China's New Year's holidays are inseparable from fried goods. A handful of melon seeds, a plate of peanuts, family and friends sat around, talking and laughing.
Wangkou Town, located in Jinghai District, our city, after a hundred years of development, from the original iron pot, a shovel to support the traditional fried food stall, to factory, large-scale operation, and gradually developed into a famous "hometown of fried food" in the north of the mainland, the production of fried goods in the town accounted for about 30% of the national market share.
In recent years, the market situation of the domestic speculation industry has changed greatly. The development of the express logistics industry has broken the existing market division between the north and the south; the rise of Internet brands has subverted the pattern of "having categories and no brands" in the industry, and consumers' shopping concepts and shopping methods have also undergone great changes.
In the face of multiple challenges, the "new generation" of roasters in Wangkou Town are continuing to write their own new stories by expanding new categories, building new brands, and using new channels of e-commerce communication while sticking to quality.
Do a good job in live e-commerce, and do it yourself
At 4 p.m. every day, the online store of Tianjin Xinmei Food Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Xinmei) will always open on time. In the live broadcast room, several anchors worked hard to promote their "trump card products", and netizens actively placed orders online.
Roasted goods walked into the live broadcast room
Xinmei is an old brand in Wangkou Town, and the founder is Wu Jun of Dawatou Village in the town. People in the village said that when Wu Jun was young, he had the strength to carry more than 300 kilograms of roasted melon seeds into the city to sell on a bicycle. But in recent years, he has increasingly felt that the development of the enterprise has encountered a bottleneck. "Not to mention anything else, now the heads of supermarkets and other channels are all 'post-80s' and 'post-90s', what can I, the 'post-60s', talk about when I sit with them? Wu Jun said that someone had already suggested that his children should take over, but he did not let go easily, and it took a three-year inspection period before handing over the factory to the next generation, "I think young people have ideas, so let them do it boldly." ”
"Selling goods through e-commerce platforms has been an important support for our sales growth in recent years. Shen Wei, the current general manager of Xinmei, introduced that he was a "post-90s", and when he first took over his father-in-law's factory, like many traditional enterprises, he contacted the e-commerce channel with the attitude of giving it a try.
"I paid a lot of tuition fees at the beginning. He said that the first problem he encountered was "there is traffic but no sales", spending 20,000 yuan on a live broadcast, which looked lively and lively, and the sales were less than 5,000 yuan. Later, some live broadcast companies proposed not to charge traffic fees, but asked for a 10% sales commission, but the profits of many fried varieties themselves were only 15%, which could not be drawn.
From this, Shen Wei came to a conclusion: "E-commerce must do it yourself." He started from scratch, signed up for various e-commerce training courses, built a special e-commerce team, and became familiar with the operation methods of e-commerce platforms little by little.
Shen Wei unpacked and inspected the goods
Today, the Douyin account of "Xinmei Food" has gained 114,000 "fans", with 5 fixed anchors, and the live broadcast time and rhythm from 4 pm to 6:30 pm every day have been relatively fixed. Last year's "Double 11", Xinmei obtained 7 million yuan in sales revenue from e-commerce channels.
Seeing that Xinmei is doing a good job online, there is an endless stream of people who come to ask for advice. "I didn't expect the traditional industry to have such a big demand for e-commerce. Shen Wei said that on the one hand, he smelled the business opportunities of live broadcast training, and on the other hand, he also found that if the live broadcast room only sells its own fried goods, consumers are prone to aesthetic fatigue and must expand the category.
Not long ago, Shen Wei registered a new company in Hangzhou, which includes anchor training and can also provide live streaming services for other brands, and has signed a contract with an Internet celebrity snack brand "Cheng Niu Niu".
"Then aren't you an Internet celebrity agency?" In response to such a question, Shen Wei smiled slightly: "That's what it means." ”
From selling fried goods to selling services, regain offline channels
Not long ago, in Jining City, Ulanchabu, Inner Mongolia, a nut snack collection store called Inspirational Fruit Supply Chain Preferred Store opened, which fulfilled the "snack dream" of a "post-90s" girl.
Strictly speaking, the "post-90s" Liu Wantong cannot be regarded as a native of Wangkou Town. Twenty years ago, her mother contracted a pine forest in her hometown of Jilin, and from the mouth of the merchant who came to buy pine nuts, she heard about Wangkou Town for the first time, and also learned that it is the "hometown of fried goods" in the north.
"My mother had a supply of goods at the time, so she thought that she could make more money by doing her own processing, and she could make more money by producing and selling her own products. Liu Wantong introduced that around 2005, her mother took her to Wangkou Town, first found others in the town to process on her behalf, and then built her own factory for production. At the same time, her family has a shop of more than 40 square meters in Beijing. Purchase, production and sales "one-stop", although the days are hard, but the life of the family is more and more prosperous.
During the winter and summer vacations, most of the teenage children nest on the sofa at home to watch TV, and Liu Wantong follows her mother's factory and shop to "run at both ends". "But I didn't feel hard at all, and I could eat pine nuts and pistachios that others could only eat during the Chinese New Year. She also said, "Sometimes I can talk about some business and get a big red envelope!"
It was in this environment that the seeds of her entry into the nut roasting industry were planted.
In 2012, Liu Wantong, who was still in college, had a fierce quarrel with her mother, because she took out the 200,000 yuan she had accumulated to ask a professional company to design and register the "Inspirational Fruit" trademark.
At that time, the domestic roasted food industry was on the eve of a brand explosion, and the three squirrels had just stood out with the help of the "Double 11" that year, but the market as a whole was still in a state of "having categories and no brands". In the eyes of her mother, taking 200,000 yuan as a trademark is simply a waste of money. But Liu Wantong believes that the brand must be more and more valuable, "Many Wangkou fried goods are just a loss of no brand, and good goods cannot be sold at a good price." ”
After graduating from university, Liu Wantong did not choose to go home directly to take over, but went to Hangzhou for a few years. "At that time, I was mainly doing live broadcasting, with a team of 30 people, and the highest record was to sell more than 600,000 yuan a day. She said that it was this experience that made her realize that traffic is not everything, especially for traditional industries, and offline channels should not be easily abandoned.
In the past two years, as online traffic has peaked, domestic snack brands have returned to the offline track. The three squirrels have strengthened the coverage of chain supermarkets and convenience stores, and also sunk into county and township markets and wholesale channels; BESTORE has also increased its investment in retail terminals, in addition to expanding group buying for large customers, it has also innovated a variety of distribution models.
However, the most rapid development is still a variety of emerging snack collection stores represented by "snacks are very busy". According to industry insiders, from the perspective of consumers, snack collection stores cater to the needs of young consumers for "one-stop shopping", and at the same time, because of the main customized products, the price is relatively affordable;
It is in this context that in 2021, Liu Wantong disbanded the live broadcast team in Hangzhou, but she did not choose to go back to work in the factory at home in Wangkou Town, nor did she take over the shop in Beijing, but opened a nut food distribution office in Gaobeidian City, Hebei Province.
"Role-wise, I'm now a dealer for my mother. Liu Wantong said, "I chose here because the rent and labor costs are very cost-effective, and it is close to Wangkou Town, so it is convenient to purchase goods." ”
Less than a year after opening, Liu Wantong's small shop has become famous in Gaobeidian, attracting not only nearby residents to shop, but also many retail stall owners who come to buy goods or learn the skills of operating a private domain.
"I now sell products and services. Liu Wantong said that not long ago, she and a few friends partnered with the first nut snack collection store in Inner Mongolia Ulanchabu Jining City officially opened, the name of the store is the trademark "inspirational fruit" registered when she was in college.
On the opening day, Liu Wantong wrote in his circle of friends: "When I came to Beijing at the age of 14, there was a snack shop at the Gongzhufen bus station, and I also wanted to open a snack shop at that time. After many years, the dream has come true. ”
"Drifting bottle" is out of the circle, and "Little Mountain Donkey" goes out to sea across the ocean
When it comes to popcorn, I don't know how many people's childhood memories have been awakened. At the end of the streets and alleys, the uncle fanned the fire with one hand and shook the stove with the other, and waited for about ten minutes, and with a "bang", popcorn jumped out, and the ensuing aroma filled the whole street.
The 15,000-square-meter production workshop of Wangkou Huafuyuan Food Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Huafuyuan) has seen the modern popcorn production process. In the high-temperature puffing workshop, the sorted and crushed corn kernels tumble up and down in the puffing furnace and turn into round popcorn. On the assembly line, bulk and bottled popcorn is automatically filled, while workers at the end of the conveyor belt are busy sorting and packing.
At present, it is the traditional sales season of roasted goods, and Li Maohua, the person in charge of the company, introduced in the warehouse while counting the goods, while introducing that the spherical popcorn they produce in recent years is very popular in the market, and the products are all over more than 200 cities in China, with annual sales of nearly 100 million yuan.
How can a small popcorn achieve a sales scale of nearly 100 million yuan?
Li Maohua is a native of Wangkou and just turned 36 this year. 10 years ago, he officially entered the roasting industry, mainly dealing in broad beans and peanuts, but he didn't make a name for himself. In 2016, a chance made him smell a business opportunity: "At that time, there were not many domestic popcorn manufacturers, and the market was still a blue ocean, so I thought I could give it a try." At the same time, he learned that eighty percent of the country's popcorn equipment comes from Shandong.
"We went to find out that they also rolled up over there, buying equipment and sending technology. This saves trouble, and there is no need to find another master to learn the craft. In 2017, Huafuyuan officially put into production popcorn products, and also registered a rather joyful brand "Little Mountain Donkey". Regarding the origin of the brand, Li Maohua said that he chose it casually, but people who are familiar with him said: "Like him, stubborn enough." ”
Still, popcorn didn't get off to a good start as expected. At first, the market did not have a high degree of recognition for the "Little Mountain Donkey" brand, and the sales channel was never opened. One day, Li Maohua was drinking stuffy wine alone, staring at the wine bottle in a daze, and suddenly had a flash of inspiration: "Can you make a big wine bottle-shaped outer packaging?" He immediately found the packaging factory, but the other party told him that there was no precedent, everything had to start from scratch, and it would cost more than 100,000 yuan to make the billet alone. Li Maohua did not hesitate, and invested more than 200,000 yuan before and after, and finally realized the mass production of popcorn packaging in the style of plastic wine bottles.
Even so, there are many people who have doubts about Li Maohua's creativity. Because of other brands of popcorn, the price of a 200-gram package is about 15 yuan. Although the net weight of the bottled popcorn of "Little Mountain Donkey" reaches 780 grams, the price is 49.9 yuan, can consumers buy it?
At this time, Li Maohua's stubborn temper came up. At an exhibition that year, he booked a large booth against public opinion and lined up bottled popcorn, which was amazing, and the result was an instant hit. Many dealers who participated in the meeting placed orders on the spot and gave it a poetic name - "drifting bottle".
Li Maohua said that his factory had to increase production for 10 months in a row, from the initial production of 200 cases per day to 4,500 cases per day, and it basically met the market demand. As a result, Huafuyuan has become one of the first-line manufacturers of popcorn in China.
"Drift Bottle" popcorn production line
Since last year, Li Maohua has set his sights on overseas markets. During a casual conversation with an equipment manufacturer, he heard that a Singaporean company had customized a batch of popcorn equipment. "I must have bought the equipment because there was a local market. This made him feel energetic all of a sudden, but how to operate the popcorn outlet made him difficult.
At this time, Jinghai Customs, which heard about the situation, sent a "divine assist", which not only pushed the latest foreign technical trade measures to Huafuyuan, but also guided the enterprise to improve the self-inspection and self-control system and traceability management system. With the help of Jinghai Customs, Huafuyuan obtained the "Record of Export Food Production Enterprises" in a timely manner and successfully obtained the "admission ticket" to engage in export trade.
In May last year, 360 boxes of "Little Mountain Donkey" cream flavor and caramel flavor popcorn produced by Huafuyuan with a total net weight of 1,872 kg were sent to the Singapore market for the first time after being inspected by Jinghai Customs, which was also the first time that the popcorn produced in our city went abroad.
"After more than half a year of development, the overseas market accounts for about 10% of our total sales. Li Maohua introduced that now there are customers from Singapore, Australia and other countries to pick up the goods. At present, he has booked booths at three heavyweight food fairs this year in Guangzhou, China, Bangkok, Thailand and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, so as to take "Little Mountain Donkey" further to the world.
The annual sales volume exceeds 50,000 tons, and small melon seeds are made into a big brand
At 7 o'clock in the morning, the sky was just bright, and the lights in the compound of Tianjin Yuecheng Food Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Yuecheng Food) flashed, and Yue Youchao, deputy general manager of the company, went to work. At this time, most of the workers have not yet arrived at their posts, and the 20,000-square-meter standardized production workshop is empty, only the echo of leather shoes stepping on the ground can be heard.
When it comes to roasted melon seeds in Wangkou Town, the first thing people talk about is Yuecheng food, not only because his family's annual sales of melon seeds can account for one-third of the town, but also because his family always seems to be able to find business opportunities one step ahead of others in the past few years.
25 years ago, Yue Youchao's father, Yue Cheng, was just a daily necessities vendor in the town's agricultural market, and later entered the roasting industry under the guidance of relatives and friends. At that time, there were hundreds of large and small speculation enterprises in Wangkou Town, and Yuecheng first worked for other enterprises, and with the gradual accumulation of experience and funds, he finally chose to "go it alone".
In Yue Youchao's memory, his father was no different from most Wangkou people, they all fried melon seeds in their own yard, and smoked all day long. At first, the family could not afford to buy a truck, so my father pedaled on a bicycle and carried 250 kilograms of melon seeds to the urban area of Tianjin to sell.
But in the eyes of others, Yuecheng is not ordinary. He casually put out a few sunflower seeds, kneaded them in his hand, and tasted them in his mouth, so that he could roughly determine the origin and variety. In particular, in 2010, Yuecheng had just established Yuecheng Food, which was named after itself, and proposed to upgrade the production line of natural gas heat sources. At that time, most enterprises in Wangkou Town still used coal-fired boilers for speculation. In the following year, the transformation of 5 production lines of Yuecheng Food was completed, and it took the lead in realizing clean production.
After another two years, with the continuous improvement of national environmental protection standards, when other roasters were forced to suspend production and were busy with equipment transformation and upgrading, Yuecheng Food was at full speed, rolling back and forth in the wok, becoming the "first brother" of roasted melon seeds in the town in one fell swoop.
In 2019, Yue Youchao, who had been in a tug of war with his parents for more than a year, went home to work. "I was in charge of the sorting center at a logistics company in Beijing, but my family kept calling me back. He introduced, "I told my father that I would not take a dead salary, but would do sales, and there would be a commission." But in fact, Yue Youchao, who was only 26 years old at the time, already had a plan in his heart.
Domestic roasted melon seeds are known as the difference between "north and south". As a melon seed brand from Anhui, Qiaqia is known as the "southern style" in the industry, and Yuecheng is the representative of the "northern style" melon seeds. For a long time, subject to consumer tastes and logistics costs, the "north and south" factions of melon seeds have their own "spheres of influence".
"But now, the price of a cup of coffee can send packages to the world, and the geographical restrictions on the sale of melon seeds have been broken. Yue Youchao, who has experience in the logistics industry, said, "At that time, I thought that I could sell my melon seeds to the south. ”
Boxes of roasted goods are loaded and transported
In 2019, taking advantage of the opportunity of the autumn sugar and wine fair held in our city, Yuecheng Food spent more than 1 million yuan to set up a booth, and more than 30 tables were set up by dealers from all over the world. In the following period, Yue Youchao visited customers and dealers one by one, and in less than one year, he sold his melon seeds to Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan and other places, breaking the history of "Wangkou Roasted Goods Do Not Go South", and also helped Yuecheng Food to exceed 50,000 tons of total sales of roasted seeds that year.
The product sales channel has been opened, and Yue Youchao has a new goal. "The off-peak season of roasted food is obvious, where can the factory do without work for half a year? ”
There are many consumption scenarios of snack food, including roasted food, and it has a wide range of applications. But on the other hand, there are many types of snack foods, including candies, puffed biscuits and baked goods, as well as traditional Chinese marinated products, preserved fruit and so on. In Yue Youchao's view, catering to the consumption habits of customers is the key.
In the past two years, Yue Youchao has made a lot of attempts in the taste and sales methods of melon seeds in response to market demand. Some consumers like to eat sweet, so they develop caramel melon seeds, some consumers like to eat salty, they develop sea salt melon seeds, and some consumers pay attention to health, they produce low-sugar, low-salt melon seeds. In the office area of Yuecheng Food, he tried his best to transform the original exhibition hall into a live broadcast room, with a special team responsible for the live broadcast every afternoon, and the value of melon seeds sold through e-commerce channels can reach tens of millions of yuan every year.
What is the secret ingredient for "stir-frying" tens of billions of sales
Wangkou Town is only 60 kilometers away from Xiong'an New Area, and is the main traffic road to the capital in the north and Jizhong in the south. For hundreds of years, bags of fragrant melon seeds, peanuts and other roasted goods have been shipped from here to the whole country, and a booming industry has also been born.
The threshold for speculating in the industry is not high, why can Wangkou Town stand out in the country?
In the view of Liu Wentao, deputy mayor of Wangkou Town, Wangkou roasted food has formed a special roasted food industry cluster in Wangkou because of its heavy historical heritage, unique traditional flavor and large industrial scale. According to the data, the annual sales volume of nuts in Wangkou Town reached 600,000 tons, with annual sales of nearly 10 billion yuan, accounting for about 30% of the national market share, and it has become the largest distribution center of nuts raw and cooked in North China.
Whether it is in the modern production line, or in the hot live broadcast room, or in the small nut snack shop on the street, you can feel the vigor and enterprising spirit of the "new generation" of fried goods in Wangkou Town.
Perhaps it is this kind of never-ending and never-slackening "spirit" that allows Wangkou Town to constantly "stir up" new heat and new temperature in the rivers and lakes of fried goods, which is also the secret recipe for the fragrant "Northern Fried Goods" to continue to write a business legend.
Editor-in-charge: Jiang Saisai
Inspector Zhang Xiaonan
Source: Tianjin Daily