#头条讲真的#
In the past year, the reshuffle of the baking industry has accelerated.
This article was originally published by Red Meal Network (ID: hongcan18), author: Li Jinzhi, editor: Fang Yuan.
According to the big data of red meal, as of October 2023, there will be 122,000 new stores and 120,100 closed stores in the bread baking track, with a net increase of 1,874 stores. Overall, the growth rate of the total number of bread bakery stores in the country in 2023 will only be 1%, and the registration revocation ratio will fluctuate and decline.
In the "2023 Meituan In-Store Catering Category Report: Insights into the Development and Changes of the Baking Industry after the Epidemic", 39 of the top 100 bakery merchants in Meituan in 2019 will no longer be open in 2023, and 32 will reduce the number of stores.
Behind these figures, there are quite a few well-known bakery brands.
Christine, a veteran baking brand, will be exposed to all stores in 2023 and sell her property to pay off her debts......
In 2023, the capital's enthusiasm for the baking track will also cool down a lot. According to Qichacha data, the number of financing in the baking track in 2023 will only be 12, compared with 22 last year, which is almost halved, and the publicly disclosed financing amount is less than one-third of last year.
At the end of the year and the beginning of the year, let's look back at what changes have taken place in the baking market in the past year, and what new trends have emerged?
"Gemini" dimmed,
The magic of the new Chinese style is no more
At the beginning of 2023, Hutou Bureau and Luxi River have successively obtained financing, of which the financing amount of Luxi River is as high as hundreds of millions of yuan. At that time, it also made the industry reverie that the new Chinese baking may usher in a "second spring".
But then the situation took a turn for the worse.
At the end of March, Hutou Bureau was mired in rumors of bankruptcy, layoffs, and debts, offline stores were closed one after another, and the parent company continued to sue for business. Hu Ting, the founder of Hutou Bureau, responded at the time, "The news of the collapse is definitely not true, and he is trying to save himself."
The latest development of the Tiger Head Bureau incident: almost all stores were closed, and the founder was restricted from high consumption
△ At the beginning of April, the Guangzhou Poly Plaza store of Hutou Bureau was closed, photographed by Red Food
Momo Dim Sum Bureau, which is known as the "twin stars" of new Chinese baking together with Hutou Bureau, also encountered problems.
In February 2023, Momo Dim Sum Bureau's Beijing R&F Plaza store and Chongwen store were exposed, and at the end of November, all its stores in Beijing were closed, in March, the last store in Zhejiang was closed, and in June, all 15 stores in Wuhan were closed.
According to the Momo Dim Sum Bureau mini program, there are currently 40 stores operating normally across the country, all of which are located in Hunan, the base camp.
In addition to "Gemini", the new Chinese bakery brand "Dianjinshi", which had received 2 financings in 1 year, quietly disappeared.
Founded in 2021, Dianjinshi has completed angel rounds and Pre-A rounds of financing that year, and has also been popular in Beijing, Zhengzhou and other places.
Today, the Golden Lion store is "completely wiped out". According to Dianping, its stores in Beijing and Zhengzhou have closed.
△ Image source: Screenshot of Meituan
In the eyes of investors, the new Chinese baking is no longer so eye-catching.
According to the statistics of Red Meal.com, there will only be 4 publicly disclosed investments and financings in the new Chinese baking track in 2023, of which 2 were obtained by Hutou Bureau, and both of them were at the beginning of the year.
After experiencing the explosion and crazy expansion, the new Chinese baking has entered the stage of rational development, and the brand has begun to find a path of differentiation.
At the beginning of 2023, after Luxihe won hundreds of millions of yuan in financing, it accelerated the pace of store expansion. Red meal big data shows that since 2023, there have been nearly 80 new stores in Luxihe, and the total number of stores is now nearly 400.
Based on traditional Chinese pastries, Luxihe adheres to the "store baking" and follows the "offline direct sales + front store and back factory + online e-commerce" model.
Taoxi Man focuses on healthy baking, integrating low-sugar, probiotics and other elements with Chinese pastries, and has embarked on a differentiated path.
Founder Wang Yuxiao said that in 2023, it will focus on the local market in Hunan, create an ultimate model, and then replicate it to a broader market.
Well-known brands have retreated one after another,
High-end baking folds
In the past year, high-end baking has begun to fall from the altar, and internationally renowned brands have shown obvious "adaptation", closing down and closing stores one after another, and local Internet celebrity brands with high prices have also struggled to capture the hearts of consumers.
At the beginning of December, LeTAO, known as "Japan's must-eat dessert brand", was revealed to be closed in Shenzhen. Soon after, LeTAO was revealed to have only one store left in Shanghai, and according to Jiemian News, LeTAO also owed more than 65,000 yuan in rent, property management fees and other expenses.
When LeTAO opened its first store in Xintiandi, Shanghai a few years ago, the queue started in half an hour. During the peak period, LeTAO opened 25 stores in 8 cities, including Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Beijing. According to Dianping, there are currently only 3 LeTAO stores in operation in Chinese mainland.
△ Image source: Screenshot of Dianping
Looking back on the past year, many high-end bakery brands with a halo have retreated one after another.
In February, Shenzhen's high-end bakery brand, Angsi Cake, closed all its stores. Angsi Cake once spent hundreds of millions of yuan to build a fantasy space store known as "the world's largest cake shop", which was once a well-known Internet celebrity check-in place in Shenzhen.
At its peak, Angsi Cake also opened about 30 stores in Shenzhen. At the beginning of 2023, Angsi Cake announced that it would completely suspend business and production and prepare for restructuring and liquidation.
In May, LENÔTRE, known as the "ceiling of the French sweet world", closed its last store in Chinese mainland.
In December 2020, Renault entered Shanghai. In the following year, Renault opened three stores in Shanghai and entered Shenzhen, opening its first store in the South China market.
Unfortunately, Renault did not last long, in August 2022, Renault announced its withdrawal from Shanghai, and in May 2023, the first store in South China was also closed. So far, Renault's exploration in the Chinese mainland market has failed.
△ Image source: LENÔTRE French pastry official account
At the end of July, the Shanghai Internet celebrity brand "Dikka", which is positioned as a high-end bakery and occupies a full two floors of stores, quietly closed its doors.
In fact, Dikka's first store will only officially open at the end of February 2023. In the early days of Dikka's opening, there was a rush to queue up for at least two or three hours to buy a signature panna cotta cake.
In just 5 months, this Internet celebrity high-end bakery has cooled down, and now Dikka's Shanghai store and Shenyang's pop-up store have closed.
Most of the high-end bakery brands will choose high-end business districts or street gold shops, and the decoration of the store should keep up with the fashion and trend, and the store area is often not small, and the cost will be much higher than that of ordinary bakeries.
Integrating a variety of Internet celebrity elements, the price of the product will naturally rise.
LeTAO's signature double-layer cheesecake is priced at 238 yuan, Dikka is priced at 58 yuan for a panna cotta cake at 75 yuan, Angsi cake dessert is priced at 38-65 yuan, and the cake is priced at 100-1999 yuan, and Renault's signature dessert "Autumn Leaves" is priced at 88 yuan......
△ Image source: Angsi Cake official blog
At present, the overall consumer market tends to be rational and pragmatic, and a survey on Sina Weibo shows that among the 344,000 netizens, more than ninety percent of the netizens choose "within 10 yuan" and "10 yuan to 20 yuan". In other words, the price of bread that most consumers can accept is less than 20 yuan.
According to the "2023 Baking Industry Development Trend Report" released by the Qince Consumer Research Institute, more than ninety percent of consumers buy baked goods at least once a week, and only about 16% of respondents spend more than 60 yuan on a single purchase of bakery products.
More and more consumers are no longer willing to pay for "high premiums", which also puts pressure on high-end bakery to continue to operate. The mismatch between the sense of value and the price is the most criticized point of high-end baking by consumers.
At the same time, under high cost pressure, it is difficult for brands to stick to it if they do not have a good profit model.
Since it is positioned as a high-end, it is better to achieve the ultimate in "scarcity" and provide high-value and innovative products for the target customer group, and perhaps the road can go further.
High-priced bread stabs consumers,
The 2 yuan bakery became popular all over the country
While high-end baking has been losing one after another, the topic of "bread assassin" is rising.
Over the past year, #月薪一万买不起面包 #一个面包比一顿饭还贵 #面包为何越来越贵等话题频频登上热搜. Netizens complained about the "bread assassin" they encountered, 38 yuan and a half, 88 yuan each......
"2 yuan bakery" became popular all over the country: freshly baked bread is only sold for 2 yuan, and it doesn't make bad money?
Starting from October 2023, there has been a wave of 2 yuan bread entrepreneurship across the country. On platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin, there are more and more entrepreneurial stories such as "naked resignation to open a 2 yuan bakery", "post-95 resignation from a job as a flight attendant to make 2 yuan bread, with a daily turnover of 3000+", "96 years Bao Ma did not go to work, opened a 2 yuan bakery with a monthly income of 14W" and other entrepreneurial stories.
In October alone, many 2-yuan bakeries opened in Jinan, Qingdao, Dalian, Nanning, Kunming, Nanjing, Hefei, Xuzhou, Ningde and other cities, and many stores were marked as "new stores" on Dianping.
△ Image source: Courtesy of the interviewee
Even first-tier cities such as Beijing and Guangzhou have also appeared in the traces of 2 yuan bakeries, and they have begun to be branded and chained.
For example, the "Su Yu 2 Yuan Bread" has expanded rapidly in the past two months, with stores in Beijing, Guangzhou, Jinan, Hefei, Kunming and other cities; the "Sugar 1 2 Yuan Bread" born in Jinan has 10 stores; and the "Master Jin 2 Yuan Bread" in Dalian has also opened 4 stores within a month.
2 yuan bread, almost to the lowest price, but also to reduce the cost to the limit. According to the Red Meal Network, in non-first-tier cities, the opening cost of a 2 yuan bakery is mostly 30,000-60,000 yuan.
The cost of raw materials is also constantly compressed. Tang Yi (pseudonym), the owner of a 2 yuan bakery, shared that a dough is less than 75 grams, the cost is about 4 cents, and the gross profit margin can reach 60%-80%.
△ Image source: Courtesy of the interviewee
In addition to 2 yuan bread, supermarket baking has also joined this price war.
The price war starts with durian mille-feuille. In August 2023, Hema will launch Sam's durian mille-feuille with a price of only 99 yuan (Sam's price is 128 yuan), which has aroused heated discussions.
In just a few days, the price of durian mille-feuille "you chase me", and the price of Sam's 1kg durian mille-feuille has been cut in half to 85 yuan. Hema has hit the lowest price of 470g durian mille-feuille to 39.9 yuan.
Subsequently, Hema entered the baking market at a low price. In August, Hema launched the "Moving Mountain Price" campaign, including dairy baking, alcoholic beverages, etc. On September 27, Hema Premier launched a raw toast priced at 34.9 yuan, which is compared with the raw toast of Inzhichuan in Ginza for 98 yuan, and the price is as low as 6.9 yuan for fresh milk toast.
In addition to Freshippo, online and offline supermarkets have begun to pull to the limit on price.
RT-Mart's Internet celebrity item "Potato Bread" costs only 18.9 yuan a bag, and Dingdong's shopping mini-program shows that its baking brand "Baoluo Workshop" is mostly priced under 20 yuan, and the cheapest raisin toast is only 6.19 yuan a bag.
In the final analysis, consumers not only want to eat with quality, but also want to buy cost-effectively, which also forces bakeries to achieve the ultimate "quality-price ratio".
"Sweetness" also has worries,
A low-sugar healthy tide is sweeping the bake
The health trend that has swept the entire diet field has also swept the baking track.
In the past year, a number of bakery brands, including Hollyland, Chef Bao, Momo Dim Sum Bureau, Daoxiangcun and Luxihe, have launched low-sugar and fat-reducing products to cater to consumers' Xi of pursuing healthy eating.
For example, Momo Dim Sum Bureau has launched sugar-reduced butter wife cakes, and Luxihe has reduced the amount of sugar used in its flagship peach crisp and launched sugar-free peach crisp products.
△ Image source: Luxihe's official Weibo
Huilifa, a veteran Beijing bakery brand that makes traditional Chinese pastries, has changed its name to "McKu, low-sugar, low-calorie bread dessert", focusing on low-sugar and low-calorie bread.
In addition, a number of low-sugar, low-fat, and organic baking brands are also emerging and are favored by capital.
According to Qichacha data, a total of 12 investment and financing events will occur in the baking industry in 2023, of which 3 involve healthy baking brands, while only 1 in 2022.
In February 2023, Taoximan, a new Chinese pastry brand that has only been established for half a year, received millions of angel round financing. Taoxi Manman used "low sugar and probiotics" healthy pastries to cut into the baking market, and became popular within half a year, appearing on the top of Meituan, Dianping and Douyin hot lists.
Tsurusho, which focuses on the concept of "zero sucrose", claims that it does not use "hydrogenated vegetable oil, hydrogenated fat, margarine, margarine, and margarine", and its products are all low-sugar, sugar-free healthy pastries.
In October 2022, Crane received an angel round financing investment of tens of millions of yuan from Naixue's tea investment company "Beautiful Own Power". In December 2023, Hesuo received tens of millions of yuan in investment from Linge Venture Capital.
According to the "Bright Company" report, Bao Rujiang, the founder of the Crane Institute, revealed that the current monthly repurchase rate of the Crane Institute is about 61%.
△ Image source: Screenshot of the official account of Xiaohongshu of Hesuo
The company "Forest Food Origin", which focuses on healthy baked goods, will also get financing in 2023, and the company's main brand "Ji Muyi" will focus on "0 additives", natural yeast, and fruit wood kiln baked bread.
The healthy trend of the baking track, on the whole, is still making a big fuss about "sugar". According to the characteristics of raw materials and taste experience, sugar alcohols and natural sweeteners are the mainstream choices of sugar substitutes for baking.
In addition to sugar, baking involves a variety of ingredients, such as flour, wheat flour, butter, fillings, etc.
Some bakeries emphasize that the product uses animal butter or uses coconut oil instead of butter. There are also some bakery brands that substitute flour with gluten, inulin, oat bran flour, etc., which usually do not contain sucrose and may be higher in protein.
△ Image source: Picture Worm Creative
However, the health card is not as easy to play as imagined, and there is no strong brand in the field of healthy baking.
Hesuo, which won 2 rounds of financing in 1 year, has said that the funds will be used to accelerate store expansion, product research and development and organizational upgrading, but there are still only 5 stores.
The number of Taoxi stores is only 11.
In the field of baking, if you want to be healthy, you will inevitably sacrifice taste to a certain extent, which in turn will affect the repurchase of products, and how to find a balance between "health" and "deliciousness" has always been a difficult problem.
Internet celebrity big products are quickly cool,
Bakery stores are still difficult to get through
From raw toast to bagels, to Swiss rolls, koruli, soufflé, tiramisu, etc., 2023 has become popular with a number of baking items.
It's just that the popularity of these Internet celebrity items comes and goes quickly, and the once popular baking specialty stores have always been difficult to run through the profit model.
In April, the Japanese raw toast brand "Ginza Inshikawa" opened its first store in Shanghai. In the early days of opening, there were long queues at the store every day, and the raw toast for 98 yuan was fried to 300 yuan. Due to the excessive number of scalpers, Ginza Inshikawa also called the police to deal with it, and the degree of heat can be seen.
△ Image source: Dianping
It is also very windy, and there are bagels that are popular all over the Internet. Two online celebrity stores in Shanghai, "Bagels & Schmears Cafe" and "New York Bagel Museum", are typical examples, and the queue at the store is calculated by the hour. Bagel specialty stores such as "Catch Bagel" and "The Daily Bagel" in Beijing were also popular for a while.
After bagels, at the beginning of July, an online celebrity bakery called "Roll'ING Swiss Roll" was born.
The Swiss rolls priced at 39-49 yuan can only be bought by customers in line for 90 minutes, and the store has also been on the hot search for too long queuing time, causing heated discussions.
In addition to the emerging online celebrity baking stores, there are also baking brands that bet on single products to win financing. For example, in May 2023, "Durian Xiaoxia", which focuses on durian baking, received tens of millions of financing.
△ Image source: Screenshot of the official account of Durian Xiaoxia Xiaohongshu
Bakery specialty stores, starting from a single product, focusing on a certain track, with fewer SKUs, can reduce costs. After the product is streamlined, the store area is relatively smaller and the operation is more flexible, which also makes it relatively easy to start and replicate the store. In addition, once out of the circle, the brand can quickly occupy the minds of consumers.
However, single products mean that consumers have fewer choices and are less willing to enter the store, and it is difficult to survive for a long time if the profitability of the store cannot be guaranteed.
Since 2023, a number of bakery specialty stores have faced the crisis of closure and contraction.
In June, Niujiaocun, a croissant baking brand blessed by the halo of stars, was revealed to have filed for bankruptcy. At its peak, Niujiaocun opened 28 stores across the country, and there are only 3 stores left.
Yuefengtang, which has received 2 rounds of financing in a year and specializes in croissants, is also shrinking its stores.
Red meal big data shows that since 2023, Yuefengtang's stores in Nanchang, Wenzhou and other cities have been closed, and there are only more than 30 stores left in the country, only about half of the peak.
△ Image source: Screenshot of Dianping
The popularity of the nascent bakery is also declining visibly. From a long line of Internet celebrity bakeries to "ordinary", it took less than 2 months for Ginza Inshikawa to go from a long line of Internet celebrity bakeries, as did the New York Bagel Museum.
All in all, a single store may be able to operate well with its distinctive products and environment. However, if the brand bets its fate on a single product, it is a great challenge to product innovation ability and brand channel construction.
Conclusion
The baking industry has always been quick to reshuffle.
According to Meituan's statistics, the average survival time of bakeries nationwide is 32 months, 57.7% of stores close down within 2 years, and only 23.8% of bakeries survive for more than 4 years.
Baking is not a rigid category, the market has poured into a large number of entrepreneurs, but the consumption environment is becoming more and more rational, consumers' "loyalty" to baking is missing, and the living space of baking brands is "squeezed".
However, from the perspective of market size, the baking track is still growing.
According to the big data of red meal, the scale of the national bread baking market is expected to exceed 127.6 billion yuan in 2023, an increase of more than 20 billion yuan over last year, an increase of more than 20%.
These mean that practitioners still have promising prospects, firmly grasp the new consumption trend, and better meet the current consumers' needs of "delicious and inexpensive" and "delicious and healthy" in product design and store models, or become the way to break the situation in the new year.