More than 80,000 have closed down, and the farmhouse is going to be "cool"?

What was once a beautiful farmhouse is now facing a challenge to survive.

This article was originally published by Red Meal Network (ID: hongcan18), author: Jian Yuhao, editor: Jing Xue.

"What was once a fire is now facing a large-scale closure, with 80,000 ...... closed"

Recently, a video on station B has attracted widespread attention. The core message of this nearly 10-minute video is that the once popular farmhouse has become a "yellow flower of tomorrow".

So far, the video has more than one million views and more than 3,000 comments. In the comment area below the video, a large number of netizens and even some former farmhouse operators came forward to say that the farmhouse business is facing "survival challenges".

01

More than 80,000 enterprises have been cancelled or revoked

Is the farmhouse "cool"?

"Chengdu Sansheng Township is one of the birthplaces of farmhouses in the country, and many farmhouses here have been open for more than ten years. In the past three years, most of the business has not been good. A boss told me that the store's business has been declining since 2015, with a decline of 20%-40%. When referring to the current situation of the farmhouse, Jiang Yi, a columnist for Red Meal Network and the founder of Giant Prawns, said.

Jiang Yi is not alone in the recession of farmhouses.

Taking Guangzhou as an example, Red Meal Network noticed that a number of farmhouses distributed in Conghua, Nansha, Luogang and other places in Guangzhou, such as Hongyang Farmhouse, Xibian Farmhouse, Zhicheng Farmhouse, etc., have now been closed or cancelled.

Another example is Guangxi, a netizen from Bobai County, Yulin, Guangxi Province bluntly said that 90% of the commercial farmhouses in Bobai County are now operating at a loss, and the life cycle of most local farmhouses is only 2 years.

In addition, some Internet celebrity farmhouses are not having a good time.

In September this year, the self-media "Jiaxing Ninth Circle" tweeted that the berry sweet orchard in Pinghu, Zhejiang Province had closed down. It is understood that the park will officially open in 2021, integrating planting and picking, parent-child experience, and farmhouse entertainment, and is quite popular in the local area at the beginning of its opening.

But in the past two years alone, consumer ratings of Berry Sweet Fields have taken a sharp turn. On social platforms, many consumers said that they had never visited again after being there two or three times.

The flow of customers plummeted, and the popularity was not as good as before, and Berry Sweet Garden finally closed down. After the news of the closure of Berry Sweet Garden leaked out, many consumers complained on the Internet, saying that they had charged money and applied for a card in the park, but now there is no way to get a refund.

According to the information of the enterprise check, there are currently more than 80,000 enterprises with "farmhouse" as the keyword, and the status is cancelled or revoked. In the first 11 months of this year alone, nearly 7,000 farmhouses closed.

Many farmhouses that are still in operation are also facing difficulties such as a sharp decline in the flow of people and a sharp decline in revenue.

In the video mentioned at the beginning of the article, many owners of farmhouses have commented that business is getting worse, and fewer families and young people are coming to play.

The owner of a farmhouse called "Huadeng Xiaoyuan Farmhouse" in Guizhou also released a short video and bluntly said that he has been losing money for three or four years of running a farmhouse, and now he is full of debts.

A netizen from Hancheng, Shaanxi Province, said that there is a farmhouse in his village with an investment of 10 million yuan, which has been unpatronized since the third month of opening, and is now not far from closure.

Consumers' favorability towards farmhouses is also visibly decreasing:

"It's been a long time since I've heard the word 'farmhouse', but are there any farmhouses around the city now?"

"The last time I went to the property seemed like it was 10 years ago. ”

"The only time I went to the farmhouse was the Mid-Autumn Festival Tour, and that was the last time I went. ”

02

Once popular all over the country, now no one patronizes it!

What the hell happened to the farmhouse?

The farmhouse that used to be infinitely beautiful is now clean and cold, and the decline is fully revealed.

Through the evaluation of consumers and the analysis of industry insiders, Red Meal Network summarized several sins of traditional farmhouses that are becoming more and more "unpopular":

1. Poor production, stealing customers, and the cost performance is getting lower and lower

In the eyes of many consumers: the ingredients are not as good as before, the price is generally getting more and more expensive, and sometimes a meal at a farmhouse is not cheaper than a restaurant in the city.

Taking the products and ingredients as an example, the original ecology, pure nature, and characteristics of the ingredients were originally the biggest selling point of the farmhouse restaurant, and it was also the reason why some consumers loved the farmhouse. However, in recent years, the ingredients and products of the farmhouse have become more and more "perfunctory".

Consumer Fang Fang (pseudonym) said that she had seen the owner of the farmhouse go directly to the market to buy ingredients, and some of the purchased "ingredients are even semi-finished products and pre-made dishes, which are not at all "picked on the same day" and "pollution-free vegetables" as written in the slogan.

In addition, what makes it even more unacceptable to more consumers is that the prices of many farmhouse restaurants are becoming more and more expensive.

A consumer in Guangxi said that the free-range chicken in a farmhouse in Liuzhou, Guangxi Province, has risen from the initial 98 yuan to 218 yuan. In addition, a green vegetable sells for 60 yuan, and a pot of old fire soup sells for 80 yuan, which makes people shout: slaughter the guests as fools.

△ Image source: Photo by Red Meal Network

2. The homogenization is serious, and the theme is superficial and unattractive

As some consumers say, the current farmhouse is more and more lacking in the "farming" soul, the scene experience is the same, and the performance of the farmhouse theme is also superficial, without characteristics and novelty.

Many farmhouses are still the same as more than ten years ago, they are "painting gourds in the same way", doing superficial work on decoration and dishes, surrounding a garden, digging a pond, planting some lotus seeds, building a few sheds, setting up a few stoves, setting up a few tables, putting a few stools, and frying a few similar dishes......

△ Image source: Photo by Red Meal Network

The part that can reflect the characteristics of the farmhouse is the simple activities such as picking and fishing, which are seriously homogenized and lack of heritage to resonate with people.

Judging from the consumption situation of the entire catering market, the main consumer group has become the post-95 and post-00s, and this part of the population is more concerned about trendy, fashionable, fun and interesting...... It's hard to attract them with these outdated "local" flavors.

Boss Li, who runs a farmhouse in Guangzhou, also told Red Restaurant that the main consumer force in the store is still the post-70s and 80s, and there are few young people who patronize it.

"Compared to our fishing and vegetable picking, young people nowadays prefer to go camping around. Of course, it may also have something to do with the distance, as farmhouses are generally located in remote areas, and few young people will want to make a trip to them. ”

3. Lack of professional management, service, environment and food safety have been criticized

For a long time, due to the lack of professional management, many farmhouses have many problems in health management and service management. These problems, under the general trend of consumption upgrading in recent years, have also made it more and more difficult for consumers to accept.

Taking service as an example, the employees of the farmhouse are basically "their own family", and they rarely receive systematic service training, so the service level naturally cannot keep up. In addition, there are basically no young people in the staff of the farmhouse today, and most of them are village aunts and uncles who take care of waiters and cashiers, which also makes systematic training more difficult.

Lack of professional service personnel, chaotic restaurant operations, customers can't find waiters to order, and no one cares about trivial tasks such as serving meals and wiping tables.

△ Image source: Photo by Red Meal Network

Poor environmental and hygiene are also frequent complaints from customers. Most farmhouses do not prepare food in full accordance with food safety standards, nor do they divide raw and cooked food according to regulations, and the dishes and chopsticks have obvious stains or lack of small corners, flies are flying around, sewage flows sideways, and employees are not hygienic, etc., making customers more and more uneasy to eat.

4. The consumption frequency of the main customer group is low, and the revenue is obvious in the off-peak season

Most of the farmhouses are located in the suburbs or towns, and there are basically no customers on weekdays, and the business is mainly concentrated on weekends or holidays, and the consumption is relatively low.

And most of the customers who choose to go to the farmhouse for consumption are tourists in tour groups, or people with family dinners and group trips, most of the time they just want to be fresh, go to a farmhouse to eat once, and rarely consume again.

In other words, farmhouses belong to a typical "holiday economy" or "tourism economy", with obvious highs and lows in consumption frequency, unstable revenue, and it is difficult to develop sustainably.

△ Image source: Photo by Red Meal Network

In addition, in recent years, more and more farmhouses have been opened, and consumers' novelty of farmhouses has gradually faded. Some families will also choose to bring their own ingredients when traveling, reducing the frequency of consumption to farm stays. For the farmhouse, this is also a fatal blow,

Business is getting worse and worse, there are fewer and fewer repeat customers, and the basic labor costs and food costs are still there.

03

There is still a market for farm food,

A number of "local restaurants" are becoming new favorites in the market

Does the large-scale collapse mean that the farmhouse model has come to an end?

This is not the case. There is no category that will be popular for a long time, and there is no category that will suddenly disappear. Nowadays, there are still a number of stable farmhouses across the country, which have won the favor of customers with their excellent dishes, services and distinctive characteristics.

Rong Rong (pseudonym), a consumer who frequents farmhouses, said that she works in Zhejiang and has opened many farmhouses in the mountainous countryside of Zhejiang, which are of good quality and low price.

A netizen who runs a farmhouse at home also said that the cheapest set meal in his store has 8 dishes, 5 vegetarian and three meat dishes are only sold for 400 yuan, the portion is enough for 10 people to eat, and there can be 100 tables on weekends when business is good. "It's been 20 years, and my dad can't do it anymore in his 60s, so I will continue to work after graduating from college. ”

At the same time, there is still a large market for "earthy" catering.

Red Meal Network noticed that in recent years, the "local restaurant" represented by Wangbi Yard, Xixiang Chaimen, Three Dishes and One Soup, Super Fresh, etc., is rapidly becoming popular and popular among consumers.

△ Image source: Photo by Red Meal Network

Most of these restaurants have piles of fresh vegetables, chicken, fish, bacon and other ingredients displayed at the entrance or next to the open kitchen for customers to choose from.

In addition to turning the menu display into a "decoration", the decoration design of these stores will generally revolve around a local theme, such as villages, yards, farmhouses, etc., which sounds very much like traditional farmhouses, but is completely different from extensive farmhouses.

The environment and atmosphere of traditional farmhouses are not designed or extensive, and in these "local restaurants", the placement of bricks and tiles is often carefully designed, with earthen bowls, earthen pots, earthen ovens, dirt roads, etc., everywhere there are scenes, and the style is simple but not rough and dirty.

In addition, in order to create a fireworks, the dishes in many stores are fried over an open flame, and if conditions permit, they will even use firewood stoves commonly used in rural areas, such as Xixiang Chaimen.

△ Image source: Wang Wei Yard's official public account

In general, the essence of consumers' pursuit is not farmhouse entertainment or farmhouse cuisine, but a healthy, distinctive, natural, original ecological lifestyle and dietary taste. In the future, with the intensification of urbanization and consumption upgrading, such consumer demand will definitely become stronger and stronger, and restaurants that can meet these needs will also have great prospects.

For the existing farmhouses, if they want not to be eliminated, change is inevitable.

As Jiang Yi said, "Among the three core products of catering (dishes, service and space), the farmhouse is barely qualified only for space. In the case that the three core products cannot be supported, the category of farmhouse entertainment will inevitably be abandoned by the market. ”