"Three slices of potatoes, one piece of corn, two slices of tofu, two slices of greens, and a few meatballs, a total of 35 yuan, is it expensive?"
Some time ago, a netizen picked up a few dishes at a Malatang restaurant near his home, and was dumbfounded when he finally checked out: It costs more than 30 for this little dish?
For a while, the topic of "Malatang seems to have an independent billing system" appeared on the hot search.
According to some data, Malatang will be on the hot search list 7 times in 2023, and each time the topic is inseparable from the word "expensive".
Malatang, a street stall that used to be able to eat for more than a dozen yuan, how did it become an unattainable Malatang "assassin" in a blink of an eye?
The well-known blogger @Bi Dao once did such a test: he selected a few dishes in the Malatang restaurant, and checked out a total of 33.97 yuan, and then he packed it home and calculated the cost price of this bowl of Malatang.
In the vegetable market, corn is 3.5 yuan a piece, and according to the length, the two pieces of corn are about 1.7 yuan, and the baby cabbage is 2.5 yuan a piece, and four vegetable leaves are taken, which is almost 0.4 yuan together.
Next, the blogger weighed each dish, and after converting it according to the market price, he found that each dish was almost a few cents, and the most expensive meatballs did not exceed 1.5 yuan, and the total cost price of the dish was about 8 yuan.
In this way, the cost price of the dish only accounts for about 20%, even if you add the artificial water and electricity rent and other expenses of the Malatang restaurant, the profit of this bowl of Malatang is beyond your imagination.
For a while, netizens from all over the world also began to complain in fancy ways:
"Coordinates: Jiangxi fourth-tier cities, 92 yuan"
"Mine, 81 bucks"
"I can't eat enough for 40 yuan, help me"
Some netizens even said that when they went to eat Malatang, they only dared to take dishes such as green vegetables, and they didn't dare to take the scale like meatballs, and it was still thirty or forty yuan when they checked out, and the key was that they couldn't eat enough after spending so much money.
Malatang is unexpectedly expensive, and it has completely broken the impression of "affordable and delicious" in the past.
Netizen Ms. Li said that she once went to a Malatang restaurant to eat, and at that time she thought that she would spend more than 30 yuan at most, but who knows, when she weighed it, it suddenly reached 50 yuan, which far exceeded her daily expenditure level.
Ms. Li wanted to put it back again, but she felt embarrassed that it was not appropriate not to buy it, so she could only grit her teeth and pay the bill, and then silently thought in her heart that she would never come to this store to eat again.
After working hard for a month, he can't realize the freedom of Malatang, which is a true portrayal of how many young people are now.
Some time ago, a girl in Changsha went to eat Malatang, and when she checked out, she found that she had eaten a bowl of Malatang at a sky-high price of 106 yuan.
So, the girl argued with the boss and asked for on-site reconciliation, and netizens ridiculed that it was really a sky-high price of Malatang.
Not only is it expensive in offline stores, but the prices on takeaway platforms are also prohibitive.
Open the takeaway platform, showing enoki mushrooms 4.28 yuan/50 grams, quail eggs 4.99 yuan/50 grams, fresh tofu 3.98 yuan/50 grams, hot pot wide noodles 4.58 yuan/50 grams, even if you put aside the price to be pumped by the platform, basically every dish far exceeds the daily price of dishes.
I can't help but ask: why is Malatang so expensive now?
Malatang, which originated from street food, used to be a favorite of many people, cheap and delicious.
At the beginning, Malatang was charged for bowls, 3 yuan a bowl or 5 yuan a bowl, and later with the increase in rent, manpower and other expenses, in order to increase profits, Yang Guofu Malatang first implemented the method of weighing and billing.
Until now, most Malatang restaurants have adopted this charging method.
Taking Beijing as an example, Xu Xiaoshu is 39.9 yuan per catty, which is the most expensive Malatang;
Fuke Malatang is the second, at 38.9 yuan/jin, then Zhang Liang and Yang Guofu Malatang, with a price of 29.8 yuan/jin, Sister Xiaogu and Liu Wenxiang are slightly lower, at 26.8 yuan/jin, and the cheapest is Sister Mi Malatang, which claims to be able to drink soup, with a price of 19.8 yuan/jin.
And there is a subtle "cautionary opportunity" in the middle.
It is easy for consumers to form a psychological illusion and blur the price, which virtually reduces the sensitivity to the price, and customers will take more dishes unconsciously, thereby increasing the unit price of customers.
In the era of "you can get home with a swipe of your mobile phone", how much does 50 grams weigh, and how much food can be bought with a catty, young people have no concept at all.
More importantly, this charging method directly leads to an increase in per capita consumption.
According to the city survey, Dianping.com in Beijing found that most of the Malatang per capita consumption is between 25 yuan and 37 yuan.
The price of some new Malatang brands will be higher, such as Xu Xiaoshu Malatang in Beijing, the price is between 40 yuan and 46 yuan, and the average consumption of Fu guests with the title of "Hermes in Malatang" has reached 50 yuan.
In addition to these, "Malatang restaurants are not accurate" is also one of the problems.
In March last year, an anti-counterfeiting blogger in Shanghai posted a video of Zhang Liang Malatang lacking catties and short catties, which sparked heated discussions.
According to reports, after the blogger weighed the dishes in the first store with the electronic scale, he found that he had lost 36 grams, that is, the weight of the Malatang container was not removed, and when the other store weighed, the total weight increased by 82 grams out of thin air.
When he questioned it, the clerk weighed it again, and both stores weighed the correct weight, which showed that the waiter was deliberately adulterating the customer's weight.
Although Zhang Liang Malatang made an apology statement afterwards, many netizens did not buy it.
Not long ago, a girl in Beijing went to Zhang Liang Malatang to eat and found the problem of missing two catties.
After the girl chose the dishes, the weight showed 1.06 kilograms, and later the girl said that she wanted to pack and take it home, and the weighing again showed 0.97 kilograms, and then the girl weighed it with her own scale, and the weight was 0.81 kilograms.
Many netizens commented on this matter: "This is not the only one who is short of catties and two." ”
Many people said that they can accept the price marked, but they do not accept the shortage of catties and shortages, especially now that most of the consumers of Malatang are young people, and young people will not care about whether the weight is sufficient or not, but not caring does not mean that they are willing to be wronged.
In fact, this is tantamount to cutting off the way of wealth and pushing consumers to competitors, and now the scale of the Malatang industry is growing, and the competition is becoming increasingly fierce.
If consumers used to enjoy the satisfaction of taste buds, now they pay more attention to quality and experience, and Malatang has also begun to march from street food to "tall" shopping malls, and the market scale is getting bigger and bigger.
According to the data of Narrow Door Restaurant, as of April 7, 2023, there are 137,000 Malatang stores in the country, with 9.72 stores per 100,000 people, and 41,000 new stores have been opened in the past year.
Due to the fierce competition in the Malatang market, it is difficult for the new Malatang brand to break the track pattern, so it can only continue to find new innovations and take differentiated routes, and the young trend and sense of luxury have always been the halo that the new Malatang aspires to wear.
In recent years, new Malatang brands have sprung up, such as Xiaomanjiao, Fuke, Spicy Xiaoxi, Xu Xiaoshu, Dear, etc.
Without exception, each of them is upscale and stylish with a more comfortable dining experience.
For example, Xu Xiaoshu Malatang rushed directly into the mall from the street, using a single-pot cooking mode, which made consumers feel clean and hygienic, full of luxury, and suddenly enhanced the sense of pleasure;
At the end of 2020, Fuke opened a flagship store "Fuke Malatang Academy", with a high-end decoration style, which does not look like a Malatang shop.
In terms of dining experience, the ceiling is rolled up: the cutlery is custom-made, and Fuke also uses imported meat ingredients, and there are 13 kinds of free ingredients alone.
In the case of such involution, traditional Malatang brands have also begun to upgrade many aspects such as ingredients, store environment and brand tonality.
In 2022, Yang Guofu Malatang will open a new Thai Malatang restaurant in Shanghai, which mainly focuses on young people aged 18 to 35, with an average consumption of 35-50 yuan.
There are even many shops that emphasize that the ingredients are flown in from the local area, and the store decoration is full of local elements.
In this way, the ingredients and services have been upgraded, and the price will naturally go up.
But Malatang's "low price and affordability" has been engraved into its DNA, will consumers pay for a price beyond their understanding?
At present, the market of the Malatang industry is relatively scattered and the entry threshold is low, which leads to its unscientific business philosophy and single business model.
Zhu Danpeng, an analyst of China's food industry, has made it clear:
"The domestic Malatang industry has a history of more than 20 years of development, but at present, the entire Malatang is still in the stage of lack of standardization, specialization, branding, capitalization and large-scale operation. ”
Judging from the current domestic Malatang market, although there are two giants, Zhang Liang and Yang Guofu, they have not achieved a real industry monopoly pattern, and Malatang still has a huge market space.
Shi Leilei, the co-founder of Xiaomanjiao, once said that the market size of the Malatang category is large, it is a high-frequency product that is just needed, and it is a national delicacy, which is limited by the geographical influence, and it is easier to make a national brand.
Malatang has a good consumer base, especially easy to be liked by young people, but with the development of society, emerging consumers have higher requirements for Malatang's ingredients and environment, which leads to Malatang began to upgrade its brand, move towards branding, and "redo" Malatang in a new way.
But does "redo" necessarily mean going high-end and going up?
Shi Leilei, the founder of Xiaomanjiao, said:
"Category upgrading and price pro-people are not contradictory, establish your own warehouse distribution system, and then strengthen the unity of stores and the control of products and services at the store end, so that the brand of Malatang will be more and more solid. ”
In this way, branding is not necessarily a high-end route, and the quality is not necessarily expensive ingredients, so that customers can enjoy safe and hygienic ingredients, and a pleasant experience is more important.
Investor Li Yuanfei has studied hundreds of catering companies, and she believes that we must have a sense of awe for users and products, so as to show the spirit of craftsmanship and make a brand that users are full of.
Based on this premise, the user and the product are the top priority.
Under the situation of the continuous emergence of new brands and the iterative upgrading of old brands, the challenges to be faced by the Malatang industry will be more severe, with awe, through the empowerment of the supply chain, to stabilize the price advantage, to do the sense of value, to maintain the sense of quality, to find the balance between the unit price and consumption capacity, is the real way out of the Malatang upgrade.
Catering should be in awe, responsible for both the consumer's stomach and the consumer's wallet.
In the hearts of consumers, Malatang is a street snack with red roots, if one day the price rises to the point that ordinary people can't afford to eat it, then can it still be called Malatang?
For the Malatang brand, instead of thinking about how to make yourself more and more advanced, it is better to return to the essence of food in a down-to-earth manner.
After all, grabbing the stomach of consumers also firmly grasps the hearts of consumers.
Do you often eat Malatang?How much yuan do you spend each time?Welcome to leave a message in the comment area to discuss!
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Resources:
City boundary: "With a monthly salary of 20,000 yuan, I can't afford to eat a spicy meal"
Hedgehog Commune: "60 yuan a bowl of spicy hot, do I eat it or not?"
Director Bi: "Is Malatang already so expensive? A bowl of 34 pieces of Malatang, I calculated the cost price..."
Jinan Times: ""Expensive" is on the hot search, another "assassin" appears, and many people have eaten it"
Beijing News: "A bowl of spicy tang is more than 40 yuan, I haven't eaten enough"
Sanlian Life Weekly: "The Malatang "Assassin" who can't eat enough for 40 yuan, why does anyone still pay?"
Author: Wu Xu
Editor: Willow Leaf chatter