Chinese food giants open "canteens", and chefs are fried freshly at 25 yuan per person

Recently, the new Hui vegetable brand Xiaocaiyuan submitted a prospectus. In the prospectus, a brand called "Caishou" was mentioned, which was founded in October 2023 and is the first community store in Xiaocaiyuan.

Restaurant Jun collected relevant information about Dianping. Now let's take a closer look at what makes this restaurant called "Chef's Restaurant" unique.

01■

The small vegetable garden launched the Fu brand

The "rookie canteen" is 25 yuan per person

1. 36 kinds of SKUs, dishes, staple foods, and beverages are readily available

The Chef Canteen offers 36 different kinds of products, including dishes, drinks, main dishes and drinks. The dishes include 26 yuan sauerkraut fish, braised pork, braised Benzai chicken, chili stir-fried pork, stir-fried beef, iron pot garlic shrimp, boiled pork slices and golden soup fat beef and other common dishes.

In addition, freshly ground teas such as corn juice and soy milk are also available. Shonatedo also offers Gojo rice. As for alcoholic beverages, there are common drinks such as Coke, Sprite and JDB.

Image source: Dianping

The storage fee at the Caishou Canteen is 3 yuan per person, and after the storage fee is collected, you can enjoy unlimited rice, freshly ground corn juice, freshly ground soy milk or side dishes.

Their main target audience is a group of people, and they have launched a baby package especially for children. The baby package includes a nutritious meal for children and millet porridge.

2. The price is concentrated at 8-30, and the unit price is 23 yuan

The prices of the dishes are mainly concentrated between 8 and 30 yuan, such as iron rice at 30 yuan, garlic shrimp at 30 yuan, fish head with chopped pepper at 30 yuan, and fat beef with golden soup at 30 yuan.

The price of staple foods is 3 yuan, such as 3 yuan for Wuchang rice, 3 yuan for freshly ground soybean milk and 3 yuan for freshly ground corn juice, and there is no limit to the supply.

The price of alcoholic beverages is mainly between 6 yuan and 25 yuan. Among them, the cheapest is the four-yuan Nongfu Spring, and the most expensive is the 25-yuan Jiang Xiaobai 100-liter bottle.

Image source: Dianping

In order to increase the unit price and profit margin of the store, Caishou Canteen launched a sauerkraut fish set meal for two, with a price of 58 yuan. In addition, there are also two four-person meal options, namely the 90 yuan and 95 yuan for the four-person meal and the best-selling four-person meal.

In order to attract more customers, the rookie hand made a discount on the four-person meal, and the price was reduced to 79 yuan. In order to further increase the unit price of customers, it has also launched a universal voucher of 45 yuan to 50 yuan and 18 yuan to 20 yuan. After these preferential measures, the unit price per person is about 23 yuan.

Image source: Dianping

3. Positioning the community canteen, focusing on new Hui cuisine

The Caishou Canteen is positioned as a community canteen, focusing on Xinhui cuisine, but with some cuts in dishes and portions to suit a wider range of consumer groups. At present, the store area is between 150 and 200 square meters, and the unit price is mainly concentrated in 20 yuan to 40 yuan.

The canteen is a self-service model, and customers can complete their orders through the smart ordering system or online ordering. The intelligent system pushes the order information to the kitchen so that the dish can be prepared.

The Chef's Restaurant features freshly stir-fried dishes and is prepared by the chef himself. The kitchen is designed with a bright file, allowing consumers to witness the chef's entire process of making and cooking.

In order to dispel consumers' concerns, the corner of the wall used a copy to highlight the selling points of the Caishou Canteen's fresh ingredients, selected rice, and safe oil, and emphasized that these ingredients come from the small vegetable garden's own supply chain.

02■

The advantages of a small vegetable garden as a canteen for vegetable makers

As a Chinese food boss, Xiaocaiyuan naturally has the advantage of being a community canteen across borders.

1. Own advantages: customer group resources and supply system experience replication

Customer group advantage: Xiaocaiyuan has a deep accumulation in the field of Chinese catering, and has a stable customer base, and these customer flows will supply the canteen.

Previously, if these customers wanted to taste Hui cuisine, they needed to go to their shopping malls. Now, Xiaocaiyuan has launched a "Caishou Canteen", which opens its store next to the community or office building in front of consumers' homes, so that consumers can eat Xinhui cuisine nearby and enjoy more affordable prices.

Compared with other community canteens, the Caishou Canteen has a greater advantage in terms of customer base.

Supply advantage: The small vegetable garden and the vegetable canteen share the same supply system. Since the product positioning of the Caishou Canteen and the Small Vegetable Garden are both Xinhui dishes, and the product types and systems are similar, the procurement standards and experience of the Small Vegetable Garden can be directly applied to the Caishou Canteen, and there is no need to build a separate supply system.

2. External advantages: consumption trends, government support

The positioning of the canteen is in line with the market trend of community canteens.

Consumption downgrade: According to the central bank's Q2 questionnaire, we found that 24.5% of residents preferred "more consumption", 58.0% preferred "more savings", and 17.5% preferred "more investment".

This shows that more and more people are spending less and less. Under such a trend, consumers have become more cautious in spending money and more concerned about "sex price comparison".

In order to adapt to this trend and maintain their market position, many brands are looking to grow their revenues again. They have adopted various strategies, such as changing the price system, introducing sub-decks, and "sinking" communities.

For example, brands such as Heytea and Nai Xue are looking for price breakthroughs, Haidilao has launched new business lines such as Xiafan Xiao Hot Pot, and some brands are gradually shifting the battlefield from shopping malls to communities in search of new growth opportunities.

The "Caishou Canteen" launched by Xiaocaiyuan is an attempt to conform to the trend of consumption downgrading.

Its strategy is a combination of new sub-brands, a low price system, access to new market layouts, maintaining the original menu and chef's cash advantage, and adopting a new model. This combination of models allows small vegetable gardens to adapt to trends and find ways to break through.

Healthy eating: Recent market research shows that more than 70% of young people prefer healthy, light dishes, and this proportion has increased by 20% in the past year.

This health trend has led to the rise of emerging trends such as Chinese light food, Chinese herbal milk tea, and low-sugar and low-fat tea. In this context, Caishou Canteen is committed to providing diners with light, easy-to-digest, nutritionally balanced, hygienic and clean dishes with a light taste, easy to digest, nutritionally balanced, and hygienic by virtue of its new Hui cuisine characteristics.

This precise fit for the health needs of young people and the positioning of "health anxiety" make the canteen a leader in the fierce market competition.

Government support is one of the great advantages of the canteen. In order to encourage the development of community canteens, the relevant departments have provided a variety of subsidies and exemption policies, which have successfully attracted more entrepreneurs to participate.

For example, Kunming, Shanghai, Yinchuan, Shijiazhuang and other places have introduced relevant policies to encourage the opening of restaurants and promote the development of the industry. Since the canteen is a type of community canteen, it can also receive subsidies or support from the government.

03■

Small vegetable garden launched the "Caishou Canteen".

The goal of launching the "Caishou Canteen" is clear, aiming to explore the community catering market through the canteen model and seek dual growth in scale and profitability.

1. From its own point of view, fill the gap in the market and seek further growth in scale.

Price gap: Through the canteen, the small vegetable garden is ready to extend the price system to the range of 0-50 yuan, filling the gap in the market. The price of the main store products of Xiaocaiyuan is concentrated in 100-50 yuan, which belongs to the Chinese food price system in the shopping mall.

According to Winshang big data, in 25 cities, there are 393 small vegetable garden stores in shopping malls with more than 50,000 square meters, accounting for more than 70%. However, this price system does not adapt to the community catering needs of the mass market, so there is still a gap in the price system of 0-50 yuan for small vegetable gardens.

In order to fill this price gap, Xiaocaiyuan launched the "Caishou" plan to enter the price system of 0-50 yuan. This strategy has been mentioned in the prospectus, and in the future, Xiaocaiyuan will focus on community catering and expand the mass convenience consumer market with a unit price of 0-50 yuan.

Regional gaps: In addition to price gaps, there are also regional gaps in small vegetable gardens. At present, most of its stores are mainly concentrated in the shopping mall area, and its product system and operation model are also built on the basis of the shopping mall customer group.

This means that small vegetable gardens have not yet captured the market in many areas, such as sinking markets, community markets, and overseas markets. In the expansion plan of the small vegetable garden, these markets are the targets that must be conquered.

However, the core advantages of small vegetable gardens are still concentrated in first-tier and new first-tier cities. According to its strategy of "steady progress", the small vegetable garden will first occupy the community and office market in its own area.

To this end, Xiaocaiyuan announced its expansion plan, which is expected to open 200-400 community catering outlets within three years, mainly located near residential areas and office buildings, mainly serving residential residents and white-collar workers.

In 2023, Xiaocaiyuan will launch the deck of "Caishou", and initially test the community market through the method of "Xinhui cuisine + community canteen + cost-effective + copying and cooking".

2. From the perspective of the market, follow the trend and seek further growth in performance.

First of all, Chinese rice fast food has great potential for development in the community, and its consumption accounts for a very high proportion.

According to the China Catering Development Report 2023, in recent years, the mainland community catering market has become a strong market demand, and it is an area with great development potential in the catering market.

Specifically, 57.1% of Chinese rice fast food consumers usually choose to spend at Chinese rice fast food restaurants near their residential communities, which is higher than the proportion of consumers in large shopping malls and commercial pedestrian streets.

Therefore, the main motivation for Xiao Cai Yuan's foray into community catering is to capture this mainstream consumer group and increase the overall unit value of the brand.

Secondly, it has become an industry trend for shopping mall catering to enter the community field.

In recent years, many shopping mall brands have deployed community catering in order to seek new market growth, reduce operating costs, expand new customer groups, and stabilize profit models.

For example, brands such as Ziguangyuan, Jixiang Chaos, and Yuan Ji Yun Dumplings, which have been deeply cultivated in the community industry for many years, have quickly built their own moats and achieved growth. Shopping mall catering brands such as Dilao and Xibei are also accelerating the layout of community catering.

Under this trend, with its own chain and brand advantages, Xiaocaiyuan will naturally enter the community catering market in the city.

This can not only open up new business growth lines, complement the original business, cover new customer groups, increase customer diversity, but also enhance the customer stickiness of the original business line.

04■

The canteen is in dire straits

Of course, as a novice in community catering, Xiaocaiyuan still has many difficulties if it wants to do a good job as a "vegetable canteen".

1. Competitive dilemma

As a newcomer to community catering, Caishou Canteen has entered this market, but it is still facing the siege of many competitors.

First of all, there is the battle between husband and wife and individual stores.

These stores have been deeply cultivated in the community for many years, and are not only large in number and mainstream competitive forces, but also rich in product variety and taste, preferential prices, and have long formed a stable customer base.

In this case, it is difficult for the no-hand restaurant to compete with these stores in terms of cost performance due to its lack of experience.

Secondly, the battle for the brand advantage of chain restaurants.

Compared with some brands that have been deeply involved in the community catering market for many years, Caishou Canteen is difficult to compete with in terms of brand influence, product barriers, and business models. Therefore, in the current market environment, it is difficult to see that the canteen can get a piece of the pie in such a complex competitive environment.

To sum up, there are many difficulties and challenges that need to be overcome in order to succeed in the community catering market. In the face of many competitors, the canteen needs to find its own competitive advantages and characteristics, and continue to innovate and improve in order to gain a foothold in the market.

2. Cost dilemma

The Caishou Canteen focuses on Chinese catering, and is characterized by "bright kitchens, copied and cooked", which makes it heavily dependent on chefs, so the labor cost of the store accounts for a relatively high proportion.

Compared to mom-and-pop shops, although they are also made on demand, they do not need to pay labor costs, so they are more profitable. However, the Caishou Canteen has been aware of this problem and has tried to use stir-fry robots in some stores to appropriately reduce the dependence on labor, thereby reducing labor costs.

However, there is a certain conflict between the use of stir-fry robots and the main feature of the store, which is "copied and made", especially contrary to its slogan "Mom's taste". After all, no mom would use a machine to cook food. Of course, there are also some consumers who think: "The dishes are delicious, as long as they are not expensive." ”

At present, the use of stir-fry robots is still in the experimental stage, and its subsequent market acceptance and whether it will be accepted by mainstream customers still need to wait for market feedback.

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Author | Produced by Susu | Catering O2O Recently, catering O2O will organize a catering summit and a Singapore delegation, inviting you to explore the way for enterprises to go overseas. If you have such needs, please contact us.