The Prince of Bread said:
In the beginning, I met the technical director for seven years and five seasons. She is a girl studying abroad in Europe, pursuing her dream and constantly developing various products. At that time, seven years and five quarters were only a company of tens of millions of levels. After several years of development, the company's revenue has reached hundreds of millions. Later, I went to Wuhan for seven years and five seasons and met co-founder Chen Jun.
Through this visit, I have gained a deeper understanding of the company's culture and direction. They focus on health-focused product development and have a professional and meticulous supply chain management team. Especially when it comes to baking processes, I am very inspired by their management methods. In a sense, their team accelerates the supply chain, product development, and brand development of the bakery industry at a higher level.
#Dialogue with industry celebrities#Special columnToday's guest: Chen Jun, co-founder of Seven Years and Five Seasons.
Guest Introduction:
Chen Jun, co-founder and supply chain founder of Seven Years and Five Seasons. He has been deeply engaged in offline retail for more than 20 years, and has worked as a senior executive of a well-known retail foreign company, and the general manager of the Hubei region of Ziwang.
PS: Welcome more interested and thoughtful friends to discuss and share with Tokyo baking professionals.
With the popularity of topics such as healthy eating and body management, light food is accepted and chosen by more and more young people, and has become a star in the new consumer field. In the capital market, the light food replacement food track has also received more and more attention.
Seven years and five seasons are committed to improving the diet of Chinese people, taking healthy and delicious as the starting point, improving the taste of whole wheat toast, and gradually launching a variety of flavors of whole wheat rice bun products. It has successfully built a popular brand with its online sale of whole-wheat bread.
According to the brand's official information, its sales in 2021 reached 400 million yuan, and a total of 120 million whole wheat breads were sold, and it has achieved the top 1 in the whole wheat bread category on Tmall and Douyin online.
In the context of the new era, will whole wheat bread become a "new demand" for consumption? How did the seven years and five seasons win the "heart" of contemporary consumers? In a changeable environment, how will seven years and five seasons respond?
To this end, Tokyo bakery professionals had the honor to interview Chen Jun, the co-founder of Seven Years and Five Seasons, and let us enter the whole wheat world of seven years and five seasons.
01
The blend of health and quality
The brand is positioned in the field of health food, with whole wheat bread as its core product. The brand skillfully combines "health" and "quality" to pursue the perfect balance of taste and nutrition of food.
Through careful selection of raw materials, unique recipes and strict production processes, we present delicious and healthy whole-wheat bread to consumers for seven years and five seasons.
As the founder of Seven Years and Five Seasons, can you share the original intention of the establishment and the development process of the brand?
Chen Jun: Founded in 2017, Seven Years and Five Seasons is a whole wheat bread brand dedicated to helping improve the diet of Chinese people with healthy baking. The company's first product is tea tree oil, which takes seven years from tea plant planting to maturity to hanging fruit; From hanging fruit to ripening, there are five more seasons. Although the company did not continue to deal in tea tree oil products, this tone of making healthy food remained in the brand, and at the same time hoped to continue the spirit of tea tree oil without hurry, so it gave the brand the name "seven years and five seasons".
Why did you choose the whole wheat bread track for seven years and five seasons?
Chen Jun: Since 2017, we have been paying attention to and exploring the health food track in seven years and five seasons, and there were many categories to choose from on the market at that time, such as oatmeal, soba noodles, etc., and we also tried it for a long time. Later, the founder and I did a survey and judgment, and found that contemporary young consumers are more inclined to choose convenient and fast products, and bread can meet this demand.
In most people's concept, whole wheat bread is a relatively healthy concept, in line with the original intention of changing the diet of Chinese people. In addition, from our consumer groups, especially the consumer groups of the 00s and 90s, their consumption concepts make them willing to choose whole wheat bread.
At that time, there was almost no real whole wheat bread in the market, and most of the ingredients were either real whole wheat bread or unpalatable. So we put forward the slogan "Make healthy bread groups delicious, make delicious bread healthy", and decided to make more than 50% whole wheat bread, a whole wheat baking brand without adding oil and sugar.
02
Core competence
The uniqueness of the product
In the whole wheat bread market, Seven Years Five Seasons stands out for its unique product characteristics.
First of all, the whole wheat bread in seven years and five seasons adopts the process of "organic cultivation" and "fermentation of old noodles", which ensures the pure nature and high nutrition of the product.
Secondly, seven years and five seasons pay attention to the research and development of taste, through fine technology, so that the taste of whole wheat bread is soft and delicate, catering to consumers' pursuit of food taste.
In addition, seven years and five seasons have also launched a variety of flavors of whole wheat bread to meet the personalized needs of consumers.
What is the competitive advantage in the market in seven years and five quarters?
Chen Jun: When I first decided that more than 50% whole wheat had been made in seven years and five seasons, I thought very simply, thinking that it was enough to replace the wheat flour. With a deeper understanding, there is a gap between imagination and reality. Therefore, we set up a R & D team at the beginning of our establishment, and the products launched by the company are all derived from our own R & D team, from the upstream to the downstream of the product are all under our control, try to achieve internal and external consistency.
From the end of '18 to '19, seven years and five seasons have been working hard to polish the product, constantly debugging the process and finding whole wheat flour for testing. After continuous optimization, North American wheat was finally selected as raw material, insisting that the whole grain of wheat was completely preserved in the gluten and germ parts of wheat through 8 cycles of grinding, so that the product maintained a high content of dietary fiber.
In addition, our control of product quality is very strict, in order to select factories, we visited more than 200 factories in a month, each of which must be strictly screened.
Seven years and five seasons insisted on selling only the products produced on the same day, and after the delivery was completed on the same day, all the remaining products were scrapped. In order to ensure that our customers receive products that are as fresh as possible.
It was found that the product quality requirements for seven years and five quarters are very high, what specific measures and standards does the company have in this regard?
Chen Jun: Seven years and five quarters are very strict for quality control, and every factory needs to do quality inspection reports for each batch of products every day, which is our daily work. New products must be continuously inspected after they are launched, and then sent to several different testing institutions for testing. For factories, before cooperation, we will do a comprehensive inspection of the production environment, and will also conduct spot checks in Nippon, and if the first warning is not met, the second time we will ask for a complete shutdown.
Does Seven Years Five Seasons have its own unique production technology?
Jun Chen: We cited the Swiss Bühler milling process and made improvements in the process. We insist on using whole grain wheat, and through 8 cycles of grinding, the gluten and germ parts of the wheat are completely preserved, so that the product contains high dietary fiber.
We are constantly optimizing our raw materials and processes. Currently, we are working with COFCO to control the temperature and size of grinding using technologies such as autoclaving, ultrafine crushing and restoring whole grain grain components. Doing so can retain the aroma of raw wheat and nutrients such as dietary fiber and B vitamins to a greater extent, so that the healthy and delicious can be better combined.
In order to ensure the taste, we abandoned the traditional 1-2 hour conventional bread fermentation technology, and chose a medium low-temperature fermentation that takes 20 hours, and then mixed the old noodles with the new noodles. This technology can lock in the moisture of the bread, so that the taste of the bread is elastic, without the feeling of "sour bitter wood". This technology was also the first we used in the factory.
In addition, 0 fat flow chocolate whole wheat rice bun achieved very good results. It became a hot selling product as soon as it was launched, with monthly sales of more than 10 million, completely changing the stereotype of consumers that whole wheat rice buns are unpalatable. Until now, the sales of this product are still very good. From the success of this product, we are convinced that delicious and healthy can exist at the same time. In the future, we will continue to optimize our existing products in seven years and five seasons to truly achieve delicious and healthy coexistence.
In terms of business operations, how does the seven-year-five-season whole-wheat bread manage the supply chain?
Chen Jun: From the perspective of supply chain, raw materials are an important part of the supply chain. At the initial stage, we select the appropriate raw materials according to the supply situation at that time and discover the instability of the raw materials over time. In order to guarantee the consistency of production, we require the uniformity of raw materials. We choose brand cooperation to ensure high stability. Gradually unify raw materials, including small raw materials such as flour, and select specific raw materials according to the temperature requirements of different regions to ensure product quality and standardization. Standardization efforts throughout the supply chain turn our raw material links into an SOP. We continue to iterate and optimize raw materials and processes to this day.
In terms of warehousing, we cooperate with third-party warehousing to handle logistics-related matters independently. At present, our supply chain has formed such a situation.
03
Online channel expansion and user experience improvement
Mainly relying on online sales in the past seven years and five quarters, it has covered a wide range of consumer groups through cooperation with e-commerce platforms and self-built official online stores. The number of fans in Douyin in seven years and five seasons has reached 340,000, and it has achieved the first sales of Tmall, Jingdong, and Douyin whole wheat bread categories; Offline channels are also being tested, and the final layout of convenience supermarkets or store opening model remains to be further verified.
Brands make full use of social media platforms to create a positive and healthy brand image with content marketing and brand storytelling at their core.
In addition, seven years and five quarters focus on user experience, providing quick response and personalized customized solutions in pre-sales and after-sales service, which has won the trust and loyalty of consumers.
Seven years and five quarters are basically online sales, what are the main channels?
Chen Jun: At the beginning of the establishment of the seven years and five seasons, we concentrated our main forces on Tmall, and then Douyin gradually emerged, and now, our live broadcast room has become one of our largest sales channels in Douyin.
We have our own live broadcast room on Douyin, and we have professionals to help manage it, and at the same time cooperate with Douyin's influencers. At its peak, there were five or six thousand bloggers promoting for us at the same time. Our new products are usually launched at zero point, which has caused a lot of buzz on the entire TikTok platform. Our largest TikTok campaign, with 10 million sales in just 24 hours. Our own live broadcast room and the publicity of bloggers have played an important role in this, and TikTok is an extremely important channel for us.
On the other hand, Tmall and Douyin have different consumption concepts. Tmall is similar to visiting a department store, while TikTok is more like visiting a boutique. Shopping on Douyin is more focused, and you will buy things you like when you see them, while on Tmall, you will spend time visiting various stores, which may generate collateral sales.
At present, Douyin and Tmall and JD.com are becoming our main sales channels. JD.com is also emerging at present, and its market share is gradually rising.
In terms of product operation, what are the difficulties in the seven years and five quarters?
Jun Chen: Since our products only provide a short-term shelf life of 15 days, the supply chain has encountered some difficulties. Seven years and five seasons promise consumers that all products are fresh and shipped on the same day, and we do not sell overnight bags, because we agree that freshness also directly affects the user's experience. This leads to the need for daily planned production based on orders, which means that we may need to produce 20,000 products today and only 2,000 tomorrow. Due to the volatility of market demand, we need to have a clear understanding and self-positioning of the entire market.
The second issue relates to the frequent damage to our products when transported. Since the carriers are mostly local couriers, they may be rough with our packaging, resulting in a very poor customer experience. In the first year, we received a lot of complaints in this regard, which was very painful. Therefore, we decided to transfer the logistics of all our products to SF Express, despite the very high cost and pressure, which is one of our improvement measures in the supply chain and logistics chain.
The third issue is the requirements of the logistics chain for products. Due to the vast territory of China and the large temperature difference, our products need to undergo a variety of extreme tests before leaving the factory. In addition, extrusion throughout the logistics process can also have a certain impact on the product. We have changed multiple versions of the bag to improve the convenience and clarity of transportation in the market. After a lot of trial and error, we finally decided to use the packaging method that everyone sees today. This is also one of the headaches in the logistics chain.
Do you have any unique ideas on product packaging in seven years and five seasons?
Chen Jun: We are now paying more and more attention to our packaging design. Compared to before, the colors and logos of our packaging design are more prominent, with blue and red as the main color system. Of course, our consideration of packaging is not limited to appearance, but more importantly, it can better protect the product.
We are also working hard to unify the inner and outer packaging designs of the carton. Our packaging design is a gradual development process, from the initial understanding of color to a certain understanding of color. Our design team is basically post-95s, and they may have different likes and understanding of some elements than me, but they think these elements are very good. Including the peripheral products of the competition we held in Wuhan, after selling out the products, the customer said that they would not buy the products, only buy our bags. We decided not to sell our bag, though, but to give it as a giveaway.
Therefore, we are now paying more attention to reaching out to young people, including college students and urban white-collar workers, to cater to their taste and aesthetic in packaging design. We want to be able to better meet the needs of young people.
In terms of brand building, what strategies and measures have been adopted for seven-year-five-season whole-wheat bread?
Chen Jun: This year, we have taken some important measures in brand building to actively display our corporate image. First, we sponsored the River Crossing Festival in Wuhan, a traditional event associated with Chairman Mao's local river crossing. We also sponsored the Optics Valley Marathon at the end of October. This year's Optics Valley Marathon will be broadcast live through the center stage to attract more participants. As one of the best runways of the year in Wuhan, the Wuhan Marathon will be a breakthrough for us to promote sports activities and people's activities.
In addition, we sponsor basketball tournaments, which are affiliated with the China Professional Basketball League (CBA). We sponsored a local basketball team and conducted research to increase the impact of sports.
In terms of education, in cooperation with Huazhong Agricultural University, we started to hold a college baking carnival last year, and we are the main sponsor of the event, so that all university students have the opportunity to participate.
Seeing that seven years and five seasons posted a van ride event on social media, can you tell us how this event was planned at that time? Similar to this more innovative way, what other directions do you think?
Chen Jun: This is an innovative way of advertising. Employees ride their own bikes to promote our products or services. The event was very interesting to curate, when I read an article mentioning an interesting vehicle, we were having a workshop instead of a year-end wrap-up meeting, and I was chatting with a young man from the brand team.
While we were chatting, I made a joke and later found out that the young people thought differently than we did, and he thought it was a great event to showcase our products in the city. It was winter, and we weren't sure how good or bad the idea was. But they thought completely differently than we did, and he came up with the idea and said he wanted the leaders to back him once, and they did, because our company is more willing to try new things. I bought a used car, and the employees washed the car themselves, designed and decorated it themselves, and there was no outsider involved. Each event he decorates differently according to his ideas, sometimes in prints, sometimes in green, all decided by them. They drive their own cars, take the trailer to their destination, and ride there.
We have a lot of young employees in our company and the pure ideas they come up with are very interesting.
What are the seven years and five seasons in the minds of consumers? Has the image company done some research?
Chen Jun: At the last meeting, a college student took a train to Changsha to eat our products. He's been eating our bread since high school and now in college. He said that he would always support us because our team made a good impression on him, he felt that our team was reliable, and the quality of our research and development was very high and very caring. For us entrepreneurs, these impressions are reassuring.
Another impression is our own level of focus, and we want to maintain a higher concentration on the product. This is different from reliability, and focus means that we are willing to stick with the product.
Reliability, focus, this is an important aspect of our corporate identity. We hope to be a company with a bottom line forever in seven years and five quarters. We may face pressure to sell and operate, but we want us to always maintain the basic principles and be a bottom-line company.
04
Challenges and future developments
In the highly competitive food market, the seven years and five seasons still face many challenges.
First of all, there are many competitors in the market, and how to maintain product differentiation and competitive advantage is an important issue.
Secondly, consumers' concerns about food safety and health are increasing, and brand credibility and transparency need to be strengthened.
In the future, the seven years and five seasons can promote the long-term development of the brand through innovative research and development, expanding sales channels and improving user experience.
Seven years and five seasons are basically based on whole wheat, do you want to further expand the product line, or add some new areas of products?
Jun Chen: We have been slow to push the product, but we actually started testing the bagel range and oatmeal products as early as last year. We are also developing other cereal products, and have made more attempts and explorations in raw material selection and product form.
Late last year and early this year, we launched whole wheat cookies and chocolate waffles, which are our exploration of the form and form of our products. In addition, we want to expand the concept of health beyond whole grains. We now realize that the human body needs balanced nutrition, so products can pursue more balance. And by using high-quality wheat, better oils and fats, our products will be more balanced.
We have already started our own research and development work, and preparations are already underway. We launched whole grain oat products and bagels, but for bagel products, we were more demanding of ourselves, and we felt that several of the products we launched were not ideal, so we withdrew. We are doing our best to develop our areas of expertise.
Have you encountered any challenges and difficulties in the development process of the enterprise, and how to deal with them?
Chen Jun: We faced a lot of existential risks throughout the entire business process, the most important of which was the 20-year lockdown in Wuhan, which put the whole company at great risk. At that time, our factory was sealed in Wuhan and could not be produced, and the warehouse could not be shipped. This is one of the reasons why we decided to deploy on a national scale.
Our estimate at the time was that production could resume as early as May and August at the latest. We don't think the company will reopen until August. In addition, many employees are also scattered throughout the country, which makes the distance between us even greater. The lockdown meant we needed to rediscover factories and shipping locations. Luckily, I went to many factories in the second half of '19, and although not particularly successful, at least some understanding. Finally, a factory cooperation located on the southeast coast was found. Even though I had never met the factory owner before, we only communicated by phone, but we were always grateful for their help.
It was their help that allowed the seven years and five seasons to resume production, and it was also the real sense of the word.
Have you formulated a long-term development plan for the seven years and five quarters? What are the development goals and strategies for the coming years?
Chen Jun: Our vision is to change the diet of Chinese people. Our wellness concept aims to provide more professional health support to people at all levels and explore all aspects from a health perspective. We hope that companies will no longer just pursue 3 years and 5 years of listing, but adhere to 10, 20, 30 or even 50 years to pass on our corporate spirit. That's what we really want to do, and that's what we're going to pursue.
Of course, we also have ambitions. We want to be a great company, surpassing other bakery businesses and becoming an industry leader in every aspect. We want to be able to standardize the entire baking industry and make it more professional. Whether in terms of sales or philosophy, we want to be leaders in certain areas.
▲ Seven years and five seasons are being used in a way that is closer to young people
Engage in dialogue and exchange with young people
In the past seven years and five quarters, have you considered exploring overseas markets overseas?
Chen Jun: Frankly speaking, we have received relevant information about overseas markets, and we started discussing overseas markets the day before yesterday. However, we may not have taken concrete action at this time. This year we will be more cautious about this market and assess the situation because I have been involved in import and export trade before and understand that careful consideration is needed. In fact, to do business overseas, it is necessary to re-establish the factory, which is not only a product strategy and sales strategy adjustment, but also a major adjustment of the market strategy.
We do have some customers from Japan, including myself I don't know why there are Japanese people who come to us to buy products, because it takes 10 days to deliver to Japan, so it is strange. We also have customers from Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea, but may not be available in these markets for the time being.
Do you have any predictions for the future development trend in seven years and five quarters?
Jun Chen: Our attitude towards the company and the market as a whole remains the same, and although this year and the next year or two may not be very good, we still maintain the perception of the market when we first entered the industry.
First of all, consumers' attention to the concept of health will only increase, regardless of whether there is now a talk of consumption downgrading, in fact, even if the consumption level is reduced, the responsible attitude of consumers to health will not change. The need for health needs is still there and won't change because you change. Customers want to have a better product at the same time, cheaper prices, they will only ask for more, without changing the essence of this demand.
Second, we remain cautiously optimistic about the baking market, which will never be saturated. Although the proportion of Chinese consumed in baked goods is relatively low on a global scale, this convenient and fast way is in line with the needs of the times.
Therefore, we remain very bullish on the baking market as a whole. That's why a lot of companies have pulled out of the field, and we're still stuck on it. Therefore, we are optimistic about the market and stick to this choice.
05
Write at the end
As a brand with whole wheat bread as its core product, Seven Years and Five Seasons has successfully seized the market opportunity of healthy food. In the next seven years and five seasons, more healthy baking products of different categories will be brought to meet the healthy and delicious needs of more groups.
The brand's positioning and unique product features have made it successful in a highly competitive market. With the popularity of healthy lifestyle, there is a broad space for development in seven years and five quarters, and it is also necessary to constantly innovate and develop to maintain the long-term competitiveness of the brand.
The baking track has never lacked competitors, the important thing is whether as the helm of the enterprise, whether you can sink down, slow down, focus on the needs of customers, deeply cultivate the supply chain, strictly grasp quality, and keep the original intention and commitment.