Image source @ Visual China
Text | CBNData Consumer Station, author | Xiaosha Zhang, Editor | Xiong Yi, data support | Bailian intelligent, ene cattle data, design support | Chen Weida, Hu Huilun
Brine is a national category that has a long history in Chinese food. With its delicious and addictive taste, and rich regional flavors, brine stores have blossomed all over the country. Nowadays, the halogen track has run out of the listed "big three" absolute taste, Zhou Black Duck, Huang Shanghuang, and ziyan baiwei chicken is also in 2021 to impact the fourth share of halogen. From the perspective of store scale, brine is also a category with the gene of "ten thousand stores", and the taste has quietly opened more than 10,000 stores, and the number of stores of Ziyan Baiwei Chicken has exceeded 5,000.
With the popularization of lock fresh packaging and cold chain technology, as well as the emergence of more and more Internet brine snack brands, the scale of online brine consumption has been increasing in recent years. However, offline is still the most important channel for brine consumption, accounting for more than 60% of the market share.
In 2021, the offline brine market continues to be new. High-profile entry into shopping malls, the opening of the national tide stores, the new halogen brand at a very fast pace of enclosure expansion, trying to rewrite the competitive pattern of the halogen market. Not to be outdone, old brands are actively facing the battle through brand image renewal and product iteration.
CBNData's "2021 Offline Consumer Market Annual Observation" data also shows that the most optimistic catering industry in the offline consumption format, fast food and snacks and other "small shop" formats especially play a leading role, driving the industry to continue to revitalize. Among them, with its outstanding capital heat, a larger store scale, and a lower store closure ratio, Halogen has become the most dynamic track in the "small shop" format.
Is the "old drama and new work" of the halogen track leading the real trend, or is it just a flash in the pan? CBNData's "2021 Annual Observation of the Offline Consumer Market" will take a deep divergence of this.
With staple desserts and dine-in options, this new type of brine is popular in 2021
Speaking of the purchase scene of brine, many people will think of three or two mixed pig ears from the vegetable market and the entrance of the community, or a box of brine duck necks bought at the subway station on the way to work. However, the brine flavor that is highly sought after by capital and consumers in 2021 is neither a meal to accompany the meal nor a relief for leisure. Most of them open their stores in shopping mall stalls, chicken feet, wing tips and other colorful ingredients are boiled hot in the brine, and the store usually sells noodles and brown sugar ice powder, which consumers can eat while walking around in their hands or sitting in the store.
Yan Halo Tang store real scene: hot brine fresh, there is a dine-in area| Picture source: Yan Halo Tang brand official
In the traditional industry classification, the brine flavor is divided into two categories according to the different consumption scenarios. Among them, the combination of food brine occupies more than 60% of the market share. But the popular new brine seems to be somewhere in between. In order to more clearly explore the latest pattern of the brine industry, CBNData integrates product characteristics, consumption scenarios, supply chain characteristics and other dimensions, and divides brine into three categories: casual brine, meal brine and new hot brine.
According to this classification, the "three giants of brine taste", Zhou Black Duck and Huang Shanghuang, which are at the head of the industry, all belong to the category of leisure brine; Ziyan Baiwei chicken and Liufu duck are classified as the ranks of the food brine; in the new hot brine team, most of them are new brands established in recent years.
Throughout 2021, the food brine brand Ziyan Baiwei Chicken sprinted to the market; among the brine brands that received financing during the year, the food brine and the new hot brine are the most favored types of capital, and some brands take the "composite" route. In the past, the situation dominated by the "Big Three" dominated by casual brine flavor occupying the head of the industry may be broken. The competitive focus of the brine track may have shifted from casual snacks to family meals or even hot brine fast food.
From casual brine and meal brine to new hot brine, the continuous enrichment of brine types and the shift of mainstream brine types have a "return" meaning at the product level.
The "Big Three" of casual brine taste started out as a farmer's market couple shop that was sold freshly. Later, due to the need for chain expansion, the brands began to adopt central factory production, and with the help of cold chain logistics, the tentacles extended as far as possible, and gradually developed into a national brine brand. At the same time, brands are also actively developing vacuum-loaded brine-flavored snacks to achieve a race in the online market. The expansion path of the casual brine brand is reflected in the evolution from fresh brine to cold brine at the product level.
Due to its bias towards household consumption, the flexibility of freshness and freshly prepared flavors is correspondingly higher. Because of this, the regionality of the food brine brand is stronger, and the brand expansion is weaker than that of casual brine. The market concentration of the food brine track (CR3=2.84%) is far lower than that of the casual brine track (CR3=9.57%), and the branding and chaining of the track need to be promoted. At the product level, the flavor of the meal is also based on cold brine, retaining certain freshly made and mixed properties.
The development of the hottest new type of hot brine, the brine market officially completed the "return" to hot brine fresh brine. The new hot halogen emphasizes on-site production, hot brine hot eating, and emphasizes a "fresh" word at the product level.
Fresh brine has also increasingly become a "general knowledge" of brine brands. In recent years, it has actively laid out fresh brine and directly demonstrated the brine production process in stores. The same is true of the new brands of brine, most of the products are hot brine cooked food, freshly steamed hot dishes, and cooked steaming on the brine table.
Most of the brine flavors of the accompanying brine brand are hot brine | Picture source: Moose new consumption
The "return" of halogen to the hot halogen at the product level is a cater to the upgrading of consumer demand, which also means that the hot halogen has matured in supply chain management and product standardization. The completion of the supply chain foundation has helped the radical expansion of the new hot halogen brand. Taking Yan Halo Tang as an example, in 2021, the number of Yan Halo Tang stores will increase by nearly 2 times, and the coverage of 16 provinces and 52 cities will be completed in terms of geographical expansion. Established in 2019 and 2020, the hot halogen food light and halogen tiger will achieve 4 times the growth of stores in 2021.
When the brine store opens into the mall, the "scene" competition of the brine industry is upgraded
In terms of store layout, the halogen brand will also change the "grounded gas" painting style of vegetable markets and subway stations in 2021, and vigorously enter high-line cities, laying out popular business districts and high-end communities.
Bailian intelligent data shows that in 2021, the halogen stores show a significant "upward shift" in the urban distribution - compared with the overall store layout of the brine industry, the proportion of new stores in high-tier cities during the year has increased significantly. Specific to the geographical location of the store, the layout ratio of the new brine stores in high-end communities and high-end business circles in 2021 is also higher than that of the brine industry as a whole.
The phenomenon of "upgrading" the location of halogen stores is mainly driven by new hot halogen brands. According to CBNData statistics, more than 60% of the new brine brands that will receive financing in 2021 are distributed in first-tier and new first-tier cities, which is about 35 percentage points higher than the overall brine industry; the proportion of stores distributed in high-end business circles and high-end communities is 4 times and 20 percentage points higher than that of the halogen industry as a whole.
In order to cooperate with the upgrade of the site selection, the decoration design of the brine shop has also "evolved" accordingly. The national tide of popularity in the new consumption circle is also spreading in the halogen circle. From store decoration to product packaging, the yanhaotang is a strong national tide; Sheng Xiang Ting even opened a joint pop-up store with the national tide brand BURN, becoming an Internet celebrity punching point in Changsha during the National Day in 2021.
Left: Yan Halo Tang store; right: Sheng Xiang Ting Guochao joint pop-up store | Picture source: Network
In addition to the new brands, the street-side brine brands that used to have a "simple" style of painting have also begun to "makeovers". Henan local brine brand nine meaty, a change in the style of modesty, in zhengzhou young people gathered in the popular business district to open the first young experience store, hired a well-known design firm to upgrade the store, but also introduced the brand IP nine wangye. In May 2021, the first store of the model "Xiaohuangdian" upgraded by ZhouHeiduck also opened its doors at the Riyueguang Shopping Center in Shanghai's Huangpu District. The store design adopts the pop style that young people like, and the brand's anthropomorphic LOGO is prominently displayed.
Left: Nine succulents after the upgraded product packaging and IP image | Image source: Zhengzhou TV Daily Food Column
Right: Zhou Black Duck "Xiaohuangdian" first store | Image source: Tourism and food
More "high-end" locations and more fashionable store designs mean higher costs of opening stores. Taking the opening of a store in Huangpu District, Shanghai as an example, the house price around the business district has approached 100,000 yuan / ㎡. Limited by the characteristics of the category, the unit price of the new hot halogen brand has not been greatly increased by the rise of the "body value".
Therefore, opening up customer groups, increasing consumption frequency, and opening up brine consumption scenarios have become the focus of brine new brands to balance costs, and are also necessary countermeasures for old brands to cope with competition.
Working on the product side is a path. As mentioned earlier, new hot brine brands often add SKUs such as flour staples and ice powder to the menu design. In terms of brine flavor, in addition to the classic brine chicken feet, brine duck wings, etc., a lot of new ingredients to cater to the tastes of young people have also been added. For example, the menu of Sheng Xiang Ting has a one-meter-long shrimp slip, and the beef in the marinade also emphasizes the use of Angus beef; the hot brine light menu also has non-traditional brine ingredients such as Zhixin tofu, lobster tail, and flower branch shrimp slip. Order a bowl of brine noodles, order a brine chicken feet brine wing tip, and then a piece of ice powder as a dessert, consumers can also easily solve a meal in the brine shop. The family consumption scene of the brine flavor has been moved into the shopping mall by the new hot halogen brand.
After opening the store into the mall, Jiuduo Meat also launched a lock fresh product in addition to the brine flavor of the bulk weighing, and laid out the casual brine. Purple Swallow Baiwei Chicken, which is mainly accompanied by a brine flavor, also sells casual brine flavors such as cumin collarbone and tiger skin claw, and launches a portable and easy-to-preserve air tone lock fresh clothing in addition to the scattered name, providing a possibility for expanding the consumption scene.
In addition to adding size to the main brand products, the halogen head brand with certain strength also adopts the form of layout sub-brands and foreign investment to achieve comprehensive coverage of the complementary meal brine, leisure brine and new hot brine, and seize as many brine consumption scenarios as possible.
The most "arrogant" is the tasteless food. Starting from Hunan Absolute Taste, it has invested in Sichuan Liao Ji Stick Chicken, Wuhan Jingwu Duck Neck Brand "My Hungry Duck Neck", Changsha Yanjia Spicy Sauce Duck, Fuzhou Dancing Claw, and Jiangsu Aman Baixiang Chicken, etc., which have been widely rolled out in various product lines and geographical layouts of Halogen. Ziyan Food and Wuxiangju rely on their own brine supply chain advantages to develop sub-brands, and expand their main business from food brine to leisure brine and new hot brine.
In addition to expanding and upgrading on the product side, the halogen brand has also moved the brine consumption to a broader platform through multi-channel layout.
The first is takeaway. While actively expanding stores, the new hot brine brand has also launched a takeaway platform at the same time, and brine noodles with brine flavor have become the lunch option of many office workers. The food-accompanied brine brand will also launch a rice set that is not sold in the store on the takeaway platform, and compete with the dinner and fast food brands on the same stage during the dinner period.
Ziyan Baiwei Chicken (left) Laojie Laowei (right) sells rice set on the takeaway platform| Image source: Hungry
Most of the food and leisure brine brands regard the fresh platform as an important shipping channel. As a result, the competition for brine flavors on fresh platforms has become extremely fierce. Taking Dingdong in Shanghai as an example, the number of brine cooked food brands on the platform (only for brands that provide fresh short-term brine flavor) is as high as nearly ten, in addition to Zhou Black Duck, Ziyan Baiwei Chicken, Jiujiu Ya, Liufu Duck, Shanlin Dahong, West District Laofang, Laojie Laowei, Huang Shanghuang and other settled brands, Dingdong also pushes its own brand Cai Changqing and its sub-brand hot brine to join the halogen battle.
Image source: Dingdong grocery shopping
In addition to takeaway and fresh e-commerce with a limited sales radius, halogen brands also use the increasingly developed cold chain logistics and upgraded locking technology to roll out short-term halogen sales on e-commerce platforms with a wider radiation range, and halogen stores assume part of the front warehouse function. At present, the head brands such as the "Big Three" and Ziyan Baiwei Chicken have been sold on the e-commerce platform to lock fresh short-term insurance products. Relatively young brine brands, such as Claw Claw and Wuxiangju's Hello Duck, have also joined in. In the future, the e-commerce platform may become another hot battlefield for the sale of fresh brine products.
Whether it is site selection and upgrading, product innovation, or channel expansion, it reflects the competitive focus of today's brine industry - the preemption of as many "scenes" as possible. The new hot halogen, which can be dine-in and younger, can be regarded as a "new species" of brine that tries to get out of the family and out of leisure under this round of "scene" competition. With the strong boost of capital and the increasing perfection of the supply chain foundation, the "new species" have aggressively expanded their stores and high-profile marketing, placing brand building in a prominent position. Its innovation in site selection, products and channels has also provided new inspiration for casual brine and food brine brands. In the future, with the further enrichment of consumption scenarios, the national brine market with a scale of more than 300 billion yuan may escalate again.