"Chinese hamburger" exploded, and foreign brands can no longer dominate the rivers and lakes

"In the past National Day holiday, the hustle and bustle of the fast food industry suddenly killed a dark horse, in McDonald's KFC Burger King three decades after the world, the Chinese brand called Tustin was born, quickly occupied a place in the rivers and lakes. How did this company break through the encirclement of foreign fast food giants, and what will it face? Is the Chinese burger era really coming? ”

Author / Mu Mu

Since Tustin launched the "Chinese Burger" category in 2020, it has been singing all the way in the catering market, with the number of stores exceeding 500 that year, and in 2022, Tustin will open more than 2,000 stores in one go, and the number of stores in the country now exceeds 5,000. According to Feigua data, Douyin's "Tustin China Burger" related topics have reached 2.85 billion views. You know, in the three years of the pandemic, Tustin has clearly taken a feasible path.

At present, this brand has not only created enough buzz on social media, but also attracted young people from all over the country to check in offline. In February this year, Tustin's two-person package with a unit price of 34.9 yuan sold 2.776 million orders, ranking first on the Douyin local life group purchase list. Wildly sought after young consumers, Tustin affectionately calls it a Chinese burger.

What is less well known is that Tustin was born as early as 2012, and the company, which was founded by three Fujianese, did not sell burgers in the first place, but before 2017, they were based in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, and mainly sold pizza.

In the 6 years since its establishment, Tustin has been unknown, and the number of stores has never exceeded 100. Seeing that business was difficult to improve and sales were facing difficulties, the founder decided to adjust the direction and changed to the strategy of "blocking at both ends" in 2018, that is, the dual-category and dual-brand positioning of pizza + hamburger.

Who knew this adjustment, they unexpectedly found that the growth rate of the burger business was significantly higher than that of pizza, and in those years it was just catching up with the national tide that had just blown, and the founder decided to strike while the iron was hot to create the "Chinese burger" label, clarifying the brand positioning of "to be Chinese's own burger".

Later, the scene at the beginning of the article appeared, and by November 2021, Tustin received 150 million yuan in financing, and the speed of store expansion was further improved, becoming the TOP4 scale king after Wallace and McCann.

From obscurity to national popularity, what did Tustin do right?

01

Accurate positioning, poor ghost package to win the younger generation

From McDonald's 12 yuan poor ghost set menu on the Internet, you can see that young people have requirements for fast food - cheap, full, and delicious.

According to the "China Western Fast Food Category Development Report 2023", among the review keywords of Western fast food brands, "cost-effective" and "affordable" appear quite frequently, and Tustin's route can be said to accurately cater to the consumption needs of young people.

In the past two years, McDonald's and KFC have raised prices in several rounds, and a simple lunch is often around 30 yuan per person. Some other affordable foreign fast food has repeatedly exposed food safety problems. Tustin's price positioning of 19.47 yuan per capita, coupled with various wool activities such as "free order", "half price" and "buy one get one free" launched by the official from time to time, make consumers call "understand me!" It is also natural to be able to attract a large number of young people who call themselves "poor ghosts".

On the one hand, Tustin has an advantage in price, and on the other hand, it has not relaxed its requirements for itself because of parity in product research and development.

How to reflect Chinese characteristics in burgers, Tustin thought of traditional Chinese pastries, and they integrated Chinese pastry practices such as hand-rolled dough and on-site baking into the burger, and launched a freshly baked burger, which is different from the traditional Western-style hamburger semi-finished product processing method, thus forming a brand memory point. In addition, they also used famous Chinese dishes such as Chinese roast duck and fish-flavored shredded pork as burger fillings, making enough gimmicks for Tustin's "Chinese Burger" sign.

While basing itself on the positioning of Chinese-style burgers, Tustin continues to enrich its product line, and this year it has successively launched items such as "Tata Chicken Thighs and Spiced Meatloaf". Now, there are 10 burgers to choose from in Tustin. The traditional taste remains at a consistent level, and there are constantly new surprises, which is very in line with the psychological needs of the current young consumer group.

Since the opening of China's first KFC restaurant in Beijing in November 1987, for more than 20 years, the taste and service of foreign brands have not changed much, but the prices have continued to soar, making Chinese more or less "aesthetic fatigue" of Western-style fast food. In this way, as a cutting-edge brand, Tustin quickly carved out a world in the sinking market, and even during the epidemic, Tustin's passenger flow continued unabated. Of the 2,000 new stores opened last year, 70% were located in second-tier cities and below. It seems to be somewhat similar to the route of "rural areas surrounding the city" in Mixue Bingcheng, after quickly occupying the sinking market, Tustin began to expand to first- and second-tier cities, and in 2023, there will also be a long queue at Tustin Burger Restaurant at Beijing West Railway Station.

02

Intensified competition Chinese signboards face strong rivals

Despite the gratifying performance in the past two years, Tustin has not been a smooth road ahead.

In terms of Chinese gimmicks in the fast-food world alone, Tustin is not the only one. The localization war of foreign brands has started more than ten years ago, and Chinese people can taste Chinese meals such as fritters at McDonald's, and KFC's menu is dizzying with a variety of Chinese food, such as the classic old Beijing chicken rolls, rice bowls, and even snail noodles, hot dry noodles, three fresh buns, skewer buckets and other extremely "old-Chinese" dishes have also been added.

Eating Chinese food in a fast-food restaurant that specializes in burgers is nothing new, and it is clear that it is the burger brand created by the Chinese themselves that makes consumers' eyes shine. However, judging from the development situation of the Chinese burger market, the giant status of KFC and McDonald's has not been significantly shaken. In 2022, burger brands represented by McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, etc. will still occupy more than 90% of the market share in Chinese mainland. When it comes to eating hamburgers, the first thing Chinese people think of is these old brands.

When the novelty of the concept of "Chinese burgers" wears off, it is indeed difficult to say whether Tustin can continue the current heat.

Another challenge ahead of Tustin is the increasingly crowded track.

In April this year, Xibei Catering Group's new fast food brand "Jia Guolong Air Bun" was officially renamed "Jia Guolong China Fort", and Jia Guolong, founder of Xibei Catering, said in an interview with the media that he plans to open 50 stores before May 29 this year, and determine the next step of store expansion rhythm according to market feedback. According to Xibei data, as of September 28, Jia Guolong Chinabao had 52 stores across the country. Jia Guolong also said that after running through the mode, he will open up to the outside world to join: "This year, we will start to focus on large single products, and we will start to make efforts next year, and we will definitely have good results." ”

Just before you know it, homegrown burger brands like this have sprung up. For example, the number of stores of Xiangduowei Burger Fried Chicken, which also plays the slogan of "Chinese Burger", has approached 2,000.

Red meal big data shows that from August 2022 to January 2023 alone, the number of fast food restaurants with "Chinese burger" or "Chinese burger" in the name has increased from 1,772 to 3,533. In less than half a year, it doubled.

The crowded track is getting more and more rolled, and homogeneous competition is inevitable.

Most of the fillings used in these burgers are classic Chinese dishes, such as stir-fried yellow beef, braised pork, mapo tofu, etc., while the crust is mostly fermented in traditional Chinese methods, and even the decoration and packaging are also in the "national trend". For example, the advertising image of Xiangduowei Burger Fried Chicken also uses a red door, and even the slogan is "Chinese flavor".

Of course, the rich Chinese cuisine gives these brands endless imagination space, and I am afraid that this is the only "difference" that can be achieved under the homogeneous competition.

In the final analysis, if a Chinese burger brand wants to truly make a distinctive feature in the fast food world full of giants, it is far from enough to rely on the current "cake and everything" product research and development methods and commercial packaging in the national trend.

On the basis of our thousands of years of traditional food culture, it is a good thing to create the concept of "Chinese burger" and break through the siege of foreign brands, which will also help Chinese food culture spread in a broader space, but at present, whether it is Tustin or Jia Guolong, it is still in its infancy, and there is great room for improvement in product research and development, exploration of the consumer market and standardized management after opening up to joining.

There is still a long way to go, so don't set limits for yourself and make bold innovations, maybe you can make "Chinese burger" go further.