In the summer heat, the "red cordon" of 40 ° C high temperature has been broken again and again, and the Shencheng catering industry, which is slightly depressed by the epidemic, is steaming hot. At noon on a working day, the reporter came to a hot pot restaurant in Ruihong Tiandi Moon Bay in Hongkou District, and the waiter told the reporter that the store has more than 50 seats, in accordance with the normalization of epidemic prevention and control requirements, there are more than 20 seats for dine-in, "The lunch market full seat rate is 80%, and there are almost no empty seats in the evening market." ”
The gross profit margin is high, which can withstand the impact of the epidemic
"Shanghai has been adding more than 10% of hot pot shops every year for six or seven consecutive years, and the number of hot pot shops in the city has exceeded 8,000." Jin Peihua, deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai Catering and Culinary Industry Association, told reporters that after the current round of epidemic, the "heat" of hot pot restaurants is still unabated, which is related to the consumption characteristics of the Shanghai catering market after the epidemic.
He believes that after the epidemic, Shanghai's catering industry (that is, the industry often calls "big catering") is inevitably affected by factors such as the slowdown in the pace of business activities, the reduction of the willingness of relatives and friends to "round tabletop" to eat together, and the poor international logistics, and the difficulty of purchasing many high-value imported ingredients. "According to the incomplete investigation of our association, the operation of some chain restaurant enterprises has only recovered to the pre-epidemic level of 50% or 60%, while the hot pot enterprises can recover to 70% or 80% before the epidemic."
In a shopping mall, a dinner restaurant known as the king of queuing does not need to wait for a seat now.
Compared with fast food, it also belongs to the face-saving "guest dinner", and the unit price of the guest is lower than the meal, and in the special period after the epidemic, it has a unique charm because of "dislocation". Jin Peihua pointed out that more importantly, the gross profit of the hot pot industry is about 5%-8% higher than that of meals, which is mainly due to savings in labor costs. "In recent years, shop rents, labor costs, and food raw material prices have all been large in the day and night, and the profits of the catering industry have long been worse than ever. Compared with the main meal, the same ping effect, the back kitchen and the front hall of the hot pot restaurant are much less staffed. The back kitchen staff is mainly responsible for cutting, and the skill requirements and meals are not a grade, and the salary is naturally lower. And the front office service, customers themselves shabu-shabu, but also reduced a lot of waiters. ”
An investor who has recently invested in a number of catering and food "net red" brands told reporters that it is precisely because of high gross profits that they can withstand the uncertainty brought about by the epidemic. "Since the outbreak of the global epidemic in 2020, in addition to hot pot, the coffee fever, ramen fever, new tea hot, and baking fever in the catering food industry have all been caused by this, and their gross profits are generally higher than the industry average." This is similar to the rise of fast food chains such as hamburgers and pizzas, fast fashion, warehouse-style hypermarkets, etc. in the early 20th century when the Western economy was in recession. This is what economists often call the 'lipstick economy'! ”
Ingredients "unique", scene "unique taste"
But in fact, the hot pot "fire" heat that people see with the naked eye is only half right. The reporter found that at present, the more "hot" hot pots on the Shanghai market are still dominated by new brands, such as Xiang Xiang, Banu Mao Mao Hot Pot, Panda Old Stove Hot Pot, Chongqing Gao Lao Jiu Hot Pot, Miss Fu in Chengdu, Pei Jie Old Hot Pot and so on.
In the past, the small fat sheep, small tail sheep, Haidilao, sipping and feeding in the market, etc., but the scenery is no longer beautiful. As early as 2004, the number of small fat sheep stores has reached 700, more than mcDonald's in the same period. In 2011, Yum Group acquired Xiaofei sheep for HK$4.6 billion, and Xiaofei sheep was privatized and delisted. After changing the manager, in just 4 years, the little fat sheep has only more than 200 stores in the country. In 2021, Yum China's annual report shows that the revenue of the Chinese catering business, including XiaoFeiyang, Huang Jihuang and Dongfang Jiebai, was only US$474 million, the restaurant operating profit margin was -20.8%, and the operating loss was US$29 million, which was significantly larger than the -9 million US dollars in the same period last year.
In August 2021, the former "Queuing King" chain hot pot brand "Sipping Feeding" was exposed to have closed 200 stores due to site selection errors and losses. In February this year, Haidilao, the first listed company in the hot pot industry, issued a revenue warning, with an estimated loss of 4.2 billion yuan, and more than 300 hot pot restaurants announced the closure of stores for rectification.
If the small fat sheep and the small tail sheep are called the 1.0 version of the hot pot, and the haidilao and sipping are called the 2.0 version of the hot pot, then where is the "fire" mystery of the new hot pot?
"Hot" hot pot, "fire" in ingredients.
In the Shanghai market, hot pot is a small catering category. Since the reform and opening up, the popularity of small fat sheep and small tail sheep has also brought hot pot culture to Shanghai. There are only two kinds of soup - red soup, white soup, the ingredients are nothing more than beef and mutton, lunch meat, pig blood, duck blood, frozen tofu, potato chips, vermicelli, etc., shabu for an hour or two, and then call some small knife cuts, or put some noodles in the hot pot soup, this meal is even if it is full and drunk.
After that, the initiator who let the hot pot in the Shanghai market enter the elegance hall should be counted as Haidilao, what did Haidilao do? It was the first to make hot pot eat out of the aristocratic fan, famous for the "ceiling" of service in the catering industry. Eat a hot pot to wait? Haidilao will provide free melon seeds, as well as free shoe shine, manicure services, and even in some stores, there are chess and card tables, cribs. In the process of eating hot pot, his family's first unlimited supply of spices, drinks, free splash-proof bibs, mobile phone waterproof covers, etc., has now become the service standard of the hot pot industry.
However, after all, consumers are not for free melon seeds, free shoe shine, manicure to eat. For these "peripherals", the new hot pot brand that is now "on fire" is taking a path that is the opposite:
The first is the "unique" ingredients. First of all, let's talk about the bottom of the pot, it can be said that each new hot pot brand has a unique pot bottom. The hot pot has a Tabletop spicy duck blood tofu pot; The old official is the Luo Song Mandarin Duck Pot; Tan Duck Blood uses sweet eagle tea as the soup base.
The main dish of Banu Mao Belly Hot Pot: Mao Belly. (Source: Enterprise Official)
Speaking of shabu-shabu, the hot pot has tribute balls, secret spicy beef, slaughterhouse fresh hair belly, caviar shrimp slippery, small county liver, Wushan konjac and other home dishes; Brother Old Official's main bullfrog; Banu's main dishes include hairy belly, well water soybean sprouts, and hydrangea bacteria, and the leader insists on rejecting "fire alkali hair products" regardless of the occasion; The duck blood of Tan duck blood is called brine pickling, freshly fished and cut, and each piece is non-porous.
Then there are snacks, snacks and drinks. There is "tea rice tea" milk tea in the hot pot; Sister Pei has ice dumplings, ice powder, known as the must-have to relieve spicy, but also launched the Chongqing specialty food stalls, there are fried bun noodles, scoops, triangle rice, fried potato slices, etc.; Banu has fennel fritters, Banu rolling dough; Chongqing Gao Lao Jiu has milk cover sticks... The new hot pot brand is also good at homemade drinks, such as Banu homemade drinks such as iron stick yam juice, green orange oolong, ume soup, lime lactic acid bacteria and passion fruit, kiwi fruit and other flavors of juice drinks. At that time, Haidilao pioneered the business model of free melon seeds, free spices and drinks, and these new hot pot brands were not "road goods", and there was a cup of one or two yuan of homemade drinks and ice cream on the market, and they were very "arrogant".
The main dishes of the Peijie hot pot include tribute balls, secret spicy beef, slaughterhouse fresh hairy belly, caviar shrimp slippery, xiaojun liver and so on. (Source: Enterprise Official)
In the confrontation with the predecessors of the hot pot, Banu simply played an advertising slogan: "Service is not the characteristic of Banu, but the hair belly and mushroom soup are." This may be the "oath" of the new hot pot to the old hot pots: back to the origin of the catering industry - ingredients.
The second is the "unique taste" scene management. Today, when Generation Z has become the main force of consumption, "not eating, posing for photos first" is the habit of young people. Can take pictures, always have a bit of a unique "tone", so, xiang xiang hot pot in the store design, the main "reunion", through the semi-circle, circular modeling installation and artistic lighting, to create a warm dining atmosphere; Sister Pei focuses on the old Chongqing style, a row of bamboo stools in the waiting area, the decoration of the shop hall with bamboo back baskets, the ground is not enough to go up the wall; As soon as Tan Duck Blood enters the door, he can see red lanterns hanging high, green tiles, gray brick floors, old wooden tables, and there are cloaks, buckets, and calligraphy characters on the walls; Banu Mao Belly Hot Pot simply put the hotel decoration fan "Gao Yang Shang" to the former considered "Lower Riba people" hot pot restaurant, the lobby is spacious, after the decoration of the industrial fan, metal style; Panda old stove hot pot will stage a "panda show", customers can take photos with waiters dressed in panda costumes...
The "unique" ingredients make the new hot pot brand worth the money, and the "unique taste" shop decoration makes them worth the money. One or two hundred yuan of consumer unit price, take photos and send circles of friends can be used for 10 minutes, shabu-shabu can be used for 20 minutes, boys and girls do not have to pay too much attention to table manners, there are so many free drinks, ice cream gifts... "lipstick economy" on the catering track once again shows the mountain dew, this is the mystery of the new hot pot "fire".
Beware of the double-edged sword of capital
The "heat" of the new hot pot brand has now also triggered the uplift of capital.
At the beginning of this year, "Pei Jie" announced the completion of a 100 million yuan A round of financing, after the Chongqing hot pot brand "Zhou Shi brother" received more than 100 million yuan of A round investment from Black Ant Capital; In June of the same year, "Banu Mao Belly Hot Pot" was exposed to complete a new round of financing of more than 500 million yuan... Having financial support means that these new brands should open more stores and run wild on the road of chain operation: not only to have enough exposure in the core business districts of first-tier cities, but also to sink second-, third- and fourth-tier cities, and once listed, the financial statements should be good enough.
As we all know, once a restaurant brand enters the fast lane of chain operation development, the scene of "unique" ingredients and "unique taste" are the core competitiveness, but not all. The core competitiveness of chain catering operations lies in the fact that the risk control ability must leap to a new level: a thousand stores, the risk of "copy not out of shape" is small, but it is easy to cause aesthetic fatigue; Thousands of stores and thousands of faces, the difficult to adjust the "public mouth" one by one satisfied, but the scale effect can not go up. Catering to Generation Z is a double-edged sword, and today's consumption iteration is no longer a 10-year change in the 1980s and 1990s, nor a 5-year change at the beginning of this century, and the consumer taste of Generation Z is as long as one or two years, and as short as half a year and a few months. With the rise of the national tide, Generation Z has gained emotional recognition while eating hot pot, but whether the national hot tide fever can continue is unknown. It is reported that the panda old stove hot pot was the most popular "panda show" askers have been few, and now the epidemic prevention and control normalization, some stores simply canceled this show ...
"There are talented people in the Jiangshan generation, and each has led the way for hundreds of years." After the hot pot track, the wave pushes the front wave, no need for a hundred years, only for the day, who will be the "KFC" in the hot pot industry in the end? Let's wait and see.
Caption Source: Figure Worm Image Editor: Zhu Xuan
Source: Author: Wu Weiqun