When brands such as KFC, Gu Ming Tea and Shanghai Auntie launched an attack on 10,000 stores, the number of Tustin China Burgers signed up for burgers across the country has exceeded 7,000, compared with 5,400 in October last year. In the past two years, there are not a few catering brands that have opened or restarted franchises, and Tustin's franchise speed is obvious, and its growth rate is far ahead of many hamburger tracks.
Differentiated positioning, more than 7,000 stores in 12 years
Tustin China Burger was born in 2012, and its first store was located in Nanchang. It wasn't until 2018 that Tustin's core competitiveness of products, "hand-rolled baked burgers", came out. At that time, the number of Wallace stores had exceeded 10,000, and the total number of KFC restaurants in China was 5,910. If Tustin wants to go from Nanchang to the whole country, the pressure can be imagined.
In order to carve out its own world in the Hamburg circuit, Tustin inherits the essence of Chinese pastry skills on the basis of "hand-rolled baked burger embryo", takes Chinese culture as the source, and uses concrete colors, patterns, sounds, words, architecture and other elements and symbols that can present Chinese culture to construct the cultural connotation of Tustin brand genes. As a result, Tustin competes differently with brands such as Wallace, KFC, and McDonald's.
At the same time, Tustin chose to go to the sinking market and tap new market increments. As of February 2024, it has taken nearly 12 years for Tustin to sign contracts with more than 7,000 stores, covering 342 cities in 22 provinces across the country. According to the data of Narrow Door Dining Eye in March 2024, 24.28% of the distribution of Tustin stores is in third-tier cities and 23.31% in fourth-tier cities and below.
According to the "2023 Research on China's Top 100 County Economies", the average total retail sales of consumer goods in counties with a GDP of more than 100 billion yuan will reach 40.4 billion yuan. Meituan data shows that during the Spring Festival in 2024, the county-level markets across the country will usher in a peak of homecoming consumption, with the number of takeaway orders for many leading sinking chain brands including Wallace, Mixue Bingcheng, and Tustin increasing by 39% year-on-year, and the number of related merchants increasing by 31% year-on-year.
While Tustin is growing at a rapid pace, it's not happening blindly. In the selection of store locations, in addition to considering the distance factor, Tustin will give priority to the capacity of the area based on the population, urban income, residents' disposable dimensions and the number of similar chain stores, and then evaluate whether the store can be opened according to the actual situation such as the population density of the point and the prosperity of the business district.
At the same time, Tustin also has a high screening threshold for franchisees. Tustin will go through a rigorous interview to understand the fits between the franchisee and the brand's values, and whether the franchisee has experience in the catering industry is also one of the evaluation criteria.
Rational growth, food safety management system
In the past two years, the catering franchise market is shifting from the barbaric growth stage to the rational growth stage, and all aspects of the catering franchise tend to be standardized and formalized. According to incomplete statistics, since 2022, there have been dozens of open (restarted) catering franchise brands, distributed in multiple tracks such as tea, coffee, snacks and fast food.
Once a catering brand is open to joining, the quality of food, service quality and customer experience provided by the franchised stores will directly affect consumers' attitudes towards the brand. After the completion of store site selection and franchisee selection, Tustin will also assist the store to build an exclusive operation system, as well as support for products, channels, promotion and other aspects, and help the store improve the operation QSC standard and operation management quality through online inspection.
Food safety management is the foundation and key point of the catering brand's work. At present, Tustin has formulated a strictly standardized and meticulous food safety checklist. From the aspects of production environment conditions, purchase inspection, operation process, storage control, personnel management, oil management, etc., timely and effective scientific investigation of the store environment and food safety hazards is carried out in an all-round way, and the "feeling and experience" type of health screening is refused.
In order to effectively implement the investigation, Tustin has also developed a time-based grading feedback system. Under the supervision and cooperation of the food safety director and food safety officer, the store gradually implements the daily control, weekly inspection and monthly scheduling system, earnestly fulfills the requirements of food safety risk self-inspection, strengthens the dynamic management of food safety risk prevention and control, and discovers, reports and solves potential food safety hazards in a timely manner.
Smart operation, high-quality development
After rapid growth, Tustin is slowing down to further polish and improve its products and management system, so as to better fulfill its social responsibilities and move towards high-quality development.
The State Information Center released the "Report on the Digital Development of China's Catering Industry" last year, proposing that the digitalization of the catering industry is the specific manifestation of the application of industrial digitalization in the catering industry, and is the process of promoting the high-quality development of the catering industry with the application of digital technology to the processes and links of the catering industry such as catering production, procurement, operation, marketing, trading, and management, with data elementalization as the main driving force, efficiency and quality improvement as the main characteristics, and for the purpose of meeting the diversified and multi-scenario needs of consumers.
At present, Tustin has launched a smart operation center, which will help franchisees improve the quality of operation QSC standards and operation management through online inspection, food control, and special tracking of operation standards. Using big data analysis, we can find out the operational difficulties of stores in a timely manner and provide solutions, and make the supervision and inspection of stores online, so as to provide more targeted guidance to stores.
In addition, green environmental protection, personalized customization, innovative products and healthy eating concepts are also the future trends of the development of the catering industry. As a socially responsible company, Tustin contributes to the protection of the environment by reducing waste and using environmentally friendly materials. At the same time, Tustin has also carried out public welfare activities such as the "One Step Love Book" donation and book exchange program, the "Intangible Cultural Heritage Creative Workshop", and will open recruitment for the disabled in 2023 to help the disabled.
At present, Tustin has completed the brand 3.0 upgrade, with a new slogan concept of "Chinese stomach, love Chinese fort", opening a new era of brand confidence.