Source: Wei Xiaodian official Weibo
Reporter | Li Huilin Editor| Jiang Yuyue
In 2017, Wei Qiang, 50, reluctantly retired from his position as vice president of Alibaba Group. At that time, years of unbalanced diet led him to 230 pounds, suffering from three highs (high blood lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure).
In order to improve his physical condition, he entered a health promotion agency in South Korea to regulate, and the diet was managed by a special dietitian, except for the intake of protein, oil, salt and other nutrients for three meals, which was accurately calculated in "grams", and every day was a normal diet.
After 100 days, with moderate exercise, Wei Qiang lost 54 pounds of weight, and the problem of three highs improved significantly.
In an exclusive interview with the "21CBR" reporter, Wei Qiang said that this special experience made him realize that "whether the meal is healthy and whether the camp is not nutritious mainly depends on whether the nutritional components are reasonable, and this is a problem with strong individual differences."
Wei Xiao rice founder Wei Qiang
From this, he smelled the business opportunity of "food nutrition information disclosure".
In further market arguments, Wei Qiang saw two major bases: First, the socialization of catering consumption is high, and more and more people eat outside.
Second, fast food and takeaway have a high penetration rate in urban populations, but there is a common pain point: not assured - food sources, production processes, oil, salt and sugar content are not assured, and nutritional components are not clear.
Wei Qiang, who has a long experience in Internet work, feels that starting from fast food, using digital technology to trace the source of food production process, disclose nutritional components, and serve the needs of consumers at different levels is a "stone-shattering" thing.
In March 2019, Wei Xiao Rice was born in Shenzhen, Wei Qiang and the main founding shareholders asked for 150 million yuan as the starting capital, built their own central kitchen, testing laboratory and cold chain system, and began to make "fully transparent" fast food.
At present, Weixiao Rice focuses on the two markets of Shenzhen and Guangzhou, with white-collar office workers and young people as the main customer groups, and as of the end of December 2021, the number of daily active users in Shenzhen has exceeded 20,000.
Tiantu Investment, which has always focused on investment in the consumption sector, also threw an olive branch, investing nearly 100 million yuan in WeiXiao rice in December 2021.
Users and capital double harvest, wei xiao rice did the right thing?
01
The icing on the cake, fast food comes with calories
Traditional fast food pays attention to "color and flavor". Fully transparent fast food, what does it look like?
Wei Qiang stressed that it must be delicious fast food. Without taste, it is difficult to attract mass users to place orders.
In order to make the dishes delicious, Wei Xiao Rice has set up a catering team composed of Michelin chefs and a central kitchen to develop dishes according to market demand.
"For example, the marketing department proposes to launch tamales, and the R&D center of the central kitchen must comprehensively consider the ingredients, cooking, taste and nutrition, and finally make qualified tamales." Wei Qiang said.
Compared with traditional fast food, Wei Xiao Rice pays more attention to cooking techniques, without affecting the taste, while achieving less oil and less salt.
In order to standardize quality and taste, 98% of the dishes are completed in the central kitchen, after which the nutritional ingredients are tested and labeled by the nutrition laboratory, and finally enter the sales shelf.
Wei Qiang called it "icing on the cake", and the "jin" based on it was a delicious fast food, and the data was the "flower".
The six essential nutrients: protein, carbs, fats, vitamins, minerals, and water. The first three produce heat, which needs to be balanced in both structure and quantity.
Through data technology, Wei Xiao Rice's Internet technology team discloses key information such as raw material sources, production information, and nutritional composition, focusing on nutritional components, including visualization of protein, carbs, fats, sodium (salt), dietary cellulose, and food diversity in trace elements.
Wei Qiang laughed and said that Wei Xiaodian is the company with "the most chefs in the Internet enterprises and the most yard farmers in the catering enterprises".
How is the data in the meal visualized to the consumer?
First of all, Wei Xiao Rice made an article on the lunch box, using white, green and red lunch boxes to distinguish between carbs, vegetables, and protein, each box was 80-100g.
Secondly, when ordering food online, each dish will be marked with detailed data such as calories, protein, carbs, fat, etc., such as 100g of roast potato chicken, which is marked with calories 150, protein 14.1g, fat 7.9g, and carb 5.5g. When users add or subtract dishes in the shopping cart, the total data changes dynamically.
Wei Qiang said that Wei Xiaodian disclosed food safety information in order to reassure users, and the value of nutritional content data to users depends on personal needs and the disposal of data. The most common and lightest demand is to meet the "right to know" of users.
Wei Xiao Di also provides the customization of "thousands of people and thousands of faces".
When entering personal body data, dietary needs, and related purposes such as fitness, maintaining body shape, and excluding sensitive foods, the algorithm will intelligently generate a diet plan, and the user can adjust it autonomously.
02
Online + offline, selling 20,000 copies a day
Conceptually, what Wei Xiao rice does is not new - the identification of nutrients has been realized in the consumption field such as processed foods; there are similar attempts to measure health with data, such as exercise measured by "steps", and beverages are made into 0 sugar, 0 fat and 0 calories.
Combining data technology with the nutritional content of catering food, Wei Xiao Rice is the first.
Why hasn't anyone tried in the past? One of the key reasons is that it is difficult to quantify the nutritional content of Chinese food.
Chinese food is mostly mixed dishes, with rich varieties of accessories and seasonings. "For example, mapo tofu, the variables of nutritional elements are mainly from 'mapo', and the data of different practices may be one or two times different." Wei Qiang gave an example.
The first wei xiao rice to eat crabs had no reference object in the early stage and also went through detours. For example, in the beginning, I made the mistake of putting the cart before the horse.
"In the early stage, too much energy was invested in the development of data value and insufficient attention in catering, which had a great impact on the consumer experience of C-end users." Wei Qiang said that in 2021, Wei Xiao rice spent nearly a year to adjust the structure, focusing on improving the consumption value (color and fragrance) of the dishes themselves and consolidating the "foundation".
When delivered, Wei Xiao Rice mainly combines online and offline.
Reach users online through the official WeChat Mini Program, Meituan, Ele.me and other platforms.
Offline, in the CBD office building, a small terminal station is built for users to pick up. Catering products are transported through the cold chain, and the disposal rate of terminal stations accounts for only about 2%, and it is heated and eaten.
Different from the traditional chain fast food restaurants, the terminal station carries more of a pick-up function, which is easier to replicate on a large scale and expand rapidly. So far, more than 60 terminal stations have been opened in Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
Due to the stable and delicious production, the popularity and reputation of Wei Xiao Rice have achieved fission growth.
"Different from the development curve of traditional catering, our user growth is not balanced growth, but after the formation of a basic user scale, under the Internet consumption and interaction scenarios, the communication efficiency between users accelerates and increases." Gao Haiyan, founding partner of WeiXiao Rice, mentioned.
At present, most of the users of Wei Xiao Rice are mass consumers, some of them pay attention to data, some pay attention to taste, and some users consume by feeling (I think that the information is transparent rice, there is data, the taste is good and quite fashionable). During the market launch period, strict "constituent parties" accounted for about 10%.
However, embracing new things requires market education, and users' consumption habits take time to change and adapt. On the online platform, some users have put forward opinions such as "small portions", "packaging is not environmentally friendly", and "lunch box color is not good".
Wei Xiaodian timely feedback, open the lunch box recycling service at the terminal station, and optimize product packaging and Mini Program ordering experience according to the preferences of young people.
Shenzhen, the base camp, is the best testing ground for Wei Xiaodian.
"Shenzhen has a high internet penetration rate and may also be one of the cities with the largest number of catering companies in the world, with as many as 280,000." Wei Qiang mentioned that if Wei Xiaodian's model can run through Shenzhen, it will be easier to copy it to other cities.
After two years of polishing, the penetration rate of Wei Xiao Rice in Shenzhen has increased, and it can currently sell more than 20,000 copies a day, and the single volume is close to KFC and McDonald's.
According to the plan, in 2022, Weixiao Rice will continue to expand the launch of Weishi small stations in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, and it is expected that the total number of stations in the two places will reach 500-600 in the short term.
03
Advance from 1 to 100 to discover more possibilities
Not surprisingly, by March, the average daily order of Weixiao Rice Shenzhen will exceed 30,000. At that time, the brand will usher in a key turning point.
Wei Qiang calculated an account: at this stage, the unit price of Wei Xiao Dike is about 33 yuan, and if the daily live activity reaches 30,000 person-times, the daily sales can reach about 1 million, which can basically achieve breakeven.
"2022 is very important, if we finalize our business in these three months, we will soon start capital operations of 1-100." Wei Qiang said that around May and June, Wei Xiaodian will open a new round of financing and enter the whole country, first focusing on the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and then expanding to other provinces and cities.
Standardized production based on the central kitchen can be standardized and localized when expanding abroad. "When we come to Shanghai, we can make Shanghainese cuisine, go to Hunan to make spicy dishes, and go to the northwest to make noodles." Wei Qiang said.
For longer-term strategic planning, Wei Xiaodian hopes to become a "health steward", extending in two directions:
The first is to infiltrate the B-end to provide customized fast food for special groups in schools, nursing homes, hospitals and other places, such as pregnant women and patients with chronic diseases, and expand the coverage of scenes and users.
The second is to take data as the core, expand services from fast food to beverages, snacks, vitamins, dietary supplements and other health fields, expand the scope of categories and services, and form a scale effect.
At present, the most important thing for Wei Xiaodian is to gather fast food, infiltrate the C-end, and improve product quality and consumer experience.
"In the next 5 years, all fast food will be visualized, and the source of food and nutrients will be visible. To some extent, data is expected to become the standard in the fast food industry. Wei Qiang has repeatedly said that in the future, there will be "no transparency and no fast food."
Wei Qiang gambled on the user's demand for complete information disclosure of meals. He believes that in the internet and digital age, this is just needed.
"Traditional catering enterprises can not get rid of the fate of the cycle, the key is that consumers do not have taste loyalty, taste preferences are easily covered by new changes, such as marketing methods, decoration environment, dish categories changes." Wei Qiang believes that the value of visualization is at the bottom, and once it affects the mind, it will promote the catering industry into a new generation.
The game is won or lost.
"After 3 years, (if the bet is wrong) maybe Wei Xiaodian will die, but if (the bet is won), Wei Xiaodian will definitely become a hugely influential commercial project." Wei Qiang was more looking forward to it, and he was confident that Wei Xiaodian would go to the latter ending.