This is the 1138th issue of Shenzhen Krypton New Consumption Sharing: The traditional marinated brand is competing in dislocation, and the Cao family has suddenly won the first place in online sales.
Author| Gawaine
Editor|Huang Xiaojun
Source|Deep Krypton New Consumption [ID: xinshangye2016]
Cover image |
The benchmark of the Sichuan Spiciness Challenge has changed.
"I haven't eaten Cao's duck neck perverted spicy, and I dare not say that I can eat spicy", Cao's duck neck replaced Sichuan hot pot as a new unit of spiciness.
Cao's duck neck, as the current "spicy top" in Sichuan-Chongqing and even the whole country, has attracted consumers frequently:
"Spicy to the ceiling, lose consciousness after eating"
"Snack Street Nail Household"
"The traffic password of Million Food Broadcast Up"
"Challenging the perverted spicy Cao Clan duck neck" has now not only become a must-have item for food bloggers, but also become the most beloved NO.1 for public diners to order takeaway——
With an average of 1358 orders per store, it has become the first in the national duck neck online average month, with 497 online stores, and it is also the national champion of total online sales.
01
Sell hot brine not duck neck
It has been more than 2,000 years since Li Bing, Taishou Li Bing, Taishou of Shu County, Qin State, and halogen products have become an indispensable cuisine for the Chinese diet.
In 2012, when the "first halogen stock" Huang Shanghuang was successfully listed on the small and medium-sized board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, the public was surprised that even the ordinary halogen business could be transformed into a listed company. However, in the following five years, Zhou Black Duck and Juwei also entered the capital market one after another with the taste of brine.
Chinese According to the "China Catering Category and Brand Development Report 2021", the retail scale of the mainland leisure halogen products market has reached 110 billion yuan in 2019, a year-on-year increase of 20%; Even in 2020, when the epidemic was severely affected, the retail sales of leisure halogen products reached 123.5 billion yuan. It shows that the demand for the brine market is very stable, and the consumer group is wide and solid.
The sudden rise of Cao's duck neck is inseparable from the change in the wind direction of the brine market.
Taking 2020 as an example, the market share of the top five brands in the domestic brine track is not high, at about 20%. Among them, Superb Duck Neck accounted for 8.6%, Zhou Black Duck accounted for 4.6%, and Ziyan Barilla Chicken
3%, Huang Shanghuang 2.8%, Jiujiuya 1.3%, the remaining 80% of the market is scattered in the hands of some regional brands, small private stores and smaller local chain brands.
That is, the living space of the halogen brand is relatively generous, especially the new hot halogen category subdivided in recent years.
"You can eat anything in the Cao family, except duck neck." Although the name has duck neck, in fact, Cao's sells "hot marinated spicy noodles", a variety of vegetable instant noodles, but it is the main theme of Cao's.
According to data from the Red Food Brand Research Institute, in the ten years from 2010 to 2021, the business registration data of hot halogen shops increased by 390 times, and nearly 1,000 hot halogen companies were indirectly registered in a year from 2020 to 2021.
Even more than the most crowded tea market, on average, marinated cooked food is the largest number of stores, up to 112.1, followed by tea drinks 105.6.
And only in 2021, in the 10 financings of the halogen track, most VCs chose to inject capital into the hot halogen category, Sequoia Capital, Netju Capital (wholly-owned by Delicious Food) and other well-known investment institutions came down, and many brands such as Sheng Xiangting, Hao Aunt, Hot Halogen Food Light, and Haolin Legend have successively obtained large financing.
In the definition and classification of brine flavor, it is mainly divided into consumption scenarios, which are casual brine and meal marinade. In the past two years, the new hot brine has found a new consumption scene from the two: becoming a meal.
According to this classification, the "three giants of brine flavor" at the head of the industry, Superb Taste, Zhou Black Duck, and Huang Shanghuang, all belong to the category of leisure marinade; Ziyan Barilla Chicken, Liao Ji, etc. are classified as food marinades; The new hot brine team is basically a new brand that has only entered the market in recent years.
The emergence of hot halogen classification is friendly to small brands.
In the past, limited by fresh-keeping technology, most of the marinated products needed to be pre-packaged and preserved, but vacuum packaging inevitably made the brine taste lose its taste, and it was not convenient for long-distance transportation, so it was difficult to form a cross-regional brine brand.
Small brands are subject to the supply chain and are completely uncompetitive with several giants, except for low prices.
Consumer surveys by catering research institutions show that nearly 70% of consumers spend more frequently than one or two weeks, and the general consumption amount is between 15-50 yuan.
The biggest buzz among consumers about the traditional brine three giants is also the price. Taking Zhou Black Duck as an example, a pound of duck neck is currently priced at 66.5 yuan, and a pound of duck collarbone is priced at 67 yuan.
Cao's unit price of about 20 yuan can be used as a staple meal to fill the stomach. It is not unreasonable that Cao, which is dislocated and competing with traditional marinated brands, has suddenly won the first place in online sales.
02
Sell spicy taste, not sell marinade
Being able to ride the changing wind of the market and ride the trend is an unattainable opportunity, but behind the red fire of Cao's duck neck is a strange painting style.
On April 4, 2023, the Fengxian District Market Supervision Bureau received a report from consumers that the "Cao's Duck Neck" restaurant at No. 550 Hancun Road had induced consumers to overorder. After investigation, it was found that the reported "Cao's Duck Neck" carried out the "extra spicy challenge" activity in its store, and must choose three ingredients of enoki mushroom, small fritters, instant noodles or potato flour to participate in the challenge, and there are also reward forms such as "200 yuan in 3 minutes, 100 yuan in 5 minutes, free order in 8 minutes, and a bottle of iced tea in 10 minutes".
However, because its degree of "extra spicy" far exceeds the affordability of most consumers, the dishes that must be selected are all staple foods that absorb oil and spicy food, so that no one challenged the success of this activity, and a large amount of food remained, resulting in waste, so it was reported by consumers and subject to administrative punishment.
Only regular customers know that almost no one can succeed in the "extra spicy challenge" of Cao's duck neck, and it is not so much a challenge to spiciness, but a challenge to technology.
Cao's duck neck is not hidden, and generously admits on social platforms that the use of industrial chili essence in his meals. And not only industrial chili essence, flavor enhancement powder, color protection agent, bone penetrating aroma... Franchisees who have learned Cao's duck neck on the spot said that it is "comparable to the drug production scene".
The "technology and ruthlessness" in food addition was once known to the public because of the popularity of blogger "Xin Jifei", whose words can not only save the bankrupt Huiyuan juice, but also instantly evaporate the market value of Haitian soy sauce by tens of billions. For a time, major food brands and small households of merchants were at risk, and the statements and popular science issued for this purpose continued to show the deterrent power of "technology" in the consumer group.
Little Red Book: Cao Duck Neck Official
In addition to Cao's, I am afraid that no other brand dares to do this, brazenly putting additives on the table, focusing on a person who does not treat consumers as outsiders.
But what is outrageous is that consumers not only do not care, but also praise Cao Shigeng for "at least showing us everything", even if he knows that it is all technology, it is difficult to resist addiction and is willing to pay.
"When you are extremely honest, you are invincible", Cao's duck neck's popular painting style is surprisingly good, while other marinated brands, none of them dare to have the slightest relationship with "additives" on the bright side.
Compared to the brine, Cao's sells more like spicy, the brine will not be addictive, but the spicy will be.
Capsaicin activates pain receptors (TRPV-1, TRPA1) in the mouth and throat and sends signals to the central nervous system through nerve transmission. The brain that receives the pain signal activates emergency measures to relieve the pain, releasing a substance called endorphins, which provide the same pain-relieving effect and euphoric as opiates.
That's why you can't stop eating spicy.
And according to the "Young People's Diet Survey Report" released by AB InBev, spicy takeaway is the most popular among young people, and Meituan Dianping's statistics also show that spicy is the favorite taste of consumers, accounting for 41.8%.
With its addictive spicy taste and cheap price, consumers have a surprisingly high tolerance for Cao. In addition, Cao's is not a high-end brand, and its "grassroots" attribute is easier to gain the goodwill of consumers, which is also reflected in Michelle Ice City - the only company that can reverse public opinion after being exposed by 315.
In 315 this year, Michelle Ice City was exposed that some of its stores tampered with the date labels of opened ingredients, arbitrarily changed or did not record the deadline for the preparation of the "expiration date tracking card" of ingredients, illegal use of overnight ingredients, and a series of hygiene problems and food safety hazards.
Zhihu, Weibo and other platforms rushed to the hot search under the hot search "Michelle Ice City suspected food safety problems" related entries, consumers almost one-sided "forgive" and "recognize" Michelle Ice City, "he does not think I am poor, I do not think he is dirty".
The honest grassroots image has bizarrely become the core competitiveness of Cao's duck neck, and other brands are difficult to learn.
03
Incompatible franchisees
The reason why Cao's franchisee bosses are so free of themselves is also inseparable from Cao's chaotic management in franchising.
Although it has successfully gone out of Sichuan and blossomed more across the country, there is no lack of investors flocking to it, but Cao's current franchise situation is a mess.
In fact, there are two brands of Cao's duck neck, "Hunan Shuxiang Cao's duck neck" and "Chengdu Unity Cao's duck neck", but these two brands do not belong to the same company, which is equivalent to the tearing Li Kui and Li Ghost, smearing each other and claiming that they are the only "real Cao duck neck".
In order to compete for share and consumer awareness, both sides have begun a low-threshold franchise competition in order to seize the market in terms of scale as soon as possible and squeeze each other.
Although it has not yet affected the consumer level, the struggle between franchisees can be described as incompatible: including but not limited to arranging their own franchisees' stores to surround each other's franchisee stores, attacking the platform ratings of each other's franchisees' stores with bad reviews, prohibiting franchisees from jumping to the home, otherwise threatening that they cannot open, etc...
All this farce is based on the antagonistic relationship between the two parties over trademark rights, and the dispute between the two can be called a commercial drama.
On social platforms, there is a suspected threat from a certain party of Cao's duck neck merchants
Chengdu Unity Cao (including Chengdu Cao, Chengdu Unity Cao, Chengdu Spicy Cao Family), Yao Haobo personally registered 35 categories under the "Cao Duck Neck Trademark, this category is mainly used to join, 16 years authorized to Chengdu Spicy Cao for use, valid until 2025; In 2017, Chengdu Cao's successfully registered the trademark "Cao's King" under Class 43 (catering category), and tried to register "Cao's Duck Neck" under Class 43 without success; Hunan Shuxiang Cao Clan successfully registered "Cao Clan Duck Neck" under 43 categories in 2019 (I don't understand why Chengdu Cao Clan was not successful in 17 years, Hunan Shu Xiang Cao Clan was successfully registered);
In 2020, Chengdu Cao applied for the invalidity of the "Cao Duck Neck Trademark" of Hunan Shuxiang on the grounds that there was a similar trademark under the same category, and the court ruled upheld, Hunan Shuxiang's two appeals were invalid, and if there should be a final court judgment, the trademark would be directly invalid.
At present, the brand of Chengdu Unity Cao may be a little more stable, but it is not ruled out that after the expiration of the personal authorization in 2025, Chengdu Spicy Cao will not be able to get the authorization of "Cao's Duck Neck", but if the last round of Hunan Shuxiang Cao Clan fails to appeal, Hunan Shu Xiang Cao Clan will not allow the use of the "Cao Duck Neck" brand in the future.
The trademarks required for such hot brine as Cao's duck neck are as follows:
The first is the most legal and necessary "43 catering category"; The second is the "29 food category", which belongs to the pre-packaged food category, which can barely be used in the absence of the "43 category"; Then there are the "35 categories", which are used for online promotion and marketing and franchising.
The difference is that if the brand does not have "35 categories", it can also be franchised by relying on "43 categories" alone for trademark authorization.
However, if there are only "35 categories", without "43 categories", you cannot operate store catering.
According to the existing public information:
Shuxiang Cao successfully registered "Cao Duck Neck" under 43 categories with the company as the main body in 2017.
The United Cao Clan is authorized by the third-party individual Yao Haobo to have 35 categories of "Cao's Duck Neck" under 35 categories, although the external symmetry is "franchise", but strictly legally speaking, it is not allowed to carry out catering operations.
There is also a key and important role - a brand called "Cao Wang" that has nothing to do with the two. In 2015, the owner of the company successfully registered "Cao's Wang" under 43 categories, but it seems that it is not actually operating on a large scale.
Because Shuxiang was registered first, Unity could not register the Cao duck neck under category 43, so it found "Cao Food" and used its Cao Wang registered in 2015 to sue Shu Xiang's Cao duck neck registered in 2017. The court upheld the application for a judgment to invalidate the trademark on the grounds that it "constitutes a similar trademark in the same class".
But there is a more outrageous reversal.
In 2021, Shu Xiang registered a 43-class "Shuxiang Cao's Duck Neck", and any subsequent application for 43 categories of "Cao's Duck Neck" and "xx Cao's Duck Neck" will not be able to register because it is similar to "Shuxiang Cao's Duck Neck".
Therefore, if the Cao Duck Neck trademark of Shuxiang Cao Clan expires, no merchant can successfully register the trademark "Cao Clan Duck Neck" again.
The legal stalemate between the two sides is like entering a dead end, and they can only hit each other from the actual rhythm.
When the dispute comes to an end one day, the brand is already full, and the only ones who are most injured may be the franchisees who are confused in place.
Bibliography:
1. Chengdu's top stream Cao Duck Neck opened Nanjing for the first time, experienced, indeed on the head! |Jiangsu is the most experienced
2. Research report on new hot halogen category|With the rise of new forces of brine flavor, how many possibilities are there for the 100 billion brine track? | Food and beverage o2o