Source: The Marketing Apocalypse of Seeking Space
Self-heating hot pot once set off a craze in the market with its novelty and convenience, but now, this craze seems to have quietly receded. Do you remember the last time you tasted self-heating hot pot?
For me, that was about two years ago. It was an outdoor outing, and I chose to bring self-heating hot pot for lunch, but the dining experience was not as good as I imagined.
First of all, although the packaging of self-heating hot pot is small, it is not lightweight, which undoubtedly adds to the burden for traveling in pursuit of lightness. Secondly, when eating, I need to consume my own water, which is a waste for me to go outdoors. What's even more frustrating is that after eating, you need to dispose of a bunch of garbage.
The most important problem, of course, is that it doesn't taste good.
I asked many friends around me, and they also expressed similar opinions, saying that they had not bought self-heating hot pot for a long time. They believe that compared with self-heating hot pot, it is better to eat a bowl of spicy tang for the same price.
Market data also proves that self-heating hot pots are getting cooler.
According to a report by the Prospective Industry Research Institute, although the size of China's self-heating hot pot market is estimated to be 10.37 billion yuan in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 18.5%, the growth rate has slowed down compared with before. According to iiMedia Consulting, self-heating hot pot will reach 14.89 billion yuan in 2023, which is not a high growth rate.
As one of the leading brands in the self-heating hot pot market, Zihai Pot's sales data also reflect the changes in the market. According to public reports, Zihai Pot's annual sales in 2019 were nearly 800 million yuan, while sales in 2020 reached 1 billion yuan, but in 2022, the revenue fell to 820 million yuan, and the revenue fell by nearly 20%.
So, why is the self-heating hot pot not on fire?
01 Food tastes bad
The reason why self-heating hot pot can quickly gain market attention is largely because it provides a novel eating experience as a new food category.
However, the problem of taste is more fatal.
The ingredients of self-heating hot pot usually need to be specially processed and preserved to ensure long-term storage. These processes often include freezing, vacuum packing, pre-cooking, etc., which can adversely affect the mouthfeel and flavor of ingredients. For example, vegetables lose their tender taste, meat becomes harder and drier, and ingredients such as seafood lose their umami during processing.
The process of self-heating hot pot is made to achieve a quick and convenient eating experience, but this also limits the taste of the food. Since self-heating hot pot relies on chemical heating packs to heat food, this process usually takes a certain amount of time, and in this process, the food cannot be heated evenly, resulting in a large gap between the texture and taste of the ingredients and freshly cooked hot pot.
In addition, the seasoning packets of self-heating hot pot usually need to be heated together with the ingredients, and this pre-mixed seasoning method is difficult to replicate the layering and richness of traditional hot pot.
This kind of production process determines that the taste of self-heating hot pot is too big compared with real hot pot.
In the beginning, self-heating hot pot attracted a large number of consumers to try to buy it due to its novelty, after all, it is a good experience to eat hot pot without turning on the fire. However, as more and more consumers find that the taste is mediocre after several attempts, self-heating hot pot gradually loses the incentive to repeat purchases.
Looking back at my online consumption history, the last time I bought self-heating hot pot was a few years ago.
02 Low cost performance
When consumers choose to eat a meal, the most critical consideration is "value or not", that is, whether they can get the satisfaction and experience from the price they pay. If a food product is not economical and tastes mediocre, it will naturally be rejected by consumers.
The price of self-heating hot pot is usually not low, a serving of about 400 grams, generally requires twenty or thirty yuan a box. For many consumers, the price may be worth it in exchange for an extraordinary taste experience. However, the taste of self-heating hot pot can be called "very poor" compared to its price, which makes it extremely cost-effective.
Within the same price range, consumers have a variety of dining options, such as Malatang or takeout, while in Nanchengxiang, they can even eat a self-service hot pot for more than 30 yuan.
In the current consumption environment, people are becoming more and more cost-effective in their food choices. Although self-heating hot pot provides convenience in specific situations, such as travel, overtime, and other scenarios where it is not possible to eat out, it is not an affordable choice from a cost-effective point of view.
So, while consumers may try once or twice out of curiosity, it's hard to translate into long-term spending habits due to the low value for money.
03 After the epidemic, people have more dining options
The impact of the pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for all walks of life, while also bringing a short-lived boom to certain products such as self-heating hot pot.
The special period has restricted people's going out, making home the new normal, and this change has directly spawned the popularity of convenient foods such as self-heating hot pot. On days when there aren't many dining options, people who don't want or can't cook turn to self-heating hot pot as a convenient and quick solution.
According to relevant data, in 2020, convenience foods such as self-heating hot pot ushered in an explosion, and the market size grew significantly, with the order volume of some brands increasing by more than 200% during the epidemic, showing the popularity of self-heating hot pot during the epidemic.
However, with the gradual control of the epidemic and the gradual return to normalcy of life, people's dining options have become more abundant. Traditional forms of eating, such as restaurants and takeaway services, have re-become a part of people's daily lives. At the same time, consumers are paying more attention to quality and cost-effectiveness in their food choices.
In this case, the problem of the average taste of self-heating hot pot and the low cost performance become more prominent. Consumers are naturally inclined to abandon products that are not competitive in terms of quality and value when they have more quality options. As an emergency food, the market demand for self-heating hot pot is gradually decreasing with the advancement of normalization.
04 Fierce competition in the market
With the popularity of self-heating hot pot in the market, this market segment has quickly become the focus of attention of many brands. At its peak, hundreds of brands emerged in the market to develop self-heating hot pot categories. In order to occupy market share, brands have to invest huge marketing costs, which intensifies the competitive pressure in the market.
While the self-heating hot pot category is booming, other convenience food categories are also developing rapidly. Self-heating rice, snail noodles, instant spicy tang and other products have gradually become the new favorites of consumers with their unique taste and convenient way of eating. These alternatives not only enrich consumer choices, but also pose a challenge to self-heating hot pots in terms of price and taste.
Self-heating hot pot is often higher in price than other convenience foods, but it is difficult to compare with freshly cooked hot pot in taste, which makes it gradually lose out of competition with other foods.
05 Consumers' demand for health is increasing
In today's society, consumers are paying more and more attention to healthy eating. Fresh, low-carbon, low-calorie food has become the goal of many people, and this trend reflects people's attention to quality of life and the pursuit of a healthy lifestyle. However, there is a certain deviation between the product characteristics of self-heating hot pot and consumers' requirements for a healthy diet.
In order to maintain the stability of the ingredients, a certain amount of food additives are used in the production process of self-heating hot pot, although these additives are safe to use within the legal range, but consumers' oversensitivity to additives and concerns about "chemical composition" make self-heating hot pot have a negative impact on the health image.
At the same time, self-heating hot pot is usually higher in calories, especially some meat and seasoning packets contain more fat and sodium. Long-term consumption may lead to excessive calorie intake, which is not good for health. In addition, the types of ingredients in self-heating hot pot are relatively simple, and it is difficult to provide balanced nutrition, which is inconsistent with the healthy eating concept of consumers pursuing comprehensive nutritional intake.
This is also confirmed by the data in the "Market Prospect and Investment Planning Analysis Report of China's Convenience Food Industry" released by the Prospective Industry Research Institute. According to the report, 22.7% of consumers said that they had tried self-heating hot pot but would not consume it again in the future, and more than 35% of consumers had a poor experience of self-heating hot pot because "the ingredients are not fresh" and "it feels unhealthy".
If it's neither tasty nor healthy, then consumers have no reason to buy it.