The 26-year-old veteran Hong Kong-style dessert "Man Kee Dessert" and the three-year-old "Little Man Cha Tian" merged to get out of a new Man Kee.
On May 7, the Hong Kong-style dessert chain brand "Man Kee Desserts" announced the merger with the new tea drink "Xiao Man Cha Tian", and the new group completed a new round of financing, jointly led by a well-known catering group and a new consumer unicorn company. Liu Zizheng, founder of Xiaoman Tea Field, will become the President of Zhigang Group (the parent company of Manji Desserts) and the co-CEO of Manji Desserts. Hu Fengchun, former head of Starbucks China Supply Chain, COO of Piye Coffee, and Song Xiaoli, former COO of Xiaoman Tea Field and former head of East China operations of Starbucks China, will join us.
It is reported that after the merger, "Manji Dessert" and "XiaomanChatian" will open a new flagship store, positioned as a medium and large store of about 200 square meters, and will launch a new dessert concept. In the second half of this year, new stores will be opened in Beijing and Shanghai.
As a rare "two-way rush" in the field of consumption, the merger of Manji Dessert and Xiao Man Tea Field is regarded as a move to make up for each other's "short board". Liu Zizheng, the founder of Xiaoman Tea Field, also publicly stated that the merger of Manji Dessert and Xiaoman Tea Field is a "new and old marriage" in the field of consumption, and in the past, new and old consumption encountered different problems: traditional consumer brand products, operating systems and cost control are excellent, "the chassis is stable", but the "front-end" insight is insufficient, and the brand power is lacking. New consumer brands rush to the "front end", but the back-end support capacity is often insufficient, and "New Manji" can make up for these two ends.
The transformation of long-established enterprises is not a new thing, and the merger of Manji Dessert and Xiao manchatian, who is only three years old, is a development trend that values the integration of desserts and new tea drinks and the healthier and higher quality of new tea drinks. However, will the merged desserts usher in a new life or become the next Xuliushan? Xu Liushan, the "founder of Hong Kong-style desserts" who was born for 60 years, was liquidated by bankruptcy last year.
A rare "marriage between old and new" in the field of consumption
According to public information, in 1995, Man Kee Dessert was founded in Hong Kong, and around 2010, it relied on the dividends of shopping malls to create a "sweet rest area", and the number of stores in the mainland was once close to 500. From 2008 to 2013, it was the period of the fastest growth in the number of dessert stores in Manji, and more than 90 new stores were opened in one year. Double skin milk, cold powder, poplar nectar are well-known classic explosive products by the post-80s and post-90s.
Manji Dessert has a number of professional central kitchens, raw fruit processing warehouses and transportation fleets, one of which has a central kitchen capacity to supply dozens of chain stores, and the central factory will distribute the products to branches across the country, using professional thermal insulation transportation and storage equipment, arranging product inspectors to inspect the store, food freshness, high hygiene. It has been released for a period of time to join, but in 2013, it began to suspend the application for joining, and all new stores are directly operated stores.
However, with the past two years of Hi Tea, Nai Xue's tea, Shu yi roasted fairy grass and other new tea drinks, Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau, Hu tou Bureau and other new desserts, baking brands emerge in an endless stream, Hong Kong-style, Cantonese dessert market gradually declined, Manji desserts in the past two years in major cities are also shrinking stores, from only the number of mainland stores once close to 500, to the mainland and Hong Kong, Singapore has nearly 300 fully directly operated stores, but fortunately still maintain profitability, the annual income is nearly 1 billion yuan.
The new tea brand Xiaoman Tea Tian in this marriage, founded in 2019, is the pioneer of domestic Cherry theme tea drinks, aiming at the younger generation in the tea market for high-value fresh fruit tea products to continue to upgrade the demand, product unit price of about 30 yuan, the main and based on the concept of "high-value Cherry" and "Dessert Drink", covering a variety of high-value fruits such as Cherry, Qingwang Qingti, with more than 20 products and diversified product matrix.
According to the data of Tianyancha, Xiaomanchatian, who is only three years old, has completed 4 rounds of financing since its establishment, and the founder Liu Zizheng was responsible for investment in the consumer field in the China team of Warburg Pincus Investment Group in the United States. As the youngest investor in Warburg Pincus Investment, he has led or participated in the investment of well-known projects such as Mobike and Geek+, and has made small achievements in the investment industry at that time.
Under the fight between the gods and immortals of a number of high-end new tea brands, Xiaoman Tea Field entered the game from the concept of the main super category, and founder Liu Zizheng once said that Xiaoman Tea Tian was doing reverse thinking, "looking for those categories that are unstable in the supply chain, not cheap, not easy to obtain, but really valuable in the hearts of users."
In 2020, the first store in XiaomanChatian opened in Chaoyang Joy City, Beijing. The Cherry Tea Series, which is built around the core category of Cherry, has attracted a large number of consumers with the high-value concept and super high appearance of "Cherry Freedom", and the dessert drink "Cherry Bomb" created by 12 Cherry has become an in-store explosive product.
In order to turn the usual 200-300 yuan a pound of cherries into a drink, but also to ensure gross profits, Liu Zizheng, the founder of Xiaoman Tea Field, chose to set up barriers before opening a store, through investment in the upstream fresh fruit supply chain, its own supply chain global procurement, the main "365 days a year to supply high-quality cherries, 365 days and nights across the three continents and seven seas", reducing procurement costs, forming a strong control of the supply of cherries. His background as a consumer investor in private equity firms also provides an advantage for his main upstream high-end fruit supply chain.
High-value fruits, once the supply chain barriers are established, will form a higher and scarce product value. With the advantages of cherry productization and supply chain capabilities, Xiaoman Tea Field has established industry barriers in the vast new tea market, and there are no brands to follow up and imitate its similar super categories of tea such as cherry.
It is understood that the current volume of Xiaoman Tea Field is not large, with Beijing as the base camp, there are no more than 50 stores in the country, and the monthly effect of the store is 8,000 yuan. In an interview with the media last year, founder Liu Zizheng once said that the gross profit margin of the XiaomanChatian Chelizi series has reached more than 65%, and all stores have achieved a turnaround.
New ManJi or the next Xuliushan?
The transformation of long-established consumer enterprises is not new. In the field of Hong Kong-style desserts, a generation of "dessert kings" Xu Liushan was once a strong rival alongside Manji Desserts, but while expanding on a large scale, it changed hands three times, and in 2009, the founding family shareholders of Xu Liushan sold all their shares to Naivs Capital, an investment company in Malaysia. In 2015, Naivs Capital transferred to Huang Jihuang's parent company (Huangtian International Holdings) for HK$500 million. In 2019, KFC parent company Yum China acquired Huang Jihuang.
After changing owners many times, Xu Liushan did not escape the impact of new tea drinks and net red catering, and because of the excessive opening and franchise after the change of ownership, store management and revenue were not good, there was no innovation in products, and Xu Liushan, who stayed in place, was unstable, and finally fell behind and went bankrupt.
On May 26 last year, according to a number of media reports, four creditors of Xu Liushan filed a winding-up petition against Xu Liushan Food Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xu Liushan"), and the hearing officer of the High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has issued a winding-up order against Hui Liushan in Hong Kong.
Today, compared to Xu Liushan, the market still has time to remember desserts. The current level of operation and management of Manji Dessert is relatively good, and the basic plate is stable. In June last year, ADV Capital Partner completed the mergers and acquisitions of Manji Hong Kong, South China and East China, and integrated its stores in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Mainland China and cross-regional functional management headquarters, realizing the unification of the Manji brand for the first time, and achieving profitability in the third and fourth quarters of this year.
In the context of the wave of new consumer brands, Manji Dessert strives to meet the changes in consumer demand while maintaining the brand's own sentiment culture, and keeps up with the development trend of new retail and digitalization: in 2016, it laid out the Internet field, opened takeaway channels on platforms such as Meituan and Ele.me; entered the supermarket, jointly launched the "HoneymoonExpress" store type with Hema Fresh; in 2019, it built a private domain operation platform to open a marketing model of "light meal + dessert". In 2020, the trajectory of Yituo store opened the urban taste buds, innovated the product category with the city store as the background, and launched IP co-branding and co-creation attempts.
It can be seen from the current sales products of Manji Dessert that the products of Manji Dessert have expanded from The Hong Kong-style sugar water that pays attention to health care to "you can drink taro puree double skin milk", "persimmon your good luck cheese cup" and other new products, coffee and cakes with new tea drinking shadows.
However, in the past two years, Manji Dessert has been repeatedly rumored to be closed, indicating that the product taste and innovation are still slightly less competitive in the current consumer market dominated by young people. According to the analysis of industry insiders, it is not the dessert baking brand that has emerged in the past two years that has "defeated" traditional Hong Kong-style desserts, but may be a new milk tea brand.
Compared with the new milk tea, the traditional Hong Kong-style dessert shop product cost is higher, and susceptible to seasonal influences, the source of customers is also declining, the new tea brand is generally more accurate in product positioning, understand the douyin, little red book and other brand marketing traffic play, closer to the needs and pain points of the younger generation of contemporary generation.
According to media reports, Liu Zizheng, the new CEO of Manji Desserts, has his own new plans for the dessert market and the development of new stores: First, desserts are "snacked". The use of desserts should be unlimited, not limited to space and utensils; second, desserts are "gifted". Drive the transformation of catering from the traditional ready-made sales to a higher-dimensional retail format; the "all-day" of desserts, promote the quiet transformation of desserts to light food replacements; and finally return to basic reconstruction. The traffic brought by compounding and showmanship is not durable, and the gross profit margin and repurchase rate are not supported.
With the consumption upgrade of the younger generation of consumers, the traditional dessert brand is gradually declining, and the aging of the brand and the limited consumption scenario are not the problems that a long-established enterprise needs to face. From cup roasted fairy grass, sago dew to fresh fruit poplar branch manna, traditional desserts and tea drinks are constantly integrating, dessert tea drinking has become a new trend in the development of the new tea industry, and dessert tea drinking is also expected to become sugar-free, low-fat, low-calorie, and light food at the same time.
Many people in the industry believe that the twenty-six-year-old traditional dessert brand Manji dessert has the advantages of brand power, central kitchen factory and large-scale stores, and the young new fresh fruit tea drink Xiaomanchatian is more accurate in consumer demand insight and marketing, after the two join hands, if you can seize the new trend of dessert tea drinking and light food meal replacement transformation, it is expected to be born and two-way to go out of a new full memory.
(This article was first published on titanium media APP, the author | Liu Dafang, the editor | Tianpeng)
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