Tech Planet (WeChat ID: tech618)
Wen | Qiao Xue
Cover source | Visual China
On the new consumption "Changpo" track, there is never a shortage of investment booms and business stories that have been fried and fried, and capital has re-chosen a new track after drinking, drinking coffee and eating noodles - eating sauerkraut fish.
This dish originated in the 1980s in Chongqing Jianghu Restaurant, after 40 years and hot again, some brands in 1 year net growth of more than 100 stores, some brands at an average rate of 2.7 stores per day rapid layout of the country, creating a day to complete the signing of 57 stores of the industry miracle "; some brands do not even want to join the fee as long as the number of stores, regardless of the cost is just for the crazy store model, these seem to indicate that the sauerkraut fish is hot again.
Double the goal of opening a store, do not franchise fee as long as the store
For the new consumption of catering that focuses on the main offline, how to judge whether a track is on fire? Look at the popularity of opening a store.
The investment manager of "Take the Sauerkraut Fish" told Tech Planet that this year's plan is to open 1,000 stores and 5,000 within three years. "Financing is for what, is to open a store." Moreover, the A round has just landed, and the B round of financing has immediately begun to start, the scale will be larger, and the negotiation will be three hundred million," the investment manager said.
At present, the sauerkraut fish brand with the main takeaway model has about 200 stores, and after financing in October 2021, it completed a financing of 100 million yuan in January this year. After the release of the franchise in January, 50 new stores are about to open. Take the takeaway shop as an example, the daily turnover is about 4000-6000 yuan, the unit price of the customer is between 20 and 30 yuan, and the return is returned in 3 months to 6 months. The brand's investment manager also revealed that some stores in Hangzhou can reach more than 18,000 orders a month, which is called a takeaway god store.
In order to guide more merchants to join, the investment manager also told Tech Planet, because it has only recently raised funds, so the franchise fee is not charged, the previous 32,000 yuan franchise fee, will be returned to the merchants in the form of 2,000 yuan per month, the company's goal is to open a store, regardless of the cost of everything is to open more stores.
Also crazy to open another sauerkraut fish brand "Fish You Together", there are currently more than 1600 stores, the brand told Tech Planet, the current strategy is, "first north, then south, then sink, compete for thousands of stores" is the ultimate goal.
As the leader of the sauerkraut fish category and the only listed company, Taier Sauerkraut Fish is also accelerating the pace of opening stores, and the number of stores has increased from 126 before the listing to 286 in mid-2021.
From 2017 to 2019, the number of related enterprises registered was 3967, 4936 and 4563 respectively, even in 2020, when the epidemic hit, there were still 3300 newly registered sauerkraut fish companies. According to the data of Red Food Network, in October 2020, the number of sauerkraut fish stores in the four first-tier cities has exceeded 20,000, which is more than 1 times and 5 times the total number of sauerkraut fish stores in 2018 and 2016, respectively.
Sauerkraut fish, one of the most traditional items discovered in Sichuan cuisine, is now crowded with brands in various price ranges. Sauerkraut fish has also become a weapon for the transformation of new Chinese catering enterprises, the predecessor of Taier sauerkraut fish is Jiumaojiu, "fish you together" before doing chicken category, and "put fool" before doing is brine rice, in addition to the old players of sauerkraut fish that have long been laid out, there are more new players of sauerkraut fish are emerging.
In the field of dinner, it is a sauerkraut fish brand headed by Taier sauerkraut fish, JiangYu'er, Yao Yao sauerkraut fish, etc., while in the fast food field, players such as fish you are together and put Yu have innovated their products, focusing on the sinking market, low investment and high revenue. The entire track can be basically divided into two major areas focusing on dinner and fast food, directly covering completely different store models and consumption scenarios.
In order to go out of the circle and maintain the heat, "fish you together" advertising in search engines, buses, subways, and even high-speed rail body abound, Tai'er with "two bosses" and "little two brothers" two IP continue to output comics, emojis and other content, but also on the e-commerce to sell the store's signature Chen Pi Luo Shen flower tea, vigorous rice, sauerkraut and other semi-finished products, Jiangyuer, YaoYao sauerkraut fish, Yu is Hu and other sauerkraut fish brands, but also launched some peripheral products and retail products on the takeaway mini program.
The rise of sauerkraut fish once again confirms the magic of "small track big market".
Sauerkraut fish, take over the baton new consumption of the next outlet?
Before sauerkraut fish received the attention of capital, another hot track in the new consumption field was beef noodles, and the investment logic given by investor Zhu Xiaohu was, "It is easier to standardize, easy to expand, and it is not a big problem to open 10,000 stores." ”
Whether it can be standardized or not, and whether it is not easy to copy, is the key proposition to test whether it can become the next outlet.
In the catering industry, especially the Chinese catering industry has not been able to run out of similar KFC McDonald's enterprises, the most important reason is that Chinese catering pays attention to the current system, the process is more focused on the skills and level of a single chef, it is difficult to copy on a large scale or even chain; and today's catering, in the current environment where pre-made dishes and cooking packages are popular, sauerkraut fish can better meet the requirements of fast meals and process standardization, and sauerkraut, fish, and spice packages can be fully standardized after simple processing.
Sauerkraut fish also continue to make a fuss in the supply chain, the domestic fish supply chain is very stable, sauerkraut fish fish mostly use frozen or cold fresh basha fish, black fish, basically not seasonal restrictions, and fish and chicken and beef and other ingredients are less affected by the plague disease than the food, cooking bags are transported by a unified cold chain, the only variable is to add some vegetables, tofu and other fresh ingredients, a sauerkraut fish shop told tech planet, making sauerkraut fish is as simple as cooking instant noodles.
Sauerkraut fish has a long history, and there are folk rumors that fishermen in chongqing boil fish and sauerkraut together, which is definitely not a track that has just risen. Before the sauerkraut fish has a strong dinner attribute, how the taste is more of a probability science, as well as thorns, low turnover rate and other issues, sauerkraut fish can go the way is not wide, only in the restaurant and the menu of dense dishes together to sell.
Even a brand like Tai'er, which focuses on large-scale meals with more sauerkraut fish, is also changing this model with efficiency, and the production process of sauerkraut fish has been standardized, which is not only simplified in the cooking links of the back kitchen, the meal time is shortened, and the dependence on the chef is reduced, and the taste and quality remain stable, so that there is a possibility of large-scale development.
Another big secret of new consumption is "addiction", more preference for investment in addictive tastes, coffee, Chongqing noodles, low-alcohol are all addictive categories, sour and spicy as the most memorable two favorite tastes of the Chinese people, not only easy to produce stimulation, but also more memory, and more in line with the dietary preferences of young people, once addicted, will form habitual consumption, can continue to produce repurchase, this is precisely the capital's favorite business model.
On this basis, low-carbon health is also a requirement for new-style catering, and fish meat as a high-quality protein, high nutrition, tender taste, "eat fish without long fat" is not only in line with the trend of healthy diet, but also a major added value to attract young people.
It can be seen that sauerkraut fish is developing from a home-cooked dish into a super category, and the "2019-2020 China Sauerkraut Fish Market Big Data Analysis Report" of NCBD (Food Treasure Book) shows that it is expected that the market size of mainland sauerkraut fish will exceed 100 billion yuan in 2021.
Although subject to the impact of the epidemic has not yet reached this scale, the "scale of 100 billion" is indeed attracting the expectations of capital: Pegasus Hotel, Tomato Capital, Wandian Profit, Lingyue Capital, Dingxin Capital, Zhonghe Venture Investment and many other VCs are gathering on this track; among them, Tomato Capital has repeatedly shot sauerkraut fish, not only invested in the fast food "Fish You Are Together", but also invested in "YaoYao Sauerkraut Fish" twice before. Sauerkraut fish, a model and textbook for small categories to counterattack the top, has suddenly become an extremely ideal track that is in line with consumer trends.
The old routines and new problems of the "Tai Er"
The hot eyes of capital are heating up in the short term This is not a new track, sauerkraut fish is already in a red sea, although the standardization of sauerkraut fish is simple, but standing in the entire industry, this is not a simple and easy business.
For the sauerkraut fish brand that focuses on the main meal, taking Tai'er as an example, everything into this track has made efforts to improve efficiency and adopted a short and fast business model. Tai'er's fish has only one taste, only uses sea bass, the portion is only a distinction, and the provisions can only be four people to eat, the dining process is almost all let customers self-service, these measures greatly improve the efficiency of the meal, reduce the dependence on the chef, so that the meal can also be standardized, for a time "Tai Er" The overturn rate is comparable to Haidilao, and the door is like a market.
Soon, this set of process-oriented operations was imitated by more peers, "Tai'er" although it has been selling hard in marketing, but it can not change the potential energy of Internet celebrities is slowly consumed by time, and gradually loses its freshness, there is no longer a long queue, from 2018 to the first half of 2021, the flipping rate of "Tai'er" sauerkraut fish is 4.9 times, 4.8 times, 3.8 times, 3.7 times, there is a clear downward trend.
On the other hand, for the gradual emergence of only fast food and takeaway sauerkraut fish brands, the unit price is not high, difficult to jump high-end is a problem, the data of the Red Food Brand Research Institute shows that the per capita consumption of 60-90 yuan of sauerkraut fish stores accounted for 40%, 60 yuan or less accounted for 51%, more than 90 yuan less than 9%, it can be seen that the consumption of the entire category is still based on low-end.
In addition, premature standardization, relying on the takeaway model, can rise rapidly, but also easy to quickly die, products have been relying on standardized development and can not innovate, franchisees will soon fall into a landing on the fast food standardization development, products lack of catering should have barriers and moats, resulting in the entire sauerkraut fast food category into the homogenization problem.
Even the "Tai'er" sauerkraut fish, which has always insisted on quality and never do takeaway, has also begun to try takeaway, which is enough to show that the competition in the entire field of sauerkraut fish will only become more and more intense, and the essence of competition in the same industry is to fight under the same business model, who makes it more efficient. The excellent single-store model and the store expansion on top of this are both competing at this point, but the scale itself is the pressure.
A merchant who has joined a brand of sauerkraut fish told Tech Planet that during his own business, as a novice to the takeaway model does not understand, the first month the platform will give a special amount of traffic, let people have an illusion, the next month is decreasing, but because they are too busy to come, close the store for a few days, immediately will be judged by the takeaway platform as no ability to take orders, again encountered stream reduction, after the traffic is very difficult to obtain, the entire store is equivalent to death, and the time taken is less than half a year.
In addition to the Taier sauerkraut fish, A Qiangjia, etc. on the market have also been adhering to the direct operation model, almost all of them have let go of the franchise, and almost all those who choose to join the franchise model are catering newcomers, most brands can only do empowering products, and can not solve the problems in catering operations, which is almost the pain point of all sauerkraut fish brands. Therefore, one group of people comes to another, which is a habitual phenomenon in the sauerkraut fish track. In 2021, the entire field closed more than 10,000 sauerkraut fish restaurants, on the one hand, to open stores, on the other hand, the same amount of business closures and closures, the entire sauerkraut fish track will face a large number of reshuffles every year, pushed to the restart.
Can't find differentiation is another fatal problem of sauerkraut fish, there is like Jiang Jun who has been working hard in the fast food industry for many years finally "gave up sauerkraut fish and created Chen Xiang Guilanzhou beef noodles", some of them are turning to sauerkraut fish pre-made dishes, which can greatly promote brand e-commerce, reduce costs, and improve user experience; another part of people in order to find differentiation, and revive the traditional sauerkraut fish, no longer use prefabricated methods, but live fish killed and done is also becoming a trend, but this has to face standardization and other problems again.
And more sauerkraut fish brands are constantly transforming and upgrading, Tai'er has launched the main Sichuan cuisine "Tai'er prequel", the main grilled fish "Lai Meili" and other brands, Guangzhou's local sauerkraut fish brand "A Qiang Sauerkraut Fish" upgraded to "A Qiang Jia Zhen Zhi Sichuan Cuisine" and other actions also reveal that the track does not seem to be so fragrant. How to achieve quality in a single category, take into account the added value of fun, interesting and other added value to differentiate, which also requires the entire category of players to jointly solve the proposition.
Sauerkraut fish can be a food story, but the problems in this story seem to be more than the opportunities.
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