At 10 a.m. UK time, when the international call came, Sister Li was preparing for the restaurant to open at 12 o'clock.
In January 2024, Sister Li's shop moved from the edge of the city centre to the heart of Birmingham, the UK's second-largest city. The restaurant has doubled in size, and the family-style workshop, which originally had only two tables, one large and one small, has been upgraded to a Sichuan restaurant with more than a dozen tables, covering an area of 100 square meters, and is well-known in the local area.
There are more and more foreign customers, some of whom are brought by Chinese students, and some of whom are "addicted to eating" by themselves. Sister Li's English is average, and they will directly show her the pictures of the dishes they want to eat.
On the other side, in the Yang Guofu Malatang store in Dusseldor, Germany, two foreigners pushed the door in and ordered a spicy soup base and a tomato soup base.
This overseas store, which landed in October 2023, sold nearly 600 bowls of Malatang on the first day of business.
For a long time after that, the news from the European stores always broke the cognition of Ping Junjie, general manager of Yang Guofu Group in Europe: "After the new store period, 60%-70% of the overseas stores after stable operation are foreign local customers. "In China, Malatang is usually the choice of one-person or two-person meal, but overseas people will go to Yang Guofu for dinner or even birthdays. ”
Image source network
In overseas markets, Chinese food chain brands are making frequent moves.
On April 26, Haidilao's overseas business entity, Tehai International, submitted documents to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, planning to dual-list on NASDAQ, in an attempt to help Haidilao's global development and further enhance its influence in the international market.
Two weeks ago, Yang Guofu Malatang just publicly announced that he plans to open 20 new stores in Germany, and announced that he has reached an important strategic cooperation with YGF Vermögensverwaltung GmbH in Germany.
After more than ten years of development, with the rooting and growth of individual Chinese restaurants like Sister Li, domestic chain brands seem to have seized a better opportunity to go overseas and gradually accelerate the pace of going to the markets of developed countries.
The aroma of Chinese food is finally wafting farther and farther away.
Bring the spicy hot to Europe
At the end of 2023, when Xiaoshui and her friends were shopping on the streets of Shibuya, Japan, they inadvertently saw Yang Guofu's Malatang store, and she was busy playing, she just hurriedly took a photo and left, and interestingly, in April 2024, also on a trip to Japan, Xiaoshui's friend Luna ate two meals of Haidilao in Yokohama.
Not in Chinatown, Chinatown, or in cities with a high proportion of overseas Chinese, Xiaoshui and Luna are more in an "unexpected" situation when they encounter the chain restaurant brands in their hometowns. Surprises, surprises, and cordial emotions are mixed together, which makes people suddenly realize that Chinese food going overseas is becoming more and more large-scale.
In 2005, Sister Li's husband went to the UK as a Chinese chef, and three years later, Sister Li followed in her husband's footsteps and started her overseas career in a Chinese restaurant in the UK. At that time, overseas Chinese restaurants were still following the pattern of going overseas in the last century, mainly mom-and-pop shops, and the customers were mostly Chinese.
The exploration of Chinese restaurant chain brands took place in the decade after 2010.
- In 2010, Liu Yishou hot pot went to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Happy Lemon went to Manila, Philippines;
- In 2011, CoCo milk tea went to New York, USA;
- In 2012, Haidilao entered Singapore;
- In 2016, the hot pot brand Happy Lamb went to Boston, USA;
- In 2017, Xiaolongkan and Dalongyi went to New Zealand one after another, and Yang Guofu Malatang opened its first overseas store in Canada;
- In 2018, Vietnam was chosen for the first stop of Michelle Bingcheng's voyage, and in the same year, Heytea and Nai Xue's tea were both aimed at Singapore......
The achievements of Chinese restaurant chain brands have initially begun to show in the last one or two years.
According to statistics, in the past five years, Mixue Bingcheng has more than 4,000 overseas stores, and as of December 31 last year, Haidilao's overseas business has opened 115 self-operated restaurants in 12 countries on four continents, and achieved a net profit of 25.3 million US dollars last year, turning losses into profits.
At the same time, in addition to the common hot pot, Chinese tea and other categories, there are more and more categories such as Yunhai cuisine, Taier sauerkraut fish, West Young Master, Malatang and so on.
Source: Interviewee
At the end of 2023, Yang Guofu Malatang will change his attitude towards going to sea from "relatively passive" to "active".
Ping Junjie told us that in the past, Yang Guofu Malatang's overseas expansion was more driven by franchisees, such as old franchisees who wanted to go abroad, or people with overseas catering resources who wanted to try to cooperate with Yang Guofu Malatang. In 2024, Yang Guofu Malatang will be more inclined to deploy and plan from the level of the headquarters.
A question that is difficult to bypass is why major Chinese food brands invariably choose to add overseas around 2024?
The background of the industry is that after a long three-year period, the domestic catering industry will usher in a wave of high growth at the beginning of 2023. According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to February 2023, the national catering revenue was 842.9 billion yuan, an increase of 9.2%, 5.7 percentage points higher than the growth rate of total retail sales of consumer goods.
The development momentum of the industry, which seems to be good, has attracted a large number of new players to enter the game, and the number of new domestic catering enterprises registered in 2023 will exceed 3.5 million. In the face of menacing competitors, chain brands that have not yet crossed the threshold of 10,000 stores have shouted the slogan of "impacting 10,000 stores".
The involution and reshuffle of the domestic market are inevitable - together with the 3.5 million newly registered catering enterprises, more than 1.5 million catering enterprises will be cancelled and revoked in 2023.
Comparatively speaking, the overseas Chinese food market has a broader prospect. According to Sullivan, the total revenue of overseas Chinese catering in 2021 was US$261.1 billion, accounting for only 9.9% of the international catering market, and five years later, in 2026, the market size of overseas Chinese catering is expected to double to US$409.8 billion.
In the early days, when Chinese went to Nanyang to pan for gold, one of the most common occupations they chose was "cook", but they relied too much on the traditional Chinese restaurant model of the chef to form a greater influence in the overseas market.
In March 2024, Ping Junjie went to Europe to investigate and found that at present, overseas individual Chinese restaurants are in a dilemma of "green and yellow", and the demand for Chinese food in overseas developed markets is also calling for more standardized, replicable chain Chinese food brands that do not rely too much on manpower.
In addition, China's consumer Internet itself is more developed, whether it is an online catering system, or instant delivery such as takeaway, the efficiency is very high, and it will form a certain advantage when doing catering to the sea.
Ping Junjie told the Hedgehog Commune (ID: ciweigongshe): "Yang Guofu's overseas development focus this year will be mainly Europe and the United States. ”
In Europe, Yang Guofu Malatang has prepared stores in 8 countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary and Belgium, of which 11 stores have been opened and operated, and more than 20 are in preparation.
The key to catering to the sea is to let foreigners eat
Whether Haidilao is going to go public in the United States, or Yang Guofu Malatang is going to focus on exploring the European market in the new year, they all reveal a common trend, Chinese food chain brands are going to seize the market of developed countries in Europe and the United States.
According to the first stop of catering enterprises going overseas in the past ten years, it is not difficult to find that in the early days, Southeast Asian countries represented by Singapore were more favored by brands.
A person who has long been concerned about catering going overseas told Hedgehog Commune: "Most of the first stops of Chinese food brands going overseas are in Southeast Asia, because there are a large number of local Chinese and a high affinity for Chinese food. In addition, Southeast Asia is geographically close to China, and the management radius is small, so the management cost and difficulty are lower. ”
In addition, for chain catering enterprises, before taking the first step to go overseas, the first problem that needs to be considered is actually how to ensure the procurement and processing of ingredients. Ingredients originating from a specific region largely determine the taste of the dish, so it is easy to replace it with foreign ingredients, which makes catering companies have to take transportation costs into account when going overseas.
Image source network
After 5 years or 10 years of exploration and accumulation of various brands, under the premise of building an overseas supply chain with more mature capabilities, it is also a choice with a higher rate of return to conquer the European and American markets with a higher level of economic development and stronger consumer willingness.
In Ping's view, it is natural for Chinese catering to go out of the Chinese circle and gradually integrate into the local mainstream market. "At the beginning, everyone will definitely focus on the Chinese group and market, first in Southeast Asia and then expand to the United States and Europe, all of which are gradually radiating outward from the market they are good at. At present, the number of foreign customers in our European and American markets is also increasing, such as some stores in Spain and Germany, the proportion of foreigners can reach 60% to 70%. ”
In the process of gradually expanding into a larger market, different F&B brands will have different models and paths:
- Direct sales: The headquarters is responsible for unified management, and the quality control of dishes is more guaranteed, such as Haidilao and Xiaolongkan when they first went to sea in the early days, and they adopted the direct sales model overseas.
- Franchising (joining): The headquarters gives the franchisor or franchisee the corresponding brand business qualifications, and realizes the expansion of the brand in overseas markets by attracting local businesses to join.
- Joint venture (joint venture): The headquarters first reaches a cooperation or joint venture with a local partner, and then helps the brand to expand its store and operate locally through the partner.
Among them, the easiest to adopt at present is the second type of "franchise" model, which is the common franchise system. When asked about the advantages and disadvantages of different models, an industry insider explained: "There is no absolute one model that is better. ”
The quality control of direct sales is better, but the management chain is long, the management cost is high, the overseas environment is very complex, the more the country expands, the more difficult the management of direct sales will be;
Source: Interviewee
For Yang Guofu Malatang, which adopts a franchise model, their requirements for franchisees are "catering experience, localized resources and financial strength", and they hope that the same franchisee can meet all the needs of opening stores in a certain market segment, and the last thing they want to see is "competition and chaos within franchisees".
In 2024, after the brand upgrade of Yang Guofu Malatang's domestic stores, more refined operations will be carried out. Ping Junjie told the Hedgehog Commune that the European market will make different deployments in different countries and cities for the planning of stores, and one country has one policy.
For example, in Germany, our store in Dusseldorf is 300 square meters, the store in Munich is 380 square meters, and the upcoming Cologne store is more than 400 square meters. After making a store bigger in an important city, it will form the release of brand potential energy. ”
Selling Chinese food is not just selling food
"How to explain your dishes to everyone is the most direct problem. If foreigners don't know this category and don't have a sense of actual experience, then it will be difficult to do brand expansion. An industry insider said.
Just as when we think of a dish or a restaurant, we often think of more than just the food. International students do not hesitate to spend an afternoon driving to Sister Li's shop to eat Sichuan food, and what they want to get from it is not only a delicious dinner, but also a longing for their hometown and homeland.
The close connection between food and emotion, food and culture, naturally links Chinese food to the sea with Chinese culture.
A typical example is Xiaolongkan. In the Year of the Dragon, Xiaolongkan has also deliberately added many dragon elements and peripheral products, which are the key elements that can attract overseas customers.
In terms of the export of Chinese food culture, another hot pot brand, Haidilao, is also a proper king. Not only in China, it has captured the hearts of young people with reserved items such as "Say goodbye to all your troubles" and "Subject 3", but overseas, Haidilao's "Noodle Dance" (Lao Pai Kung Fu Noodles) is also a sight to behold.
Image source network
Enter the keyword "noodle dance" on overseas social media, and after clicking on the search, a large number of short videos will appear that are shocked by the mysterious kung fu of the East, and most of the videos have 10W+ views.
In a recent interview with the 21st Century Business Herald, Zhou Zhaocheng, vice chairman of the board of directors of Haidilao, once concluded that "Chinese catering is developing from immigrant catering to brand catering overseas", which just means that cultural dissemination and localized operation have become more and more important on the road of Chinese food going overseas.
Ping Junjie has similar feelings. At present, after the qualification certification and supply chain are improved, the more urgent problem is "how to do more professional operation and marketing through the localized service team". On the one hand, it hopes to establish a more unified overseas brand system, and on the other hand, it tries to reach more local consumers with the help of local social media and overseas KOLs.
Of course, no matter when and where, the taste of the food itself will always be the core competitiveness of the catering brand. In addition to the classic soup base, Tom Yum Gong soup base, curry soup base, etc., can be launched according to the taste preferences of various countries, which can already greatly improve the richness of the menu.
Some foreign customers also exchange ideas with the restaurant about the ingredients and spices used in a particular dish or pot base, and in the process, they learn about Chinese herbs such as peppercorns, peppercorns, and cardamom for the first time. In this way, in addition to the promotion of Chinese food brand power and the added value and premium space of Chinese food, the "landing and flowering" of Chinese food brands overseas will also carry part of the responsibility of Chinese culture going overseas.
In 2024, a large number of Chinese food brands are either waiting and seeing, or have already tried to take the first step to go global.
"But this year is the year of laying the groundwork. First of all, lay a solid layout, do a good job in compliance, formulate a good strategy, and think clearly about which markets to do. Ping Junjie predicts that in the five years after 2025, there will be a wave of reshuffle in the industry, and only by laying a solid foundation at the beginning can it be done once and for all.