Recently, Hefu Lao Mian has innovated and upgraded its brand around the three key words of "health, green, and inclusiveness", launched a 2.0 upgrade menu, and broadened the product price range. Among them, Angelica pork bone soup bamboo shoot noodles are 25 yuan, and the baby tomato noodle set is only 26 yuan. Through layered pricing, Hefu Lao Mian covers products ranging from 25 yuan to 108 yuan, increasing the proportion of products with 25-29 yuan, providing consumers with richer choices.
The global penetration of the price band is an action that many consumer brands have been carrying out in recent years. In addition to Hefu Lao noodles, the head brands in tea, liquor, hot pot and other tracks have also opened up the price system, Heytea has already expanded the price to the price range of 20 yuan, and soy sauce wine below 400 yuan is becoming the mainstream of new product sales, and Haidilao also launched a cheap sub-brand "Hi Lao Hot Pot" last year. This strategy gives brands the ability to reach out to all levels of consumption and proactively respond to market competition.
In the competitive catering market, can Hefu Lao Mian give full play to its accumulated skills after broadening the price band, and what imagination space will it bring to the industry?
How can brands break through in the "involution"?
According to data from Zhiyan Consulting, the size of China's Chinese fast food market reached 774.4 billion yuan in 2021 and is expected to reach 1,268.5 billion yuan in 2025, accounting for 70.11% of the market size of the fast food industry, with a compound growth rate of 13.13%. It can be seen that in the catering track, the growth prospects of Chinese fast food show strong certainty and have the resilience to go through the cycle. Grasping the opportunity of the catering track is the key to breaking the game for each catering brand.
As the leading brand of Chinese catering, Hefu Lao Mian does not rely on the traditional Chinese catering method of expanding and opening stores, but finds its own market through refined operation and precise positioning. When Hefu Lao Mian entered the market, it occupied a leading position in the price range of 40-45 yuan, leading the consumption upgrade of Chinese noodle soup with high-quality raw soup base, product innovation and new Chinese style store experience. This model has also affected entrepreneurs in other segments, such as rice noodles, rice noodles, beef noodles and other segments have also appeared with the same model of brands.
After gaining a firm foothold in this price band, Hefu Lao Mian has a larger market share through the establishment of a global price band. This strategy not only provides consumers with a variety of choices, but also allows Hefu Lao Mian to have more initiative in the competition. At the same time, Hefu Lao Mian can use the brand reputation, product innovation experience and high-quality raw materials established earlier in the price range of 25-29 yuan, which is a competitive barrier that other brands with similar prices cannot overcome in the short term.
How to balance price, scale and taste
The establishment of a global price band is actually a test for a brand. Because it has to find a balance between price, scale and taste. When the 2.0 upgraded Hefu Lao Mian broke into the 25-29 yuan price band, catering people and even some consumers who know something about this track have raised such questions, how did it do it?
In terms of supply chains, Hefu Lao Mian has established a competitive barrier. In 2022, Hefu Lao Mian will build a new modern food industrial park of nearly 100,000 square meters, and its supply chain system can support the basic operation of thousands of stores in the future and the demand for cold chain distribution nationwide.
The reason why Hefu Lao Mian can take into account both scale and taste is that it has quite strict requirements for quality. In the selection of ingredients, Hefu Lao Mian strictly controls every product and every detail, from eggs to eggs, Wuchang rice, and high-quality non-GMO oil, so as to ensure that consumers have a sense of comfort and security at home for dinner. These quality details, coupled with the maturity of the supply chain, can ensure the stability of food taste in large-scale production.
Hefu Lao Mian also reduces costs and increases efficiency through digitalization, and "picks wool" from its own supply chain. Specifically, the informatization and digitalization of Hefu Lao Mian can better realize the standardization of the whole link from procurement to factory production, logistics and transportation, so as to reduce costs and improve efficiency between the production links of the supply chain, ensure that customers get a high-quality taste bud experience, and at the same time provide delicious food to consumers at a reasonable price.
It can be seen that in the impossible triangle of scale, taste and price, Hefu Lao Mian has found a solution through scale, digitalization and standardization.
Hidden popular attribute: health
In recent years, from disdain for health preservation, to attention to health preservation, and then to love health preservation, young people's health blood has awakened rapidly. Hefu Lao Mian has accumulated more than 10 years of experience in the field of health preservation, and the newly launched "Four Treasures of Health" in the 2.0 upgrade - herbal soup, coarse grain noodles, longevity dishes, and health tea are also stepping on the rhythm of the trend, which not only improves the quality of the product, but also finds the right balance between "price, deliciousness, and health". With such a quality and cost-effective advantage, there is a good chance to run out of the health department.
Obviously, the importance of popular products for a brand is self-evident, it can bring stronger brand awareness, enhance consumer stickiness, and thus enhance brand competitiveness. Just as McDonald's "Big Mac" has become a classic product of this brand, it is not only a testament to the success of a certain product, but also a demonstration of the brand's position in the global food and beverage market.
In fact, whether it is a classic or a new product, Hefu Lao Mian is not a product of the market to follow the trend, but closely follows the taste buds of consumers, and most of them have dozens or even hundreds of product iterations behind it. "Hefu's product iteration is, on the one hand, to improve the recipe based on long-term market feedback, and on the other hand, to optimize and innovate based on the cooking process and the ingredients themselves. However, unlike the launch of new products, iterating existing products will not make consumers notice them immediately, but it can continuously strengthen consumer awareness and accumulate long-term reputation. This kind of classic style is often a potential hit. Industry insiders said.
According to the report "Blue Book of China's Noodle Industry" released by Frost & Sullivan, as of September 2023, in the domestic noodle market, Hefu Lao Noodle has the largest direct sales revenue, and the growth rate of direct sales revenue and the number of directly operated stores are leading the industry. In addition, Frost & Sullivan also awarded Hefu Lao Mian the titles of "No. 1 Brand of Chinese Noodle Restaurant" and "Pioneer of Chinese Health Noodle".
Under the wave of scale expansion, Hefu Lao Mian actively promotes the layout of new health products in the global price band, and these new products are expected to become best-selling models in various price ranges, further consolidating Hefu Lao Noodles' leading position in the field of noodles. This can not only allow Hefu Lao Mian to win the first-mover advantage in China's catering involution pattern, but also open up the imagination space for the long-term development of the brand.
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