Text | Red Meal Net
Key takeaways:
1. The past and present lives of the spicy hot category, and the relationship with northeasterners.
2. Why has spicy hot formed a "duopoly" competitive pattern?
3. What development bottlenecks have been encountered in the spicy hot product category?
4. What are the breakthrough points for entrepreneurs in this field?
It was cold, and a bowl of spicy and spicy spicy hot, immediately sweating, the taste was a word "cool". Relevant data show that in October, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Changsha, Wuhan, Nanjing and other places, spicy hot and spicy hot have occupied the forefront of the food consumption hot list.
However, the observation Jun found that in addition to the two gods from Harbin, Yang Guofu and Zhang Liang, the two gods of spicy hot fields, the stores exceeded 5,000+, and there was no other brand with more than 1,000 stores.
Why is it that the spicy hot that originated in Sichuan is ruled by the northeast people? Originally inconspicuous, the roadside stall category of one or two yuan per capita, how to breed a chain of cattle with an annual income of billions? Why is it difficult for brand rookies to break through in addition to Yang Guofu and Zhang Liang? What is the future trend of the spicy hot product?
In this article, we will analyze the spicy hot river in depth.
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Overview of spicy hot products: Originated in Sichuan, but was carried forward by northeasterners
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Spicy hot, as the name suggests, is a spicy flavor type, a special snack with hot as a cooking method, which originated in Niuhua Town, Leshan City, Sichuan Province, on the shore of the MinJiang River, and was originally created by boatmen and porters. In addition to pulling fibers, they built stones by the river, propped up crock pots, took local materials, put in sea peppercorns and peppercorns and other spices, and ate them, so that they could not only eat the stomach but also drive away the cold and dampness.
Because it was easy to do, this way of eating soon spread by the river. The peddlers on the dock saw the business opportunities, so they transformed the dishes and stoves, placed them on both ends of the pick, and shouted while walking, and the people who sold labor by the river and the bridge became regular customers of the pick-and-carry vendors. Later, the spicy hot was gradually brought from the river to the shore.
In the early days, the authentic spicy scalding was to string meat and vegetables on bamboo skewers, put them into the boiling red soup and cook them, and when eating, the ingredients were brought down from the bamboo skewers and put into the bowl, and now the spicy scalding has omitted this step, and the store directly blanched the ingredients selected by the diners and put them on the table in a bowl.
Here we have to popularize the difference between spicy hot, skewers, impostors, hot pots, in fact, they belong to the same family, spicy hot is the predecessor of skewers, impostors, skewers and hot pot are twin brothers, impostors are a one-person food version of hot pot, their relationship can be described as cut and messy.
According to the online information, the observer Jun sorted out the distinguishing charts of spicy hot pot, hot pot, impounding vegetables, etc., and this picture distinguished them from whether to bring soup, whether to bring a stick, and cooking method.
It can be seen from this picture that if it is not a person who is well versed in Sichuan-Chongqing cuisine, the average person may not be able to distinguish their differences. This is also the breadth and depth of Chinese cuisine, and each subdivision has its own fans and its own living soil.
Back to the spicy hot product, it has also experienced a relatively long period of development.
1. 2015-2017 is the peak of the category, and 2020 has entered a stable period
Like the development of many other specialty snacks, the development of the traditional spicy hot market has also experienced the process of operating from the stall to the stall to the storefront. After observing Jun's analysis, it was found that the evolutionary process of spicy hot is centered on the market and constantly evolved under the diversified needs of consumers.
With the improvement of people's living standards, the stall spicy scalding because of its simple process, dish varieties and tastes, poor dining environment, can only eat vegetables can not taste soup, and even food safety has become a problem, gradually, these stall spicy hot operators are gradually replaced by the courage to change the operator, correspondingly, a number of good environment, rich taste, service in place of the new spicy hot shop came into being.
In addition, the form of spicy and hot products has also undergone several changes, such as the bottom of the pot from red soup to bone broth, the large pot stew to the small pot cooking, and the sale of skewers to self-selected jin. At the same time, the categories are becoming more and more subdivided, and there are bowls of spicy hot pots, casseroles spicy hot, hot pot spicy hot, skewers spicy hot, spicy mix, spicy hot noodles, etc.
Looking at the development process of the entire spicy hot industry, The Observer Jun found that since 2008, the spicy hot category has entered the stage of brand competition. 2015-2017 these three years is the category outbreak period, from the Baidu search index trend can be clearly seen, with the head brand rapidly running the horse, the market concentration is getting higher and higher, the spicy hot category scale trend is also getting stronger and stronger.
△ Data source: Baidu Index
According to enterprise investigation data, as of October 2021, there were 174,000 spicy hot-related enterprises (in existence) nationwide, and the number of new enterprise registrations this year was 29,000, which was significantly slower than in previous years. As can be seen from the following chart, from 2018 to 2019, the number of registrations of spicy hot related enterprises exceeded 40,000 for two consecutive years, and the annual registration volume increased by 7 times in ten years. 2020 began to enter a stable period, and the heat of the entire category began to gradually cool down.
At the same time, the "China Catering Category and Brand Development Report 2021" data shows that 60% of the spicy hot brands that are still in business in 2020 were founded in the past decade, of which the five years from 2014 to 2018 accounted for the largest proportion, reaching 39.8% of the total, and 11.3% in 2015 reached the peak.
After 2018, the number of spicy hot new brands began to decline significantly, and in 2020, it fell to 0.3%, the lowest in the past decade. The entrepreneurial enthusiasm in the spicy hot market is slightly sluggish, and there are fewer and fewer new brands.
However, it can never be denied that the once spicy hot is popular, and its driving force behind it is not Sichuan-Chongqing people, but a group of northeasterners.
2, behind the prosperity of the spicy hot product, the northeast people are behind the scenes
Although it is an authentic Sichuan flavor, it is rumored in the rivers and lakes that the northeast people rule the spicy and hot rivers and lakes, in fact, there is still some truth in this.
At that time, spicy scalding began to spread from the Sichuan-Chongqing region to all parts of the country, of course, the northeast is no exception, but the taste is still spicy flavor, in fact, it is not suitable for people in the northeast who can not eat spicy, and later the northeast people transformed the spicy hot taste into a more universal. This is the fundamental reason why spicy scalding can survive in the northeast.
Bone broth is incorporated to replace the red broth, reduce the spiciness and greasiness, and also add the soul sauce that northerners love, and the heat brought by the sesame sauce is very suitable for replenishing energy in the cold north. In this way, spicy scalding became popular in the northeast.
Yang Guofu was the first person to eat crab, he integrated beef bone broth into the bottom of the pot, and also added full milk powder and rock sugar, and finally concocted a milky white, salty and sweet soup, so that spicy hot can not only eat, but also drink soup, completely subverting the Sichuan style spicy hot.
Secondly, the rise of categories has a great relationship with the background of the era in Northeast China at that time. Spicy hot, like rice noodles and Shaxian snacks, was born in the 90s, when a large number of workers in the northeast were laid off and unemployed, went to the streets, and eventually chose catering projects with relatively low technical and financial thresholds to re-employment. The spicy hot category is simple to operate, the price is cheap, and it is suitable for the cold north, so the spicy hot is naturally the first choice for many northeastern people to start a business.
△ Zhang Liang spicy hot store, red food brand research institute photo.
In addition, the help of industrial clusters has made spicy scalding go to the whole country. Industrial clusters refer to groups of enterprises, specialized suppliers, service providers, financial institutions, manufacturers of related industries and other relevant institutions in a specific region, which have competition and cooperative relations, and are geographically concentrated.
For example, 85% of the country's printing shops are from Hunan Xinhua, 80% of the domestic private hospitals are Putian department, more than 90% of the country's chicken pot shop owners are Putian people, and the buns, soup buns into a national chain, are anhui Anqing Huaining County people.
Most of the people who opened the spicy hot into a large chain came from Bin County, a population of less than 580,000 in Harbin. In addition to Yang Guofu and Zhang Liang, there are also brands such as Yiyue Spicy Hot, Ma Yutao Spicy Hot, Hongxingyuan Spicy Hot, etc., and it is said that these spicy hot chain brands are more or less related to Yang Guofu.
With the help of these three driving forces, spicy hot is popular in the northeast, and spicy hot shops are opening more and more. Subsequently, the northeast people opened spicy hot shops to the whole country, and Yang Guofu and Zhang Liang were the two strongest head brands in the category.
Spicy hot market pattern: the duopoly competition pattern has become a reality, and the Matthew effect is obvious
How strong are Yang Guofu and Zhang Liang? As of October 2021, Yang Guofu stores have 5800+ stores and Zhang Liang 5400+, adding up to 11,000+, almost all over the streets and alleys of various cities. The total number of stores has surpassed that of the chain giant KFC, which has been in the domestic market for 33 years, and the number of stores in a single brand is more than that of McDonald's.
In addition to them, there is no brand store with more than a thousand. Observation Jun sorted out a list of the top 20 brands in the number of spicy hot stores in the country, as shown in the following figure, from which we can clearly spy the market pattern of spicy hot rivers and lakes.
There is no doubt that "Yang Zhang" occupies the absolute advantage of the spicy hot category and forms a pattern of double male competition. There is also such a fact behind the high concentration of brand stores: the scale of the spicy hot market has exceeded 100 billion, but the chain rate is not high. According to the "China Catering Category and Brand Development Report 2021", in 2020, the number of brands with 5-49 stores accounted for 55.4%, while the proportion of brands with more than 500 stores accounted for only 6.9%.
It can be seen that the Matthew effect of the spicy hot market is obvious, and the market pattern has been determined, basically showing three camps:
The first is the big-name stores of Yang Guofu and Zhang Liang, accounting for about one-thirtieth of the total number of stores in the country; the second is other brand chain stores in addition to "Yang Zhang", and the scale is obviously different from "Yang Zhang"; the third is a large number of small and scattered husband and wife stores and small entrepreneurial stores, accounting for almost half of the market.
From the perspective of the distribution area of stores and new brands, the spicy hot market pattern has the following two characteristics:
1. The northeast has given birth to the most spicy hot brands, and the number of stores accounts for 30% of the country
From a nationwide perspective, the northeast region is the region with the largest number of spicy hot enterprises and stores. According to enterprise investigation data, there are currently 310,000 spicy hot-related enterprises in China, and the total number of related enterprises in the three eastern provinces accounts for 29% of the country, of which Jilin and Heilongjiang rank in the top two in the country with 36,500 and 36,800 respectively.
From the above top 20 list, it can also be seen that in the origin column, Harbin has the highest frequency, Yang Guofu and Zhang Liang needless to say, as well as Sichuan Tian pepper spicy hot from Changchun, Jilin Province, Ma Yutao spicy hot from Heilongjiang, and Tanghuo Kung Fu spicy hot from Harbin, Xiuhaifu spicy hot, Xinlongfu spicy hot and so on.
In addition to the three northeastern provinces, the growth of spicy scalding in Inner Mongolia is also unexpected. Last year (as of August 11, 2020), the number of related enterprises was 0.8 million, and this year it rushed to 22,300, which is equivalent to adding 14,300 spicy hot related enterprises in one year, with a growth rate of 178%. Last year, it did not appear on the top 10 list of regional distribution, and this year it suddenly ranked among the top three. At the same time, Anhui fell out of the top ten with 12,000 households.
2, brand rookies are difficult to break through, and the gap between the head and the head is obvious
In recent years, many new spicy hot chain brands have been born, not all of which are founded in the northeast, but they have also achieved considerable results in the use of differentiated positioning.
The most powerful is Shanghai Mijie Spicy Hot, established in 2017, more than 3 years, with the number of stores 700+ in the scale of the scale of the spicy hot category of the third; and Shanghai's small wild pepper spicy hot, focusing on the takeaway field, has won tomato capital, no fund, QiFu capital and other rounds of financing, becoming the first shanghai spicy hot O2O brand. According to the data of the Red Food Brand Research Institute, its takeaway single store has a monthly sales of up to 3200+, and Yang Guofu and Zhang Liang are only about 1800 orders.
Xiaogu sister's innovative positioning of spicy mix has also become a hit, and the store has developed rapidly, with only 300+ stores at the end of last year, and now it has grown to 500+.
Behind there are also a number of rising stars, Wang Guiren of Jiangsu, focusing on the subdivision of the casserole spicy hot, but also become a "party prince", in Jiangsu, Anhui to do a good job. In addition, there are Ji Apo spicy hot in Hangzhou, Xu Ji love spicy hot in Wuhan, Chunlin spicy hot in Chongqing, and dear spicy hot in Xiamen. However, the gap between these brand rookies and Yang Guofu and Zhang Liang is still very large.
Pain points of the spicy hot market: the bottleneck of category development, the supply chain is restricted, and the failure rate is high
How did the spicy hot category form a "duopoly" market pattern? Why is it difficult for new brands to break through? There are both historical reasons and the shackles of the category itself. However, in the eyes of many industry insiders, the spicy hot is put on the big category of snack fast food, especially against the standard flour noodles, etc., the scale of the spicy hot track is far from reaching the ceiling.
First, the Matthew effect.
The head brand seizes the opportunity in the outlet period, holding high-quality resources, supply chain, brand recognition and other aspects of the absolute advantage, the strong Hengqiang, the waist below the brand is difficult to break through. Especially small and micro stores that lack brand awareness, it is more difficult to survive under the wave of consumption upgrades.
Secondly, the difficulty of supply chain restrictions on the development of categories.
Spicy hot looks at the low threshold, anyone can do it, in fact, the follow-up operation is difficult, the requirements and challenges of the supply chain are many. Although similar to the supply chain of hot pot, the specific operation is still very different, such as sku is much more than hot pot, with an average of up to 120 kinds, it is difficult to form a quality chain.
At present, the supply chain of the spicy hot blanch industry can be standardized mainly in soup, base and sauce. Frozen goods, with a limited unit price and it is difficult to support high logistics costs, especially when the brand scale is small, it is more difficult to achieve. Therefore, the quality of frozen products is uncontrollable, and this phenomenon is particularly common in franchised brands. At the same time, dry goods, fresh vegetables, and due to local eating habits and seasonal differences, usually franchisees are purchased locally, product stability is difficult to guarantee.
In order to achieve national "unification", Yang Guofu spent 400 million yuan in 2018 to establish his own supply chain factory in Chengdu, which can meet the demand for seasonings in at least 12,000 franchised stores. But it was built on the condition that it already had thousands of stores and reached the corresponding size. For other small and fragmented brands, the supply chain sector often becomes the biggest difficulty.
Third, it is difficult to break through the low unit price of customers.
The category gene of spicy hot is rich in ingredients, delicious and affordable, because it is difficult to take the high-end route from the street stalls, and it is difficult to really break through the unit price of customers. As shown in the figure below, The Observer jun sorted out the per capita consumer price of the spicy hot representative brand across the country, which is basically between 19 and 25 yuan, which shows that 25 yuan is a big mark.
Low customer unit price means that the profit is also low, and the development of the category is bound to be limited, such as the cost of decoration cannot go up, resulting in a low-end store image, the product cannot be sold at a price, and it is impossible to afford good ingredients, and the per capita will be lower and enter a vicious circle.
Fourth, the closure rate of franchise stores is high.
From the perspective of the country's spicy hot brands, most brands are through the way of joining the city to attack the city, but the franchise management is difficult, an industry insider said that the fundamental bottleneck of spicy hot is the difficulty of chain operation, not as low as the surface looks, such as operation standardization, sku unification, taste regionalization, etc., even like the head of spicy hot brand franchisees, its level is also uneven, some "independent", not to mention those small franchise brands or mom-and-pop shops, the failure rate will only be higher.
When observing Jun in the compilation of the top 20 list of spicy hot stores, he also found this phenomenon, and the data of the Red Food Brand Research Institute showed that the number of stores of almost half of these 20 brands was reduced compared with a year ago. For example, Chuantian pepper spicy hot, a year ago in November 2020 was 700+ stores, now there are only 500 +; Mijie, a year ago was 800+ homes, now it is 700+; Zi Ma Guan, a year ago was 400+ homes, now it is 200 + homes.
Therefore, spicy hot on the surface looks grounded and has a wide audience, but behind it is difficult to chain and brand.
Fifth, the awareness of "branding" is not strong.
Many spicy hot brands, it seems that there are hundreds of stores, but not even an official WeChat Weibo account, open public reviews, there is no unified logo and store header map, and even the name is messy, very informal, the cottage is difficult to identify. Observing Jun's friend, a senior northeastern catering person used "magic" to describe this situation, he told me that many catering companies in the northeast do not pay attention to brands, let alone advertising, they do not even have a graphic design, they are done in print stores.
You think that hundreds of stores have a supply chain system, but they usually order on the phone. "One of the customers I served, who was itself a factory for conditioning products, later registered a brand to open a fried chicken shop at the suggestion of others, and the original dealer followed him, and as a result, there are now more than 100 stores."
Northeast spicy hot franchise brand is mainly by selling soup, base material to make money, brand development focus in addition to the development of franchisees, is to sell goods, they hope that franchisees live well, usually marketing activities do the most is "order rebates" (more orders the more rebates), so do not pay much attention to the brand level of upgrading. Coupled with the spicy hot "mom-and-pop shop" and small retail households accounting for the vast majority, the branding of the entire category is relatively backward.
However, there is also a new phenomenon worth noting, although the figure of spicy hot brands can not be seen on platforms such as WeChat public accounts, but on short video platforms such as Douyin, some brands are more active. Bai Mo, a well-known catering brand planner, revealed that many spicy hot brands have shifted their communication positions to short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, and have also achieved good results in joining the investment.
Sixth, capital is not optimistic.
Shen Meng of Chanson Capital once said something like this: "Compared with Haidilao, it is still difficult to get the favor of capital for the spicy hot in the middle and low end, and the possibility of listing is unlikely." ”
Although the scale and branding of the spicy hot category have long been verified, the capital market is not optimistic about this category, mainly due to food safety issues. As in the above analysis, the management of the franchise model is difficult, the food safety problem is buried by the self-collection of ingredients, even if it is Yang Guofu and other head brands, they will often report the food safety problems of the franchise store repeatedly, and insiders say: The cottage is difficult, food safety, and the difficulty of adjusting the mouth is the "three deadly sins" of the spicy hot category.
Many spicy hot franchise brands, due to the financial opacity of the franchise system and the problem of taxation are also the reasons that limit their difficulty in listing. At present, only two spicy hot brands have obtained capital financing. One of them is Fuke Spicy Hot, which is a direct-operated spicy hot brand established in Shenzhen in 2008, which has opened nearly 40 direct-operated stores in major shopping malls, and obtained tens of millions of yuan of B round financing from BaifuKu Holdings, a subsidiary of Hony Capital, in 2017. The other is the small brute pepper spicy hot, won three rounds of financing, but there are only more than 100 stores at present.
Although the spicy hot category is a good track, on the whole, it is still very difficult for the spicy hot industry to land on the capital market in the short term.
Spicy hot category trend: the category is more subdivided, and the brand with differentiated models and products has a future
Before discussing the consumption trend of the spicy hot category, let's first understand the consumer portrait of spicy hot. Because of the characteristics of spicy, most of the people who like spicy and hot are young people, and more women than men.
According to the Baidu Index, more women than men search for spicy hot, and consumers in the 30-39 age group are the most, accounting for about 38%.
△ Portrait of spicy hot consumers, data source: Baidu index
According to the relevant data of Meituan Dianping, the current age group of spicy hot customers is mainly post-90s and post-95 consumers, which account for 25.2% and 37.8% respectively. This group of young people pays more attention to personalization and experience, and pays more attention to the dining environment and food quality and taste. The old spicy hot shops can no longer meet their needs, and the main differentiated and segmented spicy hot brands are the trend.
Below, we observe the emerging brand rookies in the market to see what they have done right in the "frontline war", which also represents the direction of the upgrading of the entire spicy hot category.
1. Focus on takeaway and find new growth points
Representative brands: little brute pepper, mijie
The spicy hot category is relatively mature, and there is a strong head brand, how can the latecomers break through? Guo Bonan, the founder of Xiaoban Pepper, had already thought about this problem 5 years ago, and after some investigation, he decided to take takeaway as an entry point, because he believed that takeaway was an important channel trend for catering, and spicy hot was suitable for takeaway. After a series of drastic reforms such as streamlining menus, focusing on spicy flavor types, and increasing diversified products, he successfully found a new blue ocean of spicy hot and spicy, and became the "order king" of the category.
In 2019, with an average monthly order of 5105, Xiao Man Pepper became the first in the average monthly volume of spicy hot online takeaway single stores in the country, while it only had 64 stores at that time, and the annual transaction volume could reach 150 million. In June this year, it obtained a round of financing of 10 million yuan from Qifu Capital, becoming the only catering brand in the spicy hot category to win 3 rounds of financing.
Similarly, Mijie's achievements today are also related to takeaway, before the establishment of Mijie spicy hot brand, Zhang Xiaohui first created a project incubation company, positioned as a new catering category operator, at first only wanted to help the spicy hot brand to do increments, to provide takeaway services. Later, he changed his thinking to do his own brand, and at the same time integrated the husband and wife store into his own brand, uniformly decorated the door and storefront, and used his own supply chain to operate uniformly.
The trick of transforming the husband and wife store is wonderful enough, so the brand expansion speed is very fast, and by March 2018, Mijie already has two or three hundred stores. In this way, Mi Jie slowly accumulated online brand effect, and then many franchisees began to find franchises, about 270 stores were added on average every year, and the brand scale doubled, and now it has become the brand with the largest number of stores after Yang Guofu and Zhang Liang.
△ Mijie Shanghai flagship store, image source: Mijie's official Weibo
Observing Jun combed some representative brands with high orders for spicy hot takeaway, as shown in the following figure, it can be seen that the takeaway is a few dollars lower than dine-in, and baby cabbage and enoki mushrooms are the hot dishes of spicy hot takeaway.
2, category innovation, spicy scalding into spicy mixing
Representative brand: Sister Otani Spicy Mix Spicy Hot
Sister Xiaogu is the brand of Zhang Ke's second venture, before which she opened a spicy hot shop in Zhengzhou, because of the reasons why she is more familiar with spicy hot, in 2016 she opened "Xiaogudun" near Wangjing, which is the predecessor of Sister Xiaogu. In the summer, the weather is hot, the experience of spicy hot soup is still slightly worse, and sales are also affected, so she improved it to dry mix spicy hot without soup, and finally made spicy mix the main brand.
At the beginning of 2018, after several entanglements, Zhang Ke and his partners decided to reshape Xiaoguton and launch a brand with spicy mix as the main focus, renamed "Xiaogu Sister Spicy Mix Spicy Hot", and fully opened the franchise chain. According to Zhang Ke, an important reason why Sister Xiaogu can quickly open the market is due to the taste of sesame sauce. Tianjin people's sesame sauce can be dipped in the world, although it is a paragraph, but the Tianjin people's love for sesame sauce can be seen. Combined with the taste of sesame sauce, Zhang Ke optimized the spicy mix of products, which was also welcomed by the northern market.
Subsequently, Sister Xiaogu ushered in the first outbreak period, and by the end of 2018, Sister Xiaogu had 120 franchise stores, mainly in the northern regions such as Tianjin, Beijing, and Henan. Nowadays, Sister Xiaogu's development is also relatively rapid, and the scale is expanding rapidly.
△ Sister Xiaogu Sister Spicy Hot Spicy Mix, the picture comes from Sister Xiaogu's official WeChat public account
3. Do "spicy hot +" to increase the unit price of customers
Representative brands: Fuke, Small Brute Pepper
Consumer demand is more and more diverse, in order to broaden the category traffic, but also in order to increase the unit price of customers, some brands began to find a partner for spicy scalding, such as Fuke spicy scalding, the first store in Beijing positioned as "spicy hot + barbecue" theme, the original 37 yuan customer list was pulled up to 53 yuan. Most of the evaluations focused on fresh ingredients, many categories, high environmental value, "some small expensive, but in the mall is still normal" and so on.
In addition to the main product spicy hot, the small pepper is also on the classic local snacks such as hot brine and pot helmet, forming a three-product pricing structure, that is, 17 yuan a bowl of spicy hot can be eaten, 26 yuan can eat well, 35 yuan can eat hi combination.
Nowadays, fast food has entered the multi-unit product mode, that is, staple food is lightweight, using the principle of 1+1+1 product collocation, there are staple foods and snacks and drinks, so that customers can eat a sense of richness. This has become a consensus in the industry, and the little pepper is obviously a good player who understands this rule.
4. Innovate tastes and develop high-end ingredients
Representative brand: Zhang Liang spicy hot
In recent years, there have been two obvious changes in the taste of spicy hot:
One is that new flavors are emerging in an endless stream, such as the dear spicy hot tea developed by Xiamen Gangsha tea flavor, Thai Tom Yin Gong, Korean kimchi flavor and other flavor types. A Supier hot restaurant in Beijing has a special curry and laksa flavor, and the super Thai spicy hot is the first Thai spicy hot in Beijing. At a new store in Shenzhen, Fuke wrote "fresh chicken soup with fruit" into its signboard.
Another change is a return to spicy taste. Many spicy hot brands began to focus on spicy flavor, removing milk powder from raw materials and making the taste more addictive. Daniel Zhang, the founder of Haidilao, once said: "Spicy is the most aggressive flavor type, and nothing in this world can make people taste addictive than spicy." ”
Because the spicy hot soup that can be drunk on the market is overwhelming, the return to spicy is differentiated, such as the small pepper is made of Hunan chopped pepper flavor type, Sichuan and Chongqing Sichuan pepper spicy flavor type as the soup base, and the color of the sesame sauce will be more red.
In addition, the spicy and hot ingredients have also been greatly innovated, blowing up the "seafood wind". At the beginning of this year, Zhang Liang opened a 1500 square meter spicy hot shop in Harbin, known as "the world's largest spicy hot shop". Abalone, lobster, tiger prawn, red shrimp, clear shrimp, crab, octopus, mullet, scallops and other rare ingredients are included in the menu list. This store is called "spicy hot high-end version" by netizens, according to public reviews, the unit price of customers when it first opened was about 1.5 times that of other local stores.
△ Zhang Liang spicy hot Haxi flagship store, image source: brand courtesy of the picture
In fact, spicy hot shops in coastal areas have long begun to increase seafood products, and customer responses are also very good, such as dear spicy hot online crab crab you sand tea set, food three aunt spicy hot also launched seafood spicy hot. In addition to seafood, many brands are digging into other ingredients as much as they can, such as The Snowflake and Beef Steaks launched by Fuke.
Therefore, in the view of Bai Mo, a well-known catering brand planner, the refinement of stores, the more hygienic and safe dishes, and the quality of ingredients are the future development trends of spicy hot categories.
5. Model innovation, break through with efficiency
Representative brand: Pepper Empress
In addition to the return of taste, The Observer Jun found that in the spicy hot business model, some brands have also returned to the earliest "ground stall cauldron stew skewers", such as Beijing's Pepper Empress, who moved the traditional roadside stalls to the mall, and put the skewers of skewered ingredients into a special one-block large pot to cook in advance, and customers can choose ingredients to eat when they sit down. Although the store area is not large, only 30 or 40 square meters, but the public reviews show that the per capita is as high as 37+ yuan, and it currently has 10 stores in Beijing.
The biggest advantage of this model is that the traditional eating method of spicy hot is that consumers feel familiar and kind, willing to try; cooked vegetables are ready to take at any time, impulsive consumption is conducive to increasing the unit price of customers; fast dining checkout improves the turnover rate. In short, if the environment is good, the dishes are rich, and the taste is competitive, this model is extremely efficient.
△ Pepper Empress store, image source: Pepper Empress official website
Some insiders predict that the future spicy hot model will be lighter, but behind the pursuit of efficiency must be a sense of experience. So we also see that some brands improve efficiency through packages, while adding fruit tea, small snacks and other products to enrich the customer experience.
6. Develop new retail
Representative brand: Yang Guofu
In recent years, the trend of catering retail transformation is obvious, and the epidemic in 2020 has accelerated its pace. In the field of spicy hot, Yang Guofu is the first chain brand to open an e-commerce online store, and in January this year, Yang Guofu's official Tmall flagship store was officially launched on self-heating spicy hot. It is understood that Yang Guofu Sichuan R & D base has 12 production lines, in addition to the production of spicy hot accessories, spicy hot convenience food and other retail food is also among them.
Not only has a strong supply chain system been established, becoming a high-standard food supplier, and now adding a new identity as a food retailer, Yang Guofu's revenue structure has also changed: in 2019, it achieved revenue of more than one billion yuan, the franchise fee accounted for only 20%, and the retail part (including both ends of B and C) contributed the majority of the commercial and trade revenue.
Recently, the observer Jun saw the launch of preferential activities on its public account: the new franchisee ordered 10,000 yuan of C-end products and gave away 5,000 yuan; the old franchisee ordered 10,000 yuan to give 10,000 yuan, and the sales force can be seen.
Yang Guofu once said that he wants to achieve diversified development of online and offline through catering retailing; open up major platforms and establish his own membership system; and form his own brand culture. At present, in the field of self-heating convenience food, there are already strong brands such as Haidilao and self-hi pot, and Yang Guofu's advantages are not obvious, but this is indeed another new direction for spicy hot brands to explore.
From the above carding, it can be seen that in addition to the intuitive environment and product (ingredient) upgrade, the upgrade direction of spicy hot is mainly concentrated in several directions: focus on takeaway; innovate new categories of spicy mix; do spicy hot +, expand category traffic; return to the traditional model, improve efficiency; and open up new retail channels.
<h2>epilogue</h2>
In general, spicy hot is a good category that can be scaled, but the extensive development of most brands in the market in the franchise model has also caused the reality that the "branding" of the entire category is relatively backward, and most brands lack a strong quality core. Just like when Yang Guofu shouted out: "To be the Starbucks of the spicy hot world, let consumers feel that eating spicy hot is an honor", such a slogan, many people just laugh.
Although Yang Guofu and Zhang Liang have now gone abroad and opened their stores in many overseas cities, it is indeed a long way to go to make spicy hot to make a brand like Starbucks. But at least there are already brands like Zhang Liang Spicy Hot, which are firmly moving in this direction. There is a gap means there is space, which is also the opportunity point for all latecomers.
At present, the spicy hot market has entered a stable period from the rapid development of the early years, the primary competitive market has also risen to the place where soldiers must compete, the blue ocean has long become a red sea, and the market in the northeast, south China and east China is basically saturated, but as long as there is keen consumer insight, stable supply chain, and brand operation, there is still much to be done in the regional market or differentiation field.
However, what brands need to strengthen is not only brand building, but more importantly, product safety, organizational capabilities and the development of back-end supply chains, and it is expected that the next "Haidilao" will be born as soon as possible in the field of spicy hot.