In order to firmly grasp the "Chinese stomach", KFC's Chinese menu has been updated. This time, the fire was on again.
Recently, in the 20th year of the launch of Chinese breakfast, KFC Restaurant has been transformed into a noodle restaurant, beckoning consumers to "eat flour", claiming to open a "full of vitality" day for everyone.
It is understood that as a new series of "Good Morning City Taste" project, since April 18, the "Every Side is China" activity has been listed nationwide. This time the gameplay is also very different. According to the previous evaluation of local consumers' preferences, KFC restaurants around the world have successively selected one of three new breakfast products such as beef rice noodles, shallot oil mixed noodles, and beef hot dry noodles, and limited the listing.
KFC 342
In fact, compared with the more common Chinese snacks in breakfast such as porridge, flatbread, rice balls, and bean blossoms, KFC has gone further and further in the exploration of breakfast localization customization.
The new product listing also shows obvious new characteristics. First of all, KFC is more focused on categories, focusing on powder categories. Second, KFC is breaking the geographical limitations of Chinese snacks and intends to explore nationwide scale expansion.
Let's take a look.
Mainly focus on flour noodles
Pasta is an important category of Chinese breakfast. However, China's land is vast, and the customs and food culture of various places have their own characteristics, and in terms of pasta, it is reflected in local noodle snacks with different flavors and varieties.
In this complex "multiple choice question", according to the love and acceptance of consumers across the country and the difficulty of the "topic" of product research and development, KFC selected three types of beef hot dry noodles, scallion oil mixed noodles, and beef rice noodles, and handed over a new answer sheet in the study of taste.
Hot dry noodles are the "old faces" in this new product. In January last year, hot dry noodles were sold in restaurants in Wuhan as KFC's first "noodle" product, and since then, the popular hot dry noodles have been continuously optimistic about KFC, not only entering restaurants in Jiangxi, Shenzhen and other places, but also trying to limit the listing nationwide.
Such a high degree of popularity comes from the success of reproducing authentic tastes. XiaoShidai has previously introduced that its raw materials use authentic alkaline water surface to ensure the taste of "smooth and strong", and then blanch the noodles with hot water when selling, and finally mix the noodles with sesame sauce and sprinkle them with crispy diced radish.
In this upgrade, KFC has added spiced marinated beef. This time, restaurants in Hubei, Tianjin and other places will continue to list this beef hot dried noodles.
Noodles with shallot oil is the second noodle dish this time, and it is also the simplest Chinese snack that "looks". As a representative pasta of The Shanghai School, it contains the aesthetics and life wisdom of Shanghainese.
The foodie's judgment of a good bowl of scallion oil noodles is "the shallot oil is well boiled, the seasoning is moderate, and the noodles are strong." Reproducing the taste memories of gourmets makes this seemingly simple snack under the interpretation of KFC.
Starting with the "soul" fried shallot oil mixed with shallot oil, KFC's method is to simmer the shallots over low heat, fry the shallots to be brown and sweet, and the oil is full of shallot essence. After preparing the seasoning and toppings at the same time, the strong noodles are added at this time. So a bowl of shallot oil noodles has achieved the "color, aroma and taste" that gourmets pursue, that is, noodles with red sauce, browned shallot leaves; noodles, sauce, oil, and onions; sauce, oil, and light sweetness.
Although noodles with shallot oil are often considered to be a unique symbol of affection for Shanghainese, they are also well-known and loved throughout the country.
This time, KFC has 9 regional restaurants launched shallot oil noodles. Surprisingly, in addition to jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai and the surrounding common areas, KFC restaurants in Shandong, Shaanxi, Fujian and other places are the key areas for promoting shallot oil noodles.
Beef rice noodles are the only powder in this new product, which is intended to reproduce the taste of Hunan rice noodles. This time, in order to present a bowl of authentic Hunan rice noodles, KFC has carefully worked soup, powder, yards, small ingredients and so on.
This bowl of steaming Hunan rice noodles has also given many markets the confidence to promote, including Yungui, Beijing, Heilongjiang, Guangdong, Liaoji, Henan, Hunan, Sichuan and other 9 regions of KFC restaurants are facing local consumers to serve the new bowl of Hunan rice noodles.
The high enthusiasm of the people of the whole country is also related to the universality and addiction of the spicy taste. CBNData's "2021 Annual Observation of the Offline Consumer Market" data points out that regional flour noodles that are biased towards salty and spicy tastes have more cross-regional expansion capabilities. According to Meituan statistics, among the consumers' favorite tastes, spicy taste also ranked first with a proportion of 41.8%.
"Piping hot" flour noodles
At present, the branding, standardization and informatization of Chinese noodle snacks are still low.
The data of the Red Food Brand Research Institute in 2021 shows that the noodle market has developed so far, and the number of noodle restaurants in the country is conservatively estimated at about 400,000, however, among the 1225 noodle brands included in the Red Food Brand Research Institute, more than 70% of the brand stores are within 50, and there are few brands with more than 500 stores.
However, in recent years, noodle snacks are ushering in a powerful "new force", and the transformation of flour noodles is becoming more and more hot. According to the "2021 White Paper on China's Catering Brand Power" released by the Red Food Brand Research Institute, in the past year, noodles have become one of the hottest catering tracks. In 2021, the powder noodle track ushered in an unprecedented capital heat, with more than 25 investment and financing events, a three-fold increase over 2020.
The influence of KFC, one of the important forces of the chain restaurant, entered the powder track, and its influence is self-evident, that is, the unique competitive advantage and the upgrading and transformation that can be brought to the category, as well as the demonstration role.
First of all, KFC's powerful food safety system will greatly meet consumers' food safety requirements for flour noodles. KFC is one of the brands operated by Yum China, in order to prevent potential risks in the food supply chain, Yum China combines years of management experience and innovative intelligent technology to create a unique food safety risk management system to ensure food safety.
Secondly, KFC is more competitive in price with the "noodle upstart" brand's staggered layout during breakfast time. Flour brands focus on high-end communities and business circles, and the positioning of the main lunch and dinner scenes also makes their product pricing generally high.
According to bailian intelligent data, among the 30 flour brands with the highest proportion of high-end business district stores in 2021, about 87% of the stores have an average unit price of more than 20 yuan, 60% are higher than 30 yuan, and 17% of brands are higher than 50 yuan.
The "New Chinese Noodle Shop Industry Trend and Consumer Behavior Insight Report in the First Half of 2021" released by Ai Media Catering Research Institute shows that in terms of consumer prices, nearly 90% of the respondents' single consumption in noodle shops is less than 50 yuan, of which the population of 16-30 yuan is the largest, accounting for 43.9%.
In the theme menu of "Every Side is China", the price of new products and corresponding packages is between 11-21 yuan, the average price is 15.3 yuan, and the pricing is within the affordability of ordinary consumers, which is expected to win the love of more consumers.
Finally, KFC's strong store network has also added wings to the national expansion of local flour noodles. By the end of 2021, the total number of KFC restaurants reached 8168. Such a strong national store network means greater dining convenience and brand trust for consumers.
In the past, if a Tianjin consumer was hungry for authentic Wuhan hot dry noodles, he often had to rely on the recommendation of acquaintances or do his own homework to find a local hot dry noodle restaurant. Today, patronizing KFC's local breakfast restaurant during promotional hours, the consumer can taste the more authentic and cost-effective Wuhan hot dry noodles, and the Wuhan hot dry noodles have gone further.
Localization customization and then speed up
The entry into the pasta category is one of the epitomes of KFC's insistence on localized and customized breakfasts for many years. In recent years, KFC has rapidly conquered many categories in the development of Chinese breakfast categories.
In May last year, KFC launched the "Zhiwei Xiaolong" in some restaurants in Hangzhou, Wenzhou and Shaoxing, and cooperated with the century-old "Zhiweiguan"; subsequently, in July, KFC launched the "Tongli Meat Swallow" jointly named with the local time-honored brands in Fuzhou city and Xiamen City; by September, all KFC restaurants selling breakfast in Henan Province have appeared in peppery soup; in January this year, the signature vegetarian bun of the century-old vegetarian brand "Chunfeng SongyueLou" appeared in some restaurants of KFC Shanghai.
KFC Breakfast "Peppery Soup"
Vigorously explore the growth space of breakfast time and the localization development of breakfast categories, from the huge scale and considerable growth rate of the breakfast market. At the same time, after years of exploration, KFC's localized customized breakfast development project has also formed its own methodology, implementing two modes of parallel, "walking on two legs" principle.
The first model is the "bottom-up" promotion model, that is, several products are developed by each market for the national market to choose a product that is more suitable for their own market, and this "every side is China" theme promotion activity is like this. The second model is a "top-down" promotion model, that is, to take good regional products back to headquarters to continue research and development, launch more innovative flavors, and promote them nationwide.
Since the launch of Chinese breakfast in 2002, KFC has gone through two decades. In addition to Western-style fast food such as fried chicken, hamburgers and fries, the frequent emergence of Chinese snacks such as fritters, soy milk, buns, hot dry noodles and so on has also created a grounded and localized brand image for KFC.
Of course, the meaning is much more than that. Consumers love KFC because it's becoming more and more "inclusive." Which Chinese snack category will KFC "transform" in the future? Let's wait and see.