Editor: Mi Liping
来 源:正和岛(ID:zhenghedao)
1. Tao Taoju is on fire again
Tao Tao Ju is on fire again.
On the evening of April 4, Yellen's first meal in China was Tao Taoju, and in order to feel the dining atmosphere, they booked a lobby and "open dining".
Before coming to China, Yellen mentioned in an interview with the media that she hopes to interact with people at home and abroad through local restaurants and cuisine.
So what is the origin of Tao Taoju, which is worthy of Yellen's team as the first meal of her visit to China?
In fact, before Yellen came, Tao Taoju was a well-known "king of queues", and once set a hot record of ranking 2884 in a single day.
Founded in 1880 (Guangxu period), Taotaoju has gone through 144 years of ups and downs, is a veritable time-honored brand, and is also one of the oldest existing catering brands in Guangzhou.
Many celebrities, such as Lu Xun, Ba Jin, Liu Haisu, etc., have been guests of Tao Taoju.
Lu Xun wrote in his diary in March 1927: "On the 18th, it rained. In the afternoon, the same season city (Xu Shoushang), Guangping to Tao Tao Ju tea. For tea tasting, Lu Xun has his own unique opinion: "Guangzhou's tea is fragrant and delicious, a cup in hand, you can talk with friends for half a day." ”
Tao Tao Ju 10th Fu Road head office is its oldest store, the early name of "Grape House", later Kang Youwei for its inscription "Tao Tao House", meaning "come here to taste tea, music also Tao Tao", these three words have been preserved to this day.
In July 2015, Yin Jiangbo, the founder of Shishang Guowei Group, won the brand management right of "Tao Taoju".
For a long time, Cantonese cuisine has been in a state of "flowering within the wall", and there are few chain brands and time-honored brands outside the province. After Yin Jiangbo took over, Tao Taoju not only went out of Guangdong, but also developed all the way to Shanghai, Beijing, Xiamen, and Chengdu. Today's Taotaoju has become a "trendy brand" that many young people and "Lao Guang" are very fond of
Tao Taoju, why is it so popular?
Second, the time-honored brand, we must first "keep upright", and then "innovate"
Last year, the Ministry of Commerce, together with relevant departments, announced the results of the review of China's time-honored brands, and 55 time-honored brands were "delisted", which undoubtedly gave many domestic brands a wake-up call.
How can a time-honored brand that once had unlimited glory retain its popularity and reputation? This problem has once again been placed in front of the time-honored brand.
There are many time-honored brands in China, but there are very few like Tao Taoju that can be inherited for 144 years and are still popular.
After taking over the Tao Taoju brand, Yin Jiangbo thought, must the time-honored brand be old enough to be eliminated by the times? For example, Louis Vuitton (1854), Hermès (1837), Chanel (1910), Gucci (1927), etc., are all time-honored brands, but they are leading the global fashion trend.
Yin Jiangbo believes that "if a brand wants to be long-lasting, it must be shaped with the vision of development, and the best inheritance is to keep pace with the times."
What is a head enterprise? The head enterprise is not based on the scale, but on the leading position in the industry, whether it can lead the industry. The world-class time-honored brands in the fashion industry that can lead the trend rely on the ability to innovate with the times.
Therefore, Yin Jiangbo proposed the "three combinations" of Tao Taoju and made an elaboration.
1. Combine with fashion
What is fashion? It is the trend of people's pursuit of beauty. This beauty is reflected in all aspects of life, and food is an important part of it.
With the development of the times, people's dietary needs are constantly changing, and food should not only be delicious, but also good-looking, and healthy, which is actually the trend and fashion.
The time-honored brand, with a profound historical and cultural accumulation, has experienced the changes of the times in the development process, and can still endure and lead the fashion and trend. The key is to keep up with the trend of the times to innovate and change, and combine yourself with fashion.
The combination of time-honored brands and fashion should take into account both "integrity" and "innovation". Fashion must have a traditional foundation in order to become a classic.
For example, in terms of products, Tao Taoju presents Cantonese refreshments in a more fashionable way under the premise of taste inheritance.
For example, the traditional durian crisp, which was originally oval-shaped, was made into a beautiful swan shape by Tao Taoju, with the same taste but a more ornamental performance, which led the durian crisp in restaurants across the country to change from oval to swan-shaped.
Many of Tao Taoju's signature dishes are combined with fashion on the basis of tradition and innovative interpretation.
For example, chilled Gu Yu Pork, the traditional Gu Yu Meat is chilled to make its shell more crispy, cold on the outside and hot on the inside, and Cantonese restaurants across the country have also followed suit.
2. Integrate with culture
Many people say that we need to have an innovative mindset, but we should also look at the other side, that is, what are we sticking to? There must be a balance between perseverance and innovation.
An enterprise and a brand must have its own cultural soul, and what it advocates and adheres to is precisely its cultural side.
The value of the time-honored brand is because of the accumulation of history and culture, what is Taotaoju? It is the food culture of Guangzhou people, a representative of a way of life of Guangzhou people, and at the same time the memory of several generations of people in Guangzhou.
Tao Tao Ju, no matter where you go, is an all-round output of Cantonese culture. In Taotaoju, you can eat Cantonese food, see Cantonese architectural elements, and immerse yourself in the comfortable life of Guangzhou people.
"The more national it is, the more global it is, and sticking to its own characteristic culture will make it unique. This is a sentence that Yin Jiangbo often repeats.
3. Integrate with technology
The combination with technology is mainly to build a smart restaurant around the management of modern enterprises, and use data to do fine management such as operation promotion, customer management, warehousing and logistics, human resources, and finance.
As early as 2003, Tao Taoju began to build informatization and set up a special catering technology company to actively use various information systems to empower catering operations.
At present, Taotaoju has 38 stores, and 4 stores are under construction this year, all of which are in the core business district with dense crowds.
3. Behind the popularity, there are 4 essences
In Yin Jiangbo's view, the essence of catering is mainly in four aspects.
1. Products
A big reason why Taotaoju's profitability is good is to clarify its own positioning and adhere to product quality.
In order to reduce costs and increase efficiency, some brands choose to use prefabricated dishes, but Tao Taoju insists on not doing it; many brands pursue rapid expansion, while Tao Taoju seeks quality, steadily and steadily, and opens a store; many brands pursue single product explosions, and Tao Taoju insists on rich dishes, so that customers have more choices.
Yin Jiangbo said frankly that China's thousands of years of food civilization, which is delicious and which is not delicious, the ancestors have already studied it thoroughly, and what can be handed down must be good, and the bad ones have long been eliminated. "When you do catering, you can filter out the traditional things and make the original flavor honestly, and the delicious restaurant will not go out of business. ”
He has always believed in the power of tradition and believes that "handmade, traditional and fresh" is the core of the differentiation of F&B brands. "Tao Tao Ju relies on hand-made and chef skills, which is always adhered to. ”
In Tao Tao Ju, to be a head chef or technical supervisor, you must have a deep technical foundation. Wan Jiangbo uses a lot of Hong Kong's team of chefs because he finds that they have a dedication to technical perfection, and Hong Kong is also a region where the traditional Cantonese cuisine culture is relatively intact.
Yin Jiangbo said that this seems to be a more real condition, but behind it is actually his strictness on quality. After taking over Tao Taoju, in order to find a good Cantonese chef, he searched for Cantonese cuisine chefs in the Pearl River Delta, and also went to Hong Kong many times to find them.
Cantonese cuisine has very strict requirements for ingredients, whether it is poultry or seafood, Tao Taoju has also made great efforts in this regard.
For example, roast goose, Tao Taoju must use fresh goose, and must be the use of authentic Qingyuan black and brown goose, the growth cycle of 93 days, underwater growth and breeding for 50 days, land growth for 43 days, eating grass, rice and rice, so that the goose meat is healthy, the meat quality is more symmetrical, and the roast goose skin is more crispy and fragrant.
In Guangdong, Qingyuan black and brown geese can be delivered to the store every morning, but in other provinces, they need to be transported coldly, which greatly increases the difficulty and cost of transporting ingredients.
Despite this, Tao Tao Ju still puts the quality of its products in the first place, insisting that the main ingredients are shipped from Guangzhou, in order to maintain the same taste as Guangzhou.
Another example is chicken, the diet of Cantonese people emphasizes "chicken has chicken flavor", which is the pursuit of the type of chicken, the number of days of breeding, and even the breeding environment and the freshness of the chicken.
The chickens in Taotaoju's stores are also shipped from Guangdong, "the chicken breeds in the north can't make white-cut chicken in Cantonese cuisine."
Now, Tao Tao Ju has also launched a bright kitchen. In the fully transparent kitchen, the dim sum is handmade from dough mixing, rolling skin, and filling.
Respect for technology, reverence for craftsmanship, and doing a good job in production is the king. It is precisely because of this special perseverance that Yin Jiangbo believes that the delicious taste brought by Tao Taoju is enough to conquer the taste buds and reach the hearts of the people. As he mentioned in a poem about Tao Taoju, what we want to awaken is not only taste and memory, but the history of life.
2. Environment
The environment should be matched with the product, there is a fast food environment for fast food, a real meal has a dinner environment, and a hot pot environment for hot pot, now young people have higher and higher requirements for the environment, and it is important to make consumers feel comfortable.
Tao Tao Ju is the output of Cantonese culture as a whole, and the creation of the store continues the Lingnan style.
In the store, there are often architectural elements with Lingnan characteristics, such as Manchurian windows, flower windows, flower street bricks, and slap doors, and at the same time, they incorporate a lot of modern and fashionable designs, which can be called the perfect combination of tradition and modernity.
In Tao Tao Ju, one step at a time is like being in the old Xiguan of Guangzhou, and when you meet people, you want to ask: "Have you drunk tea?"
3. Services
Nowadays, consumers have high requirements for services, and in different consumption scenarios, services must have their own characteristics in order for consumers to remember.
In terms of service details, Tao Taoju pays attention to reflecting Cantonese culture, insists on using Cantonese as the service language, and tries to greet customers in Cantonese even in other provinces. Cantonese service emphasizes more on non-intrusive service, professional and warm, but not excessive.
4. Price
For consumers, price-performance ratio is important. The price that matches the product, the environment, and the service forms the basis of the catering.
From production to service, to environmental creation, to cost performance, in addition to a lot of costs, more is the intention.
The price of Tao Tao Ju is relatively close to the people, because it represents the lifestyle of Guangzhou people, that is, very daily consumption. Even if Yellen came to Taotaoju to dine, the menu was only 130 yuan per person. It is delicious and inexpensive, which may be an important reason why Tao Tao Ju can win the general recognition of consumers.
Now they are mentioning "Internet celebrity restaurants", but Yin Jiangbo said, "Tao Taoju must become a classic Internet celebrity and explore eternal classics."
Fourth, the moat of Tao Taoju
The main reason why the catering industry is very volatile is that there are many things that can be copied, and products, environments, services, and prices are easy to be copied.
In Yin Jiangbo's view, the moat of catering should return to its root - people. Catering belongs to diligence, and only diligent people can do it well, and can be persistently diligent. For example, most people can run, but very few people can run day after day, year after year.
In 2015, Yin Jiangbo set the goal of completing three "100" in 20 years: going to 100 countries, running 100 marathons, and opening 100 Taotaoju in China. At present, he has completed 62 marathons and opened 38 Tao Tao Residences.
During his university years in Beijing, Yin Jiangbo worked more than 20 jobs, "The conditions of my family are okay, mainly because I like to toss and touch a lot of new things."
He found a part-time job at that time, selling notebooks in Beijing, and he could sell a lot more than others, the secret is to be diligent, remember every customer, and keep going back and visiting, some people may annoy you, but there will also be people who appreciate you and think you are serious. "I make a lot of money from every job I do, and both the company and the customers give me good reviews. ”
"There is a chance of success, and I can't say that I won't do it if I encounter some difficulties. In fact, the gap between people is not so big, the key is whether you are willing to do things and whether you can continue to pay for a long time. ”
In Taotaoju, it is the people who hear the sound of the cannon to make decisions, and the management has to be on the front line, on the spot. The Chinese New Year is the busiest time for the catering industry, and Tao Taoju's culture is that all executives can not ask for leave during the New Year and holidays, and must be on the front line as waiters.
"I have been a catering business for more than 20 years, and I have basically never watched the Spring Festival Gala or had a reunion dinner. Work hard to prosper the country, hard work in order to continue to operate, you don't do some people do. ”
Before doing catering, Yin Jiangbo worked in the system for more than ten years, and later founded his hometown in Shandong.
"At that time, I borrowed 270,000 yuan to start a business, in 1998, my salary was only more than 800 yuan a month, if I failed, I could only pay off it after 30 years without eating or drinking. ”
Today, Yin Jiangbo has not only done a good job in his hometown in Shandong, but the time-honored Taotaoju is also thriving. Many brands and business sectors such as Zi Congee Lou Restaurant, Yanyu Tea Industry, Dongyuan Traditional Chinese Medicine, Dongyuan Pharmaceutical, and Weixi Biotechnology are also gradually growing.
Any industry or thing is inseparable from "people", and the same is true for Tao Taoju, the biggest difficulty is talent. The prosperity and decline of an enterprise are related to people, and the aging of an enterprise must be the aging of people.
F&B is a labor-intensive business, and the motivation of talent is crucial.
In Yin Jiangbo's view, we must first understand people and understand human nature. What enterprises need to solve is the problem of responsibility and rights, and they must build a real incentive mechanism so that everyone can have combat effectiveness.
In Taotaoju, different management levels and incentives are different. The career of a waiter is basically two years, so Tao Taoju adjusts his salary every six months, which is a more scientific and human salary incentive.
"In terms of talents, there are three sentences that say so, one is to keep people with career, the second is to use treatment, and the third is to use feelings. ”
5. Conclusion: Run slowly to run farther
Now, many Internet celebrity stores want to take the shortcut of opening stores quickly, and it seems that once they slow down, they will be forgotten by the times. However, in the long run, it is difficult to have both fast and long-lasting.
At present, Taotaoju has 38 stores across the country, mainly concentrated in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing, Xiamen and Chengdu. Different from other stores with "1,000 stores nationwide", in the future, Tao Taoju's goal is to open 100 stores.
Yin Jiangbo said, "How many years does it take to open 100 stores? It may be 10, 20 or even 30 years, and we are not in a hurry to expand our stores, because the premise of our stores is to have a mature team to open new stores." ”
"The speed at which Tao Tao Ju opened the store is like my favorite marathon. In fact, cooking is like running a marathon, you need to stick to it day after day, year after year. ”
Many people comment that Taotaoju is an innovative development. However, Yin Jiangbo believes that he is more about sticking to tradition.
"Tao Taoju puts 'integrity' in front of 'innovation', and the threshold for making a meal is very high, because the barrier is in technology. A lot of brands are thinking about sprinting before they even start, and what I want to do is a marathon. You may earn less in a short period of time, but you can go further. ”
Yin Jiangbo is determined to participate in 100 marathons, and now that he has achieved more than half of this goal, he is known as the "Prince of Hundred Horses" in the industry.
He always believes that only by running slowly can you run farther. This is his attitude towards life, but also towards business management.
References:[1].Listen to the head of the business|Yin Jiangbo, the "Prince of 100 Horses" in the catering industry: Run slowly to run farther