【Dahe Finance Cube Reporter Yang Xiao Intern Wang Yu Wen Zhu Zhe Photography】The competition in the domestic catering industry in 2024 is too "volume", from the front-end marketing to the back-end supply chain has been fully penetrated, how to break the situation? On May 15, a private meeting of the catering industry entitled "Gathering Strength and Insight into the Future" was held in Zhengzhou, where founders and executives of more than 60 well-known domestic chain restaurant companies, supply chain service providers, investment institutions and other enterprises discussed the above hot topics.
Wang Jun, CEO of Huading Cold Chain Technology, believes that the supply chain of domestic chain restaurants has entered the 3.0 development cycle. Different from the previous two cycles, catering companies need to solve the supply chain upgrade in the 3.0 cycle, better help the inventory turnover rate of terminal stores, reduce the proportion of funds, and expand the scale of operation.
The competition in the catering industry has entered the 3.0 cycle, and only by optimizing the background can we win the front office
In the post-epidemic era, the catering industry is extremely stretched in the recovery and growth and crazy involution, and the supply chain has become a key part of industrial upgrading and catering brands to enhance competitive barriers.
At the private meeting of the day, Wang Jun shared his views on the topic of "Insight into the Future, Value Discovery of Digital Cold Chain".
He said that the competition in China's catering consumer market is fierce, and it has even been involved abroad. At present, in the high-intensity competition environment of the catering market, the catering enterprises in the whole industry have been forced to extend from the hot war at the front desk to all aspects of operation. Such as business model, manpower, supply chain, etc., which was originally the most private backstage of restaurant companies, has now become a key lever to support the hot war in the brand market.
The more fierce the market competition, the stricter the cost control of restaurant companies. Every restaurant owner wants to optimize supply chain costs while the food ingredients are safely supplied. If the existing costs of the supply chain can be reduced by 1%, it can deliver 3% more marketing "ammunition" to the front-end stores.
The dream is very plump, and the reality is very skinny.
Restaurant companies buy and sell food, and choosing and delivering vegetables is by no means what they are good at. Over the past 10 years, there have indeed been a few well-known catering brands in the industry that have chosen to build their own cold chain logistics and continue to optimize their own supply chains. However, the premise is that this requires the domestic store network layout scale of the restaurant company to reach a relative magnitude, which is enough to support the self-made backstage. And this is precisely what the vast majority of small and medium-sized restaurant enterprises are difficult to achieve.
It should also be noted that after the domestic catering market "rolls up", more and more catering brands have strengthened their own fine management on the one hand, and on the other hand, they have become more and more stringent on upstream ingredient factories and suppliers. For example, from long-term orders in the past, to small-batch, high-frequency orders, and require fast delivery from the upstream; For example, catering brands are increasingly demanding the safety of food source procurement. Especially for chilled and frozen products, it is hoped that the whole link from the factory to the store will strictly meet the temperature control standards.
Bottlenecks and contradictions have emerged. The main business of upstream food enterprises or suppliers is the production of food ingredients, not logistics. When the restaurant changed the way of regular and vehicle procurement, it suddenly became a group of aunts who were shopping for vegetables, which made them really difficult to handle.
"The emergence of this phenomenon means that the development of the domestic chain catering supply chain has entered the 3.0 cycle." Wang Jun said that unlike the previous two cycles, restaurant companies need to solve the supply chain upgrade in the 3.0 cycle, better help the inventory turnover rate of terminal stores, reduce the occupied capital, and expand the scale of operation. The increasingly competitive catering industry will force restaurant companies to hand over supply chain services that they are not good at to third-party professional companies. Compared with the self-built cold chain logistics system, high-quality public cold chain logistics resources are undoubtedly the most efficient and the lowest cost.
Wang Jun said that Huading Cold Chain Technology, as a professional cold chain warehouse and distribution integrated service provider, can give solutions for upstream factory adaptation. This includes, real-time temperature control, and the use of digital means to trace the temperature of the whole chain; Direct cold chain, free choice of special or co-distribution mode; Timely, stable and efficient cold chain logistics service experience; Cost-controllable and efficient inventory turnover.
For example, Hebi Yuehui Food is the leading brand of the domestic black chicken roll track, and in the face of changes in the demand of downstream catering enterprises, it has also faced the problem of efficient cold chain delivery. After cooperating with Huading Cold Chain Technology, it first realized the temperature control traceability of the whole chain of product transportation through the platform, and greatly improved the efficient logistics performance capacity, bringing a very good cold chain logistics service experience to its downstream customers.
The catering supply chain is already a trillion-level market, and platform companies should help the whole industry make progress together
Huading Cold Chain Technology has ambitions, it hopes to use a new platform model to control the manufacturing and circulation of upstream food enterprises and the circulation of traditional commodities in the downstream, recalibrate the needs of both parties and solve the adaptation, so as to reduce costs and increase efficiency of the whole chain of the catering industry.
Wang Jun said that Huading cold chain technology reshapes the confidence of the upstream and downstream of the catering industry, which comes from the exploration and development of the past five years. Its business model has been formed, with a nationwide cloud warehouse network, a distribution network, a digital Huading cloud SaaS platform, and four major infrastructures of supply chain finance, forming a supply chain service "middle platform" covering the upstream and downstream of the catering industry.
At the forum on the same day, Huading Cold Chain Technology not only conveyed the cooperation value of "reducing costs and increasing efficiency" to domestic catering enterprises. Moreover, Wang Jun also issued an invitation to cooperate with the domestic cold chain logistics industry.
He said that the market size of the domestic catering industry chain has reached one trillion yuan, and Huading Cold Chain Technology has always maintained an open mind and is willing to work with partners to promote industrial upgrading. In the past three months, the company has expanded rapidly in China and built regional central warehouses in batches, thanks to the cooperation with the first batch of like-minded partners.
What does Huading Cold Chain Technology take to invite the princes of the same industry to "turn enemies into friends"?
Wang Jun said that this is the company's resource endowment, including the existing market size, technology, strategy and execution standards. In terms of scale, Huading cold chain has 25 branches in China, 18 provincial central warehouses, a storage area of 400,000 square meters, 2,890 trunk and branch networks, more than 2,500 customers such as frozen food factories, chain restaurants, distributors, etc., and 200,000 catering terminal stores. In terms of technology, Huading Cold Chain Technology has established a cloud warehouse network for national warehousing and a self-developed Huading cloud SaaS platform. In the next two years, the company will launch Huading's frozen product batch app to link upstream and downstream customers and establish a direct terminal distribution channel for upstream factories.
In terms of strategy and service standards, Wang Jun believes that in a short period of time, it is unrealistic for a supply chain company to open cold chain warehouses all over the country. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to unite the high-quality cold chain warehouse and distribution resources of the domestic industry, and it is important to create industry standards. Based on the above resource endowment, Huading Cold Chain Technology has started to build a domestic networked supply chain service platform to promote the deep integration of ground network (cloud warehouse network + transportation network), sky network (SaaS), and Internet of Things (frozen product batch App). In order to help domestic catering industry users to achieve a little access from a cold chain warehouse in Huading, they can enjoy the national cold chain logistics integrated services.
In Wang Jun's view, Huading cold chain technology has the strength and standards, and is willing to cooperate and share with all cold chain warehouse and distribution partners in the country, and use more, better and better social resources to provide more cost-effective services for upstream and downstream customers in the catering industry. As a platform enterprise, in addition to helping upstream factories efficiently allocate resources and empower downstream stores to efficiently expand stores across the country, it is also necessary to work with partners to promote industrial upgrading.
Editor-in-charge: Chen Yuyao | Reviewer: Chen Xiaojuan | Review: Li Zhen | Supervisor: Wan Junwei