The big factory rushed to cast lemon tea, and this store will open 3,000 stores

Reporter | Wei Xianghui

Edit | Ya Han Xiang

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Following the investment from ByteDance last year, lemon tea brand "Lemon Season" has received investment from Tencent. Hunan Sanfa Catering Management Co., Ltd., the parent company of Lemon Season, has undergone a number of industrial and commercial changes, and the shareholders have added Guangxi Tencent Venture Capital Co., Ltd., with a shareholding ratio of 12%, and the registered capital of the enterprise has increased to about 2.8169 million yuan, an increase of more than 19%.

According to Lemon Season, this round of financing is used for national operation layout, IT system construction and supply chain optimization. In July 2021, Lemon Season has received tens of millions of yuan of ByteDance Series A financing, mainly for supply chain optimization. Chen Weijia, an investor in ByteDance, once said that the reason for choosing Lemon Season is that it is optimistic that the brand has the potential to run to the whole country. Lemon tea is popular in Guangdong, its taste is biased towards the local consumer group, and most brands are limited to the region.

Unlike most brands of lemon tea on the market that emphasize "beating", and the lemon season is "beaten", the tower clerk uses a tool shaped like a small spoon when making lemon tea, avoiding the lemon peel, squeezing hard in the center of the lemon, and then adding the tea base to make a drink. The taste is mainly sweet.

Compared to other tea brands with multiple SKUs, there are only 16 SKUs on the lemon season menu. However, the profitability of the single store of lemon season is very strong, and the brand manager Fu Fu revealed that in the first half of 2021, the average monthly sales volume of lemon season stores was 230,000, with an average daily sales of 520 cups, and the overall gross profit of the store end reached 65%.

Lemon season traditional hand-beaten lemon tea (Image source: brand official website)

In half a year, more than 150 stores were opened in Changsha, the base camp, so it is easy to think of tea in the route of rapid expansion in the same city. Fu Fu once explained in an interview: "You may see three or four tea houses at the same intersection, but you will rarely see three or four lemon seasons. We prefer to continue to extend the layout space and pay attention to the balance in various regions. ”

At present, more than 40% of lemon tea brands in the market concentrate their stores in second- and third-tier cities, and first-tier cities account for only 20.31%. The lemon season is also focused on the sinking market route, entering cities below the new first line and above the county level. Outside Changsha, Lemon Season's stores in Hunan have opened in Yiyang, Zhuzhou and other places. According to The Season's goal, 3,000 stores will be opened in Central and East China by 2023.

Behind the acceleration of store expansion is related to the low barriers of lemon tea itself, so store speed has become the key to competition.

In 2021, the lemon tea circuit ushered in a big explosion. The Red Food Brand Research Institute estimates that by the end of 2021, the number of lemon tea specialty stores in China is expected to exceed 6,000. That's nearly double what it was in 2020. For example, the number of lemon tea judging LINLEE stores in the early days has also exceeded 500. The expansion of the lemon season is a combination of direct sales and franchises, and the ratio of direct stores to franchise stores is 1:9.

In addition, the stability of the supply chain is also crucial. As an essential ingredient for lemon tea, the importance of its stable supply is unquestionable. However, the current lemon planting and supply system is not perfect, frost, spring cold and other weather will affect the yield and quality of lemon fruit, which will greatly restrict the development of lemon tea brand. At the beginning of 2021, the receipt price of perfume lemon at the beginning of this year rose from the original 3-4 yuan per kilogram to 15-17 yuan per kilogram, an increase of 400%. After Getting Financing Twice, Lemon Season mentioned the problem of supply chain construction, and competing for the right to speak in the supply chain has also become one of the key points of the development of lemon tea brands.