Editor's introduction: The expanding scale not only did not allow Nai Xue to reflect the scale effect, but also was frequently exposed to food safety problems due to the lack of management caused by the expansion, so that Nai Xue once fell into the vortex of food safety questions.
Recently, milk tea head brands have announced price cuts, and Naixue's tea has also launched promotional activities to enter the price war. In today's milk tea industry dividend disappears, the scale of the industry decelerates, and the epidemic is repeated, it is not easy for tea brands to survive.
"Milk tea first share" NaiXue's tea released the 2021 express report last month, showing that revenue reached 4 billion, but the net profit lost more than 100 million, and the typical increase in revenue did not increase profits.
The reason for this situation is the large-scale expansion of Nesher in recent years, although the revenue has risen year after year, but the net profit has been a loss for four consecutive years.
At the same time, due to the rapid expansion, the number of stores and employees has increased significantly, and the company's control has not kept up with the frequent occurrence of food hygiene problems, which once made Nai Xue fall into the whirlpool of public opinion.
Photo/ Naisher's tea official website
The first year of listing results pre-loss of more than 100 million
Recently, Heytea announced that it will no longer launch drinks of 29 yuan and above this year, and all drinks will not increase in price this year. In January, after the first price reduction of Heytea, Nesher's tea also launched a preferential promotion, and the two tea head brands started the price war.
Today's new tea circuit has stood at a crossroads after experiencing barbaric growth. Due to frequent quality problems, worrying health conditions, and the invasion of the epidemic, the tea industry in recent times has been quite uneven, and Naixue's tea, as the "first share of milk tea", has also faced the dilemma of a pre-loss of more than 100 million yuan after being listed.
On February 8, Nesher's Tea issued a profit warning, expecting revenue of about 4.28 billion to 4.32 billion yuan last year and a net loss of 135 million to 165 million yuan. According to the published financial report data, a total loss of 300 million yuan was made in the three years from 2018 to 2020, and the expected net loss in 2021 was about 442 million yuan for four consecutive years.
In the secondary market, Nesher's tea is also affected. The share price closed at HK$17.12 per share from the first day of listing to HK$5.91 per share at the close on 3 March 2020. In just six months since its listing in June last year, the company's market value has fallen by a third.
Due to the repeated epidemics, the mainland economic environment, people expect income to decrease, consumption willingness is generally reduced, coupled with the domestic control of the epidemic, the survival of the tea industry is not easy.
In this regard, the founder of Naixue's tea said that since the beginning of 2020, Naixue has fully expanded online channels and accelerated the integration of online and offline, which has alleviated the pressure on store operations to a certain extent. However, while the revenue increased, the operating profit margin of the company's stores decreased year by year.
The performance trend and development dilemma of the "first share of milk tea" also reflect the current situation of the industry on the one hand.
According to the "2021 New Tea Beverage Research Report" released by the China Chain Store & Franchise Association, the growth rate of the new tea beverage market in 2021 will slow down from 26.1% in 2020 to 19%. The new tea market is experiencing a phased slowdown, and more than 70% of new tea brands under the impact of the epidemic cannot support more than 20 months.
In the environment of slowing down the development of the industry and the scale of damage, tea drinking is not easy to survive.
Rapid expansion has led to management not keeping up
As soon as Ne xue's tea came out, it developed rapidly, riding the wind outlet all the way to the top.
It is reported that in 2015, Naixue opened the first tea shop, in 2017, Naixue still has only 44 stores, but with rapid expansion, since then opened three stores in 33 days, at the end of 2017, Naixue's tea began to go out of Guangdong region, expand to the whole country, and officially open the "National Urban Expansion Plan". In 2018, it launched 155 stores, directly tripled to 491 in 2020, expanded to 507 in 2021, and opened 352 stores in just three years.
Not only that, Nai Xue showed in the review report that as early as 2021, the group will launch a new product in an average of 5 days, and a total of 79 new products will be launched throughout the year, including 36 teas, 37 roasts and 6 coffees.
The rapid expansion of stores has also made the scale of Nesher grow at a huge growth rate, with revenue climbing directly from 910 million yuan in 2018 to 2.292 billion yuan in 2019, and all the way to 2.871 billion yuan in 2020. But at the same time, because the expansion led to an increase in costs, Nesher's net profit has been in a state of loss since 2018.
As the company continues to grow, Neixue has also encountered problems that many new tea drinking forces will encounter. Due to the rapid expansion, in the case of a sharp increase in the number of stores and the number of workers, the supervision and implementation of rules and regulations and operating processes has become more difficult, that is to say, the management system cannot keep up with the speed of Naisher's tea expansion.
The continuous expansion of the scale not only did not allow Nai Xue to reflect the scale effect, but also was frequently exposed to food safety problems due to the lack of management caused by the expansion, so that Nai Xue was once caught in the whirlpool of food safety questions.
Food problems are frequent
Food safety issues have always attracted the attention of consumers.
On August 2 last year, according to Xinhua News Agency, there were many health problems in Naixue's tea Beijing Xidan Joy City store, including "there are cockroaches in the water bar and bakery" and "product labeling is wrong", while the clerk said: "It's okay, don't worry about it, there are cockroaches in the water bar and bakery." Then Nai Xue's tea first apologized and then closed the store for rectification.
After that, the Guangdong Provincial Market Supervision Bureau said that it would deploy and carry out special risk and hidden danger inspections of "Naixue's Tea" stores and related Internet red beverage stores throughout the province, and jointly with the Shenzhen Municipal Market Supervision Bureau to conduct interviews with the "Naixue's Tea" headquarters in Shenzhen.
After the interview, even the founder said that he should be confident, but after that, food safety problems still occurred.
In the tea shop of Nai Xue in the Chang'an Shopping Mall store, even the blackened mango will continue to be used, and debris such as label paper accidentally fell into the mango puree, and the mango puree was continued to be used after the debris was picked out. A series of "Soft European Bag Magic Wand" products should be sold out within 4 hours as required, but some employees will replace the labels of unsold products at will.
On the same day, the Beijing Municipal Market Supervision Department immediately carried out on-site inspection of the stores involved, and filed a case against their illegal acts, and planned to impose a maximum fine of 100,000 yuan on the 2 stores involved, and 250,000 yuan and 280,000 yuan on the managers of the 2 stores respectively.
In this regard, Nai Xue's tea publicly apologized for the first time, and set up a special working group to carry out overnight thorough investigation and rectification of the stores involved.
After Nai Xue's tea was exposed by Xinhua News Agency as a "food hygiene chaos", its stock price fell by 10.83% at one point.
Earlier, at the end of March last year, Naixue's tea was exposed to a fine of 30,000 yuan for suspected procurement of substandard food raw materials.
In October last year, Naixue's Chadong Changzhi Road store was fined 5,000 yuan by the Shanghai Hongkou District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau and confiscated 25 yuan of illegal gains for failing to pass the total number of colonies of the Golden Mountains Treasure Tea sampled.
In the same month, the website of the Shanghai Municipal Market Supervision and Administration Bureau published a penalty letter for the production and operation of Shanghai Neixue Catering Management Co., Ltd. Nanjing West Road Branch, which marked the false production date, shelf life or food and food additives that exceeded the shelf life, and confiscated 9.26 yuan of illegal gains and fined 50,000 yuan and warned them in accordance with the law.
In addition, Nesher's complaints on black cat complaints have reached 697, of which there are not a few complaints about food hygiene problems.
Photo / Black Cat Complaints official website
Zhu Danpeng, an analyst in the Chinese food industry, said: "There are too many problems in the milk tea industry, and the hygiene situation is worrying, resulting in the loss of some consumers. Milk tea companies are a simple and effective means to reduce prices and obtain customers, but in the long run, they should still work quality, formula and raw materials to build an unrepeatable competitive advantage. ”
Original author: Tianyi
Editor: Qiu Tianyi