic Chongqing Hot Pot" as a brand positioning. In Yan Dongsheng's view, most Chongqing hot pot brands have now improved the hot pot, reducing hemp and spicy, and reducing the amount of oil, but it is no longer the real Chongqing hot pot.
Pei Jie insists on inheriting the taste essence of "Chongqing old hot pot culture", and the base material is carefully proportioned with pepper, pepper and butter, even if she goes out of Chongqing, she also insists on the same taste. At the same time, in order to let customers eat the same taste in any store, Pei Jie insists on airlifting signature shabu products such as mao belly and duck intestines from Chongqing on the same day to ensure that fresh and high-quality ingredients are supplied every day.
In addition to the strict control of ingredients, Pei Jie has made great efforts in invisible "internal skills" such as store management and talent training.
Yan Dongsheng has been a dicos franchisee and understands the importance of standardization and standardization for a catering brand. As early as 2017, Yan Dongsheng led the team to Shanghai to study the source full 5S system of catering enterprises, which is a set of management systems on store sorting, storage, standards, cleaning and cultivation. After that, Yan Dongsheng formulated a series of systems and built the front and back kitchens to a high standard.
Yan Dongsheng told The Investment China Network that after a long period of standardized frame polishing, the old hot pot of Pei Jie has evolved from a traditional restaurant-style kitchen to a first-class modern kitchen in the country, and the Hongya Cave store of the old hot pot of Pei Jie has also become the first 5S demonstration store in Chongqing.
The supply chain is also a part of the focus of the old hot pot of Sister Pei. Peijie has carried out an innovative and comprehensive upgrade of the supply chain - canceling the original central kitchen, changing it into a processing center, and carrying out unified production and processing of the base materials, red oil, seasonings, etc. required by the store, and then distributing it to franchised and directly operated branches throughout the country to ensure the unity of quality and taste of all stores from the source.
"Recycling" to join the firm direct operation, 5 years plan to open 500 stores
Yan Dongsheng, the founder of Peijie, has always believed that "slow is fast".
Since its establishment, the old hot pot of Pei Jie has maintained a "restrained" rhythm of opening a store. Narrow door dining eye data shows that even in the catering industry in 2019-2021, Pei Jie did not expand on a large scale, but steadily moved forward at an average pace of more than a dozen per year.
Up to now, Peijie Old Hotpot has a total of 62 stores across the country, covering 31 cities such as Chongqing Shanghai, Shenzhen, Kunming, Wuhan and so on, and has opened two foreign franchise stores in Sydney.
It is worth mentioning that at the end of 2019, Pei Jie decided to decisively stop joining, and take back most of the franchisee agency rights that were not operating well, cultivate internal strength, and improve the back end.
"From the perspective of short-term development, continuous joining can make the company grow rapidly, and from a long-term perspective, Peijie needs to achieve healthy and sustainable long-term growth, and needs to continue to promote the direct operation model." Yan Dongsheng said, "I hope that Sister Pei can become a long-term enterprise, rather than a company that seeks profits but does not go far." ”
In addition, Yan Dongsheng also started talent training in advance to prepare for the expansion of subsequent stores. As early as 2019, Sister Pei set up a talent training academy. The training content includes 28 courses such as corporate culture, duty system, management system, etc., which are divided into three types of beginner, intermediate and advanced learning according to different employees.
After more than 2 years of polishing, the talent reserve system of Sister Pei has been very perfect, and it is fully prepared for follow-up efforts.
Yan Dongsheng revealed to The Investment Network that in 2022, Peijie will go to the Pearl River Delta, take the lead in laying out Shenzhen, Guangzhou and other cities, and plan to open 25 to 30 directly operated stores. In the next 5 years, Peijie plans to grow directly operated stores to 500, and the number of users will increase by 10 million.
"As a hot pot brand that originated in Chongqing, we plan to be the first in Chongqing within two years, but this is not the end, our ultimate goal is to let the world eat authentic Chongqing hot pot." Yan Dongsheng told The Net.
The fondue track still has a story
Hot pot, one of the number one categories of Chinese catering.
The Red Food Brand Research Institute's "China Catering Category and Brand Development Report 2021" pointed out that hot pot is the number one category in China's catering, whether in terms of influence, revenue, or brand number and store scale. In 2019, the scale of the entire hot pot industry chain is about 535.1 billion yuan, and it is predicted that the market size of China's hot pot stores will exceed 800 billion yuan in 2023, and the market size of hot pot will be about 12.8% of the national catering scale.
Among the major hot pot sects, Sichuan-Chongqing hot pot has long occupied the position of "hot pot first flavor type" with a very aggressive and addictive spicy taste. However, in the subdivision of Chongqing hot pot, the situation of "having categories and no brands" is particularly serious.
Taking the Chongqing market as an example, the data shows that there are more than 30,000 registered hot pot restaurants in Chongqing, ranking first in the country, but there are very few head brands that can really be called names. Looking at the popular hot pot brands in the country, there are very few old hot pot brands originating from Chongqing.
The reason is that Yan Dongsheng believes that most merchants in the face of huge market dividends, the first to solve the problem of profitability of enterprises, in the absence of product research and development, the formation of a standard management system under the premise of letting go of the franchise to earn "fast money", brand development is too fast, back-end team building and system can not keep up, resulting in some franchise stores are not controlled, affecting product taste and brand, is the key to many Chongqing hot pot can not 'head'."
In the view of Li Qiang, an investor in Zhengxin Valley, although Sichuan-Chongqing hot pot has been welcomed in the country in recent years, a number of good enterprises have been born, but there are not many enterprises that develop with direct chain brands, this road is very hard, and it takes time and experience to continuously polish and iterate.
This is also the reason why Zhengxin Valley chose to invest in Peijie. "PeiJie has been established for 8 years, not only gaining a foothold in Chongqing, with excellent reputation and popularity, but also expanding to Shanghai, Shenzhen and other markets and gaining user recognition. The comprehensive conversion to direct operation in 19 years highlights the team's determination and long-term spirit," Li Qiang said. (Text/Cao Weiyu Wang Manhua, Source/Touzhong.com)