Founded 33 years ago, Sibei moved forward in the "toss".
However, Jia Guolong, founder and chairman of Xibei Catering, has not changed his vision of "a good meal, anytime, anywhere".
By the end of 2021, Xibei Restaurant Group will be certified to serve more than 100 million households. At the same time, we will continue to lay out new retail and open the pre-made vegetable market with "Jia Guolong Kung Fu Dish". After the initial "word-of-mouth overturning", today's kung fu dishes have increased the variety of dishes, reduced the per capita price, and won the evaluation of "cost-effective". Xibei Restaurant Group also plans to open more Jia Guolong Kung Fu cuisine independent takeaway specialty stores and dine-in restaurants in Beijing in 2022.
Jia Guolong, founder and chairman of Xibei Restaurant. Courtesy of the enterprise
An innovative path through trial and error
Since 2015, Sibe has been exploring fast food. From the very beginning of the Xibei oat workshop, Xibei oatmeal noodles, Mai Xiang Village, to the super meat sandwich bun, Xibei yogurt house, bow long Zhang, repeated defeats, and repeated defeats.
In Jia Guolong's view, there is nothing wrong with what Xibei does, because innovation requires constant trial and error, and it is all based on the "toss" of Xibei's vision - a good meal, anytime, anywhere. A few days ago, he said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from the Beijing News that many people on the road to entrepreneurship had advised him to engage in real estate and coal mines, and he was thinking of opening restaurants. "Is there any mine in the world that is bigger than the world's more than 7 billion mouths?" Sibei started with a restaurant, and it is our duty to make a good dish and serve the customers well, so the only way we can win customers is to make the dishes well and do our best to make the customers eat well! ”
The pandemic has changed catering. Jia Guolong said that this impact will even change the frequency of consumer arrivals and the way they eat for a long time in the future. "Traditional dining must be changed to become a service provider for solving people's meal solutions." In the past, he wanted to do it with fast food restaurants. Now, he wants to change it in the way of pre-made dishes, which is a big trend.
When Jia Guolong Kung Fu Dishes were listed in the early days of 2020, Jia Guolong put many "bad reviews" screenshots on the Internet into the PPT of his public speech, "expensive" and "no pot gas, like airplane meals" are the two points that consumers criticize most. Two years later, Jia Guolong's Kung Fu Restaurant in Beijing's Jinyuan Yansha has opened in a new form. Also pre-made dishes, the original aluminum foil packaging has disappeared, replaced by porcelain plates, casseroles, soup cups, steamers, some dishes will continue to heat under the utensils, "Chinese restaurant" fireworks are pouring in. The dishes have also changed from the original per capita consumption of 100 yuan such as Xibei hand steak meat and Mongolian beef bones to "66 classic Chinese dishes", and the proportion of home-cooked dishes and next meals has increased, and the cheapest mapo tofu is 9.9 yuan. Consumers are increasingly giving evaluations such as "fast serving speed", "no thunder", "cost performance is very high".
Jia Guolong Kung Fu Dish Jinyuan Shop. Courtesy of the enterprise
At present, Jia Guolong Kung Fu cuisine includes more than 100 dishes, covering major Chinese cuisines, and is expected to reach 1,000 dishes in the future. Why is it called Kung Fu Cuisine? Jia Guolong said that it is a high-standard prepared dish that has worked hard enough. "Heavy investment in research and development, using famous chefs or cooperating with famous chefs, from relying on craftsmanship, relying on science, and pushing the standardization of delicious food to the market."
After 2 years of adjustment, Jia Guolong believes that the current kung fu cuisine is diverse and frugal. "If you want to eat well, you can order a famous dish; when you are hungry, you can come to a home-cooked dish anytime and anywhere and eat an ordinary meal." Many people think that kung fu cuisine is Xibei's small shop model, but Jia Guolong has long listed it as a key business for Xibei. He said that in 2022, the store will be opened centrally, and the offline Jia Guolong Kung Fu cuisine store is actually an export of test products, and the ultimate goal is to "get home". In addition to "hot delivery" of processed dishes through takeaway, it is also possible to achieve cold delivery to home, consumers heat up, and eat a good meal anytime and anywhere.
Optimistic about the big market of prepared vegetables
The epidemic has made prepared dishes an outlet overnight, in fact, in mature markets such as Europe and the United States, pre-made dishes have long become a climate. The China Chain Store & Franchise Association released the "2021 China Chain Catering Industry Report" to analyze the prefabricated vegetable track, pointing out that by 2025, the scale of the prefabricated cuisine industry is expected to grow to about 600 billion. Of course, some catering people believe that consumers need to "educate the cost" of accepting prepared dishes, and pre-made dishes cannot win the "fresh stir-fry".
In this regard, Jia Guolong believes that "freshly fried" is also a concept, and Jia Guolong's kung fu dishes are ultimately presented in front of diners in the form of fresh stir-frying. "The development of the catering industry to this day actually needs to be prefabricated, but it lies in the degree of prefabrication. If you want to be bigger, do a good job, and be stable, to a certain extent, it depends on how much effort you have put into prefabrication and how high the degree of prefabrication is. ”
The chefs of the Xibei R&D Center and the professors of the cooperative universities have used a series of research conclusions to explain that taking the shredded potatoes as an example, its crispness is determined by the potato varieties, oil temperature, sour and spicy degree, starch content, frying time and other factors, fierce and fast frying is also a related factor, but not the determining factor, and all these factors can be disassembled into fixed indicators, as long as these indicators are concentrated in the central kitchen, and then lock the flavor, and when the diners heat themselves, they can eat a plate that is not fiercely fried. But still crisp and delicious shredded potatoes. The innovation of Jia Guolong Kung Fu dishes lies in the high standard of pre-production, and all the dishes are 80% ready when they come from the central kitchen to the restaurant.
For the development of Xibei prefabricated dishes, Jia Guolong's expectations are also increasing. This is a supply chain revolution and a challenge to "standardize food".
"People are increasingly reluctant to invest too much time in cooking, and pre-made dishes not only save cooking time for families, but also save total working time for society." What's more, you can also raise the standard of cooking, so that people can eat more delicious, nutritious and convenient meals. Jia Guolong made such an estimate, "I thought that Kung Fu Cuisine would achieve 100 billion yuan in 10 years, because its market space is large enough, plus our ability, resources and determination." According to the current layout, the concept of pre-made dishes is activated in the domestic market, which is the general trend of the future. ”
Investment will be made in the development of children's meals
In 2021, many catering giants frequently spread the news of closing stores to "break the arm and stop the bleeding". Jia Guolong told the Beijing News reporter that Xibei Noodle Village will still maintain the current number of 370 stores in the future. "I don't want to open a lot of new stores, just maintain stability."
Xibei Catering has been certified as "serving more than 100 million people in families". Courtesy of the enterprise
Unlike many internet celebrity restaurants that position their main consumer groups as young people, Xibei's main customer base is family. In 2021, Xibei won the certification of "leading Chinese food" and "serving more than 100 million people in families". In the face of the doubt that "Xibei is not abandoned by young people", Jia Guolong is confident: we also naturally find that family customers like Xibei, young people are one of the members of the family, when young people become a family, they will also become Xibei's customers, because Xibei wants customers to eat at ease, and the dishes are not tired.
He said that in the future, Xibei will focus on the research and development of children's meals and launch a series of high-quality children's meals. Children's meals should be the highest standards of catering food: the highest food safety standards, the most comprehensive nutrition standards, the best taste standards. It is necessary for the child to eat well so that the whole family can eat well. Food and beverage prices are "more sensitive" to many consumers, and Sibei has also been hotly discussed because of prices. Jia Guolong did not shy away from telling the Beijing News reporter frankly, "At that time, there were indeed individual products that were overpriced. We first admit that where there is indeed sloppy pricing, then tune it back. ”
But he also believes that Sibei as a whole is still fairly priced. He will always insist on "one penny for one penny", the price is to go with the market, "high quality and excellent price, even high quality and low price, but there is no high quality and low price." Because it doesn't make sense from the reason, what kind of ingredients you use, what kind of technology you use, and what price should be set for the products you make. In this way, the company can make appropriate profits, and can survive to continue to serve customers, which is a benign relationship. ”
"We have been doing business for more than 30 years, and we are particularly concerned about the sincerity of our customers and whether we are worthy of our own conscience." Jia Guolong said.
The next few years are a critical period for listing
What the epidemic has brought to Jia Guolong, in addition to the change from fast food to pre-made dishes, there is also a change in the mouth of "Xibei is not listed". Jia Guolong also said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from the Beijing News that Xibei will consider financing and listing in the future.
"I used to think there was no need to go public, but after the outbreak of the epidemic suspended the business, I found myself too proud. There is no cash flow coming in, but there are still some necessary expenses, and we are still very vulnerable. "In addition, when Sibei has a new business of prefabricated dishes, it needs to have capital to enter." Prepared dishes need to be scaled, and only large scale will bring high efficiency, which in turn will bring low cost and low price. Such economies of scale must have capital in. ”
Jia Guolong revealed that Xibei will list the new and old businesses together. "The next few years from 2022 should be a critical period for The Listing of Sibei."
Text/Wang Ping
Edited by Qin Shengnan Proofreader Chen Diyan