Reporter | Zhao Xiaojuan
Edit | Ya Han Xiang
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White elephant instant noodles are "red" twice in a month.
On March 15-20, the White Elephant Instant Noodles Tmall flagship store broadcast for 5 consecutive days of "full pre-sale, rational consumption" live broadcast, and the anchor in the live broadcast screen repeatedly persuaded consumers, "The X link has been sold out, let's not shoot first!" "The order in this pre-sale, even if the order is successful, will be shipped after 15 days at the earliest."
After the 3.15 party exposed the "pit sauerkraut"
The white elephant was once again praised by consumers for announcing at the official blog that it "did not cooperate with the flag planting vegetable industry". Subsequently, the white elephant was sought after as the light of domestic goods "your blessing is behind", and at the same time, a large number of supporters rushed to the white elephant flagship store to buy instant noodles.
But they came a step too late. As early as early March, during the Winter Paralympic Games, White Elephant Food was on Weibo's hot search because "one-third of the employees are disabled", and then many products in Tmall and Jingdong flagship stores sold out.
On March 9, tmall white elephant official flagship store issued an announcement that due to the recent surge in order volume, white elephant factories across the country launched an emergency plan to produce and deliver goods, and strive to deliver white elephant products to consumers as soon as possible. According to reports, during the Winter Paralympic Games, the sales of white elephant products on an e-commerce platform soared by nearly 200%, and the highest daily increase in order volume reached 650%.
In response, White Elephant Food replied on Weibo on March 19, "We care for the disabled group like the majority of consumers, and do not advocate excessive attention to the topic of the disabled... Products are the most important foundation of White Elephant, and we continue to focus on doing a good job in products and innovation. ”
Last year, White Elephant Food was robbed by netizens due to news such as refusing to settle in With Japanese capital and aiding Henan with 5 million yuan in cash and materials, and like Hongxing Erke, netizens bought white elephants more because of the feelings of the light of the nation.
Behind the hot sales, the entrepreneurial story of the white elephant has also been spread many times. Founded in 1997 by Yao Zhongliang, Baixiang Food Group's main products include "White Elephant" brand series of instant noodles, noodles, flour and vermicelli. At that time, the instant noodle track was almost a golden event, and the sales of White Elephant Food in the year of its establishment were 100 million yuan, which had increased 6 times in 2001.
The following 10 years is the golden 10 years of the development of the instant noodle industry, public information shows that in 2007, the annual output of white elephant instant noodles reached 7.43 billion packs, the annual sales of 5.2 billion yuan, can be compared, the unified sales of that year was 8.657 billion yuan, aside from the unified drink, the performance of white elephant and unified instant noodles is not inferior.
Beijing Jingkelong supermarket instant noodle shelves. (Photo: Zhao Xiaojuan)
But instead of following its usual path, White Elephant expanded its business to fresh noodles and catering. If successful, this strategy will help it break through the limitations of instant noodles, allowing the company to have more possibilities for profit; but if it fails, the white elephant will give competitors the opportunity to catch up with both hands.
Around 2011, instant noodles began to upgrade from mid-end to high-end in terms of products, and entered an important stage of omni-channel penetration in channels. At this time, Baixiang suspended the research and development of instant noodles, but spent a lot of time and energy to develop fresh pasta, and founded the offline chain brand of "Fuxi Noodle Workshop".
However, Fuxi Noodle Workshop was established less than 3 years ago, opening hundreds of stores, but because the profit is low and the cost of the store is too high, it failed, and finally even Henan did not go out.
In 2018, Baixiang Food set up a group meal chain to join the incubation platform "Good Noodles in the World". In the official promotion of White Elephant, the platform provides high-quality "one bowl of good noodles" market solutions, and will quickly surpass from 180+ stores to 300+ stores in 2021 alone. However, on the Dianping website, Interface News can only retrieve more than 10 stores with good noodles in the world, and most stores have no consumer reviews.
In 2020, due to the epidemic with the fire of fast food, White Elephant also launched a high-end fast food product "Fresh Noodle Transmission" in that year, fresh noodle transmission is in the price range of 12-15 yuan in terms of unit price, and needs to be boiled, in the consumption scene more emphasis on home, in order to be different from white elephant, fresh noodle transmission opened an independent flagship store on Tmall.
But it was also a failed attempt. Interface News noted that the Weibo update of Fresh Noodles has stopped, the latest dynamic stayed in September last year, and the Tmall store of Fresh Noodles has been closed, and fresh noodles products can only be retrieved from the Taobao stores of some dealers.
At this time, the main brand instant noodle products of the white elephant, as the light of the nation, were snapped up by netizens, and the interface news visited the offline channels, but it was difficult to find its traces, but the white elephant offline was not sold out, but the channels of the supermarkets such as Jingkelong, Yonghui, Wumart and so on in Beijing did not sell products, and only a small number of items of the white elephant could be seen in the mom-and-pop shop and some small supermarkets, mainly "white elephant bone soup noodles".
According to the official website of White Elephant, it has nearly 1.2 million sales terminals, while Master Kong's sales terminals are 5 million. In addition to the small number of terminal outlets, in public reports, White Elephant failed to continue to update and iterate on the instant noodle category like Master Kong and Unification, resulting in a long detour.
Compared with the main business of instant noodles, the result of the 10-year detour of white elephant is that the maintenance of white elephant in the channel terminal may take more energy.
The shelves of instant noodles in the respondent's supermarket.
A community supermarket operator in a county-level city in Shanxi told Interface News that the sales volume of white elephant instant noodles in the supermarket where it has been operating for 10 years has been relatively flat, so he is more cautious about purchasing goods, and the location on the shelves is not as good as the small brand "Siyuan", which has a more advantageous price, nor is it as good as Master Kong, who has a higher brand awareness. The reason is that the owner believes that the white elephant instant noodles actually taste good, but their agents often change, the terminal maintenance is not timely, and they do not often advertise, so if there is no consumer specifically indicating the purchase, the owner will not want to recommend it.
According to the data of financial market data company Refinitiv, White Elephant is the fourth company in the domestic instant noodle market, accounting for 4% of the market share, the first 3 are Master Kong, Unification and Immalang - white elephants that once almost surpassed unification have been surpassed by the third place Imamirang.