New Weekly article
It is often said that "there is nothing that cannot be solved by a hot pot", but now, hot pot is difficult to solve even its own problems.
Last year, Banu's 5 slices of potatoes were sold for 18 yuan, which sparked heated discussions; This year, the bottom of the hot pot is often 68 yuan and 78 yuan, and it has also been on the hot search more than once - people have gradually discovered that when going out to eat, hot pot may not be a cost-effective choice. There is no shortage of consumers complaining on social media, "Two people can eat casually for three or five hundred yuan, and the amount of dishes is getting smaller and smaller", "hot pot is getting more and more expensive, and I can't afford to eat it".
The impact of "high-priced expulsion" is not easy to say at present, but the chain hot pot has a sufficient sense of crisis, and has really accelerated the pace of sinking - rather than being replaced, it is better to replace themselves.
In July this year, Haidilao's affordable sub-brand "Hi Lao Hot Pot" announced a brand upgrade, changed its name to "Xiao Hi Hot Pot" and reduced the per capita consumption from 80 yuan to about 60 yuan; Baheli beef hot pot issued a price reduction notice, saying that "the price is back to 10 years ago". Nan hot pot, Xiaolongkan, and hot pot are also rolling up prices, trying to retain customers with 8 yuan pot bottom and 9.9 yuan dishes.
Various hot pot brands have begun to reduce prices. (Photo/Picture Worm Creative)
No matter how noble the original figure is, this price war must be fought if it is not fought.
As of July 6, 2024, there were 206,000 new hot pot restaurants in China in the past year, but the net increase was only 68,000, which means that more than 130,000 hot pot restaurants have closed, according to data from Narrow Door Restaurant.
Is hot pot too expensive, or are consumers tired of eating the same hot pot? In any case, the involution of the hot pot track has reached the next level.
"Hot pot restaurants all over the street,
I don't want to eat it that much."
"Generally, when there are many people at a dinner party, I will propose to eat hot pot, because no one will refuse hot pot."
For consumers, hot pot can at least eat fresh ingredients visible to the naked eye, and the taste is inclusive, the seasoning is free, and the abundance is frugal, so it is easy to become the first choice for friends to have dinners. In 2018, the new weekly "Hot Pot China" special topic once summarized the "hot pot sociology", if you want to know what a person's character is, you can get a glimpse of it by eating hot pot.
But gradually, some people discovered: "Why do you eat hot pot instead of stir-fry when you have dinner with friends now?" Some people even expressed a feeling similar to "the world is not ancient", feeling that the popularity of hot pot that "does not require cooking skills" is the degradation of the Chinese food industry.
When dining with friends, people often choose hot pot. (Photo/"I Am Not the God of Medicine")
However, "popular" means high market acceptance, and "zero cooking" means that it is easy to standardize meals, which makes hot pot one of the hottest entrepreneurial tracks in the catering industry.
According to the "2024 Hot Pot Industry Development Report", as of the first quarter of 2024, hot pot is still the largest category in the main meal, not only with 20% of the number of stores accounting for the first place, but also in the catering industry in terms of the number and amount of group purchase orders.
The reason for this is that the hot pot only needs to prepare the ingredients and the bottom of the pot, and even the chef does not need to be invited, and the "cooking" is handed over to the customer, which is considered to be the most trouble-free business for laymen to open a restaurant.
Hot pot with a high degree of standardization has also been favored by capital, and hot money has frantically poured into the hot pot industry. In 2021, the annual investment and financing amount of China's hot pot industry reached 670 million yuan, the highest value in the history. From 2019 to 2023, the chaining rate of China's hot pot industry increased from 16.3% to 23.6%. Chain brands continue to open stores and occupy areas with large foot traffic, bringing consumers the most intuitive feeling that "everywhere is a hot pot restaurant".
All kinds of hot pot restaurants are favored by capital. (Photo/"Love is Delicious")
But when a track has the characteristics of low threshold and large traffic at the same time, it is not far from saturation.
According to the hot pot industry chain media "Hot Pot Meal", the number of newly registered stores in the hot pot industry from January to June 2024 is 28,000, and the number of cancelled stores is 34,000. Meituan's group buying data also shows that the number of hot pot outlets reached a peak in January 2024 and has declined since then.
Huang Ling, co-founder of Hou Hot Pot, told New Weekly: "Since the second half of last year, we and our peers have found that people's enthusiasm for catering consumption is not as expected, and consumers are more cautious in spending money. ”
Indeed, for some consumers, hot pot no longer seems to be the first choice for eating out. Xiaojing, a girl from Shanghai, said: "I don't like to eat hot pot so much now, because there are so many options to eat out in Shanghai, and there are always fresh food categories that are popular, and I can't eat them at all." ”
Xiaojing thinks that the per capita consumption of hot pot is around 100 yuan, which is an acceptable range. Recently, Xiaojing's friends ate Dunbanu Mao Belly Hot Pot, and the three of them spent 600 yuan, and two of them ate more than 300 yuan in the Xiangxiang Hot Pot, which is indeed not cheap.
As for the head brands such as Nan hot pot and Haidilao, although they are launching price reduction activities, it is also difficult to get rid of their image of high prices in the hearts of consumers for a while.
You can also make your own hot pot at home. (Photo/"Like You")
What's more, hot pot is always inseparable from socializing.
"One person's hot pot is called hot pot, and a group of people's hot pot is hot pot", another young consumer Nana said that she has reduced a lot of useless socialization, and it is a little embarrassing to go to the store to eat hot pot alone, so when she wants to eat hot pot, she will cook it at home, after all, it is also very convenient to buy hot pot bases, and the attribute of "zero cooking skills" is not difficult for many people.
Young people still love hot pot, but with more conditions attached.
Roll up the price or go out of business
A catering equipment recycler uses "nine deaths and one life" to describe the catering industry, "this year is more difficult than in previous years, 10 bosses and 9 losses".
He told New Weekly that in April this year, he witnessed the closure of nine hot pot restaurants in a row, and "hot pot is the category with the most closures in the catering industry." There are often people who invest hundreds of thousands of yuan to millions of yuan, and when they first open, business is booming, and then there are fewer and fewer customers, and they may not be able to hold it for half a year.
On social platforms, second-hand equipment recyclers witnessed the closure of hot pot restaurants. (Photo/Screenshot of Xiaohongshu)
Mr. Wang, born in the 90s, tried to join a hot pot brand in 2022 and invested 800,000 yuan at one time, but he was restricted by the brand everywhere in management and marketing, and the profitability was not ideal, making him feel more like "being cut leeks". In the end, he decided to stop the loss in time and reopen his own hot pot restaurant.
Mr. Wang told New Weekly: "In fact, the hot pot track was already very involved two years ago, and many restaurants have long been 'swept to death'. He observed that in the past, the average cost of hot pot restaurants in Beijing was about 150-200 yuan, but in the past two years, the overall unit price has dropped by 20%-30%.
Regardless of the size of the brand, there seem to be only two options left for hot pot restaurants: either go out of business or follow the trend and roll up the price. Mr. Wang sighed: "No one eats if you don't roll it, but even if you use low prices to attract customers, the profit is almost gone." ”
On the popular list in Guangzhou, the top hot pot restaurants spend about 80-130 yuan per person. (Photo/Dianping)
The wind of price reduction has begun to emerge in big data.
Haidilao's 2023 financial report shows that its customer unit price is 99.1 yuan, falling to the lowest level in the past five years. The main high-end hot pot is 129 yuan, 128 yuan, and 113 yuan respectively from 2021 to 2023. According to the data of Jiuqian Zhongtai, the unit price of Tan Yaxue's blood has also dropped to less than 100 yuan.
Specific to the actual actions of each family, the "9.9 yuan price war" of coffee and tea has been copied to the battlefield of hot pot on a large scale.
The 3.0 store type launched by Nan Hot Pot has 1.9 yuan for vegetarian dishes, 9.9 yuan for fresh beef, and 39.9 yuan for the bottom of the pot, and its founder publicly stated that the per capita consumption will drop to 70-80 yuan. According to the "confession announcement" posted by some stores of the hot pot, the bottom of the pot starts at 8 yuan, meat dishes start at 9.9 yuan, vegetarian dishes start at 6.6 yuan, and stewed rice is 6 yuan for all-you-can-eat. Sister Hong's hot pot has made a lot of money, taking the lead in launching a voucher of 9.9 yuan to 100 yuan.
The announcement of the confession of the hot pot. (Photo/Screenshot of Xiaohongshu)
Huang Ling said that Hou Hot Pot will also do "hook nature" activities such as "0.1 yuan to grab 100 yuan vouchers". "However, it is impossible for all brands to maintain their preferential activities for a long time, but to be launched at a specific node to play a role in drainage, otherwise everyone will not survive."
According to the analysis of the China Cuisine Association, in the first five months of this year, "the catering industry has increased revenue but not profits", due to the price war, homogeneous competition and the intensification of cost pressure.
Price reduction means compressing profit margins, and businesses have to find ways to reduce costs and increase efficiency. This year, more and more Sichuan-Chongqing hot pots have launched three-flavor pots, four-flavor pots, small dishes, etc., to ensure profits as much as possible by adjusting the product structure. Of course, in the eyes of consumers, some operations are inevitably suspected of "although the price is reduced, the weight has also become smaller".
Huang Ling also expressed concerns about the price war, "brands still have to stick to quality, make product adjustments under reasonable premises, and then adapt to the market."
Internet celebrity new hot pot,
The relay knocked the price down
Obviously, if you still want to open a hot pot restaurant now, you can only find another way. And the market is so cruel, the old stores are anxious, and the new stores are doing their best, so that foodies say "I don't know how many surprises there are".
For example, this year's very windy vegetable market hot pot took the atmosphere of the market as a selling point, coupled with a price of about 70 yuan per capita, which once dominated the screen on social media. Many young people who are indiscriminate and socially afraid are always afraid of being slaughtered when they visit the vegetable market, so it is interesting to immerse themselves in the store and experience the on-site selection and weighing of vegetables.
The hot pot in the vegetable market gives people a very cheap feeling. (Photo/Screenshot of Xiaohongshu)
But "life in the world, eat and drink", for eating, the sense of atmosphere is always just the icing on the cake. To attract customers, it's all about taste.
As we all know, to test whether a taste is popular or not, it depends on how many stores urgently change careers to follow suit. Previously, it was Zibo barbecue and Tianshui Malatang that enjoyed this treatment, and now it is the turn of Guizhou sour soup.
According to Chenzhi big data, as of the first quarter of 2024, the number of restaurants with "sour soup" in the country has increased by more than 40% year-on-year in the past year, and the number of "sour soup" dishes has increased by more than 60% year-on-year. Whether it is Haidilao, hairy belly hot pot, or Sichuan-Chongqing hot pot, they have all launched pot bottoms similar to the taste of sour soup. Jiumaojiu Group, to which the hot pot belongs, also conformed to the market this year and opened a new Guizhou sour soup hot pot chain brand "Outside the Mountain".
The bottom of the pot made of tomato fermentation and chili pepper is refreshing to satisfy the appetite, and the health buff of "Chinese medicine says to eat more sour in summer" and the cost-effective buff of dozens of yuan per capita can indeed easily capture young people.
From the perspective of merchants, selling cheaply is naturally because the cost is lower.
Red Meal Network reported that the cost of the bottom of the butter pot can reach more than 40 yuan, while the bottom of the sour soup pot is much cheaper. The price of the bottom of the pot in the sour soup hot pot restaurant can be as low as twenty or thirty yuan, and even some self-service small hot pot can hit the price to 15 yuan.
Cheaper hot pot with sour soup, more stimulating taste. (Photo/Screenshot of Xiaohongshu)
Consumers who pursue cost-effectiveness have once again become popular with one-person eating small hot pot. Enterprise survey data shows that since the beginning of this year, there have been more than 2,000 new "small hot pot" related enterprises.
In this price melee for survival, the small hot pot is rolling up the big hot pot, and the big hot pot has also opened a sub-brand to try to "reduce the dimension and attack" the small hot pot. Last year, Haidilao launched the affordable sub-brand "Hi Lao Hot Pot", which was recently renamed "Xiao Hi Hot Pot" and reduced the price. This year, Xiabu Xiabu released a new menu, and the average price of the set menu dropped by more than 10%.
Ms. Xie also regards small hot pot as her own entrepreneurial track. She told New Weekly: "The reason why I chose small hot pot is because I saw that brands such as Haidilao have started to make small hot pot, which means that the wind is blowing here." The gross profit margin of large and small hot pots is about 60%, but small hot pots can compete for consumers with lower costs, less labor, and more streamlined processes. ”
Ms. Xie said that in addition to the rent, the initial investment of a 50-square-meter small shop is only about 50,000 yuan, and if it is a large hot pot restaurant of one or two hundred square meters, the initial investment of 500,000 yuan is considered less. "Now many hot pot restaurants of one or two hundred square meters have a turnover of only three or four thousand yuan a day, and my small hot pot restaurant has a turnover of more than 3,000 yuan a day when it is in trial operation."
The Xiaohongshu topic "Little Hot Pot" has 120 million views. (Photo/Screenshot of Xiaohongshu)
However, Huang Ling believes that brands can only focus on a specific group of people, and cannot be greedy. "Big hot pot and small hot pot are not aimed at the same type of consumer group, and people who eat small hot pot pay more attention to cost performance. And when eating hot pot, people are more for relaxing and gathering with friends. ”
In her opinion, since a hot pot restaurant can become a chain brand, it means that its taste is passable, and the competition of hot pot brands will eventually fall on emotional value. "There are many options for dining with friends, and it depends on what this hot pot restaurant offers that people will want to choose it and remember it."
But what kind of emotional value should be provided by a hot pot restaurant is another question at the implementation level - for example, it is unrealistic for everyone to do Haidilao, and not every consumer eats this set.
In the final analysis, the hot pot industry has to roll up the cost performance behind it because this is the greatest common divisor of catering. Return to the essence and take a few simple and ultimate satisfactions. is the emotional value that diners want most.