Text | Professional catering network Hou Shuoli
The era of crayfish, is it over?
Recently, the well-known crayfish category of porcupine prawns announced that starting from September 1, it will be released for half a year in advance.
Its founder, Jiang Yi, said bluntly: "Due to the decadent trend of the lobster category, we predict that if we continue to operate, we may face losses." ”
Many F&B people praised this as a wise move: "Wise! When you close a store, you're doing the right thing. ”
Because the crayfish shop has been really difficult in the past two years, the peak season has disappeared, the customer flow has declined, and the revenue has been cut in half......
Many restaurants have had to close their doors:
Last year, the sales volume of crayfish-related enterprises reached 1,690, setting a new high in the past five years.
This year, among the 81 catering sub-categories, crayfish ranked third with the highest store closure rate, with a store closure rate of more than 32%.
So, what happened to this former top summer Internet celebrity category now, and how can we get out of the predicament?
With a closure rate of more than 32%, crayfish are heading to the "bottom"?
Once upon a time, crayfish, as the "top stream in summer", had infinite scenery and carried the dreams of countless entrepreneurs to get rich.
And now, the world is unpredictable, crayfish is suspected to have "fallen out of favor", and the former era of crayfish catering profiteering has also come to an end.
1. "Disappearing Peak Season":
The peak season has been shortened again and again, or even disappeared, and crayfish have disappeared from the popular list
The peak season for crayfish is being shortened and brought forward. Before 2018, lobsters could basically operate for 7 months, from May to November, and the real consumption peak was around Qixi Festival. June and July are the months known as super gold, which are basically stable profits, and gradually decline from September, and then enter the "cold winter".
In 2022, the popularity of crayfish began in March, and the peak came to May, and it fell off a cliff after May, so the store only had 3~4 months of business, shrinking by 50%.
This year, there is not even a peak season.
This can be seen from the attention heat index of crayfish. Baidu index shows that since 2019, the popularity of crayfish has begun to decline, and until 2024, the peak of the crayfish search index is only more than 4,000, which is only about 20% of the peak in 2018.
Jiang Yi, the founder of the prawn club, also told the professional catering reporter that there is almost no heat in crayfish this year. In the past, the consumption hotspots in the crayfish category would be on the hot list of various cities, but crayfish is rarely seen in the top ten lists this year.
2. "Disappearing Customers":
Abandoned by young people, many crayfish stores have halved their revenue this year
You've eaten crayfish a few times this summer, how long has it been since you've eaten crayfish.....
"Don't you remind me, I haven't eaten crayfish in almost a year";
"Although the price of crayfish has dropped, it is still very expensive to eat it in the store."
A few years ago, typing the word "crayfish" on social media platforms would definitely come out with a lot of pictures and beautiful words, but now, many people find that they don't seem to love crayfish so much.
Not only consumers, but also some offline merchants are also feeling that business is weakening and customers are decreasing.
Taking the Chengdu market as an example, Jiang Yi said: "Originally, during the peak period of each year, we had more than 50 employees, but this year, at the peak of our employees, we had more than 20 employees, and the number of employees was basically cut by more than half. "The peak period is very short, there are fewer people who eat crayfish, and the income may not be able to cover the cost if it continues to open, and this year's turnover has fallen by more than 40% compared with the past, nearly half.
The same is true in the Wuhan market. As the "handle" of the Wuhan market, Liangliang Steamed Shrimp and Fatty Shrimp Village can line up more than 300 tables every day according to the previous peak season, but now the business is not as good as last year, and there is basically no need to queue.
A store specializing in crayfish in Beijing also revealed that in recent years, business has fallen a lot from its peak. In the peak years, the daily turnover could reach 20,000 yuan, but now it can't even reach 10,000 yuan.
.......
3. "Disappearing store":
The sales volume of injection hangers hit a five-year high, and the bankruptcy rate among 81 catering categories ranked third
With the shortening of the peak season of crayfish and the disappearance of customers, the number of crayfish shops leaving the market is also increasing.
According to the data, the number of registrations of crayfish-related enterprises has gradually declined since 2019, and the number of registrations of crayfish-related enterprises in 2023 will only be 1,663, and only 3% of the new registrations in 2019 will be added. At the same time, the injection and hanging sales of crayfish-related enterprises will reach 1,690 in 2023, setting a new high in the past five years.
The data released by NCND this year also shows that among the 81 catering sub-categories, crayfish ranks third with the highest store closure rate, with a store closure rate of more than 32%.
In April this year, Changsha's Xianxia-themed crayfish restaurant "Unworldly" officially began trial operation, and by May, some netizens shared the news that "Unworldly" was suspended; The much-praised "Feiye Crayfish Restaurant" in Sanlitun in Beijing also inevitably closed down.
Jiang Yi also said that the number of crayfish specialty stores in Chengdu has decreased from thousands to less than 100 today.
Not only individual stores, but also chain brands have suffered. Taking Feifei Shrimp Village and Aqing Lobster as examples, the turnover and number of stores of these well-known chain brands have declined to varying degrees in many cities, especially in large crayfish provinces, such as Hubei and Jiangsu.
The era of crayfish is really coming to an end?
Ten years ago, crayfish jumped from a local specialty snack to a super Internet celebrity category, and was sent to the "altar" by young consumers.
Since 2019, the overall crayfish market has seen a "retreat", and many lobster restaurants have struggled or even closed their stores. So why is this so? What is the future of crayfish?
1. Under the downgrade of consumption, crayfish stores with 100+ per capita are the first to bear the brunt
Behind the crayfish is no longer popular, it also hides the pain of this generation of young people's "consumption downgrade".
Because of the current unstable market environment, everyone has deeply felt the crisis of assets and income, and has tightened their money bags. Careful budgeting has become a normalized consumption requirement, and consumers are gradually entering a "low desire" society dominated by cost performance.
Young people, who are the main consumers, have begun to "can't afford to eat" crayfish with an average price of more than 100 yuan.
In this context, it is difficult for crayfish to support a restaurant's business with a high customer list.
Although some catering crayfish restaurants want to reduce prices to survive, it is difficult to have a significant price reduction under the pressure of rent, water, electricity, labor and other costs.
2. Under the influence of the disadvantages of large single products and seasonality, losses have become the norm
As we all know, seasonality has always been a hurdle that the crayfish category cannot cross. The attributes of crayfish summer supper are the same as the dumplings of the Dragon Boat Festival and the moon cakes of the Mid-Autumn Festival, and no one eats them in the season.
Therefore, the crayfish business can only be done for half a year, and it will make a little more money in the summer. And with the shortening of the peak season, the peak season business may be less than half a year.
Even in the off-season, it is difficult to survive the whole year if you can't find a transformation product in the off-season. Because other seasons are loss-making, the average year does not make a lot of money overall.
In addition, as a seasonal ingredient, the price of crayfish will show a V-shaped trend every year, generally falling to the bottom in May and June, and then rising again in July and August. But even if the price rises, the store can't take advantage of the trend to increase the price, because crayfish is not a food that is just needed, and once the price increases, it will lose some consumers.
At the same time, although large single products are more likely to gain market recognition than "large and complete" products in terms of communication, they also have their inevitable risks. Due to the low consumption dimension and shallow experience, the lobster single product store is single and easy to copy. It's easy to overlook if once the novelty has passed.
3. The price of "99 yuan and 10 catties" is chaotic, and the "-stirring stick" disrupts the market
Under the influence of the price war, the lobster track has also ushered in a new "spoiler". Many restaurants will add crayfish as a dish, regard crayfish as a drainage product, and grab the source of customers of crayfish shops through price wars and low-price promotions, not trying to make money, just drainage.
In Beijing, for example, many restaurants launched low-cost crayfish products in April and May. For example: more than ten yuan to eat a catty, buy two catties and get one catty, 99 yuan 100, 99 yuan ten catties and other promotional activities. And this practice can only attract some customers who have no quality requirements for crayfish, and this part of the consumer just wants to take advantage of it and make it fresh.
And when this kind of crayfish is reduced to a low-cost drainage tool, crayfish are also going farther and farther on the popular track. Because there is no shortage of businesses that are "shoddy, lacking catties and two, and even hygiene is not good". As a result, the uninterrupted thunderstorm of drainage crayfish has made consumers "disappointed" in the crayfish market and disrupted the normal market order.
For some quality-oriented brand "franchise stores", it undoubtedly brings great challenges.
4. The crayfish industry is entering a period of decline, and it will go through a period of 3~5 years of precipitation
At the beginning, crayfish has changed from a niche category that no one cares about to become a "super Internet celebrity", which is favored by countless young people. And with the surging tide, the Internet celebrity halo of crayfish gradually faded and gradually fell off the altar.
Crayfish rose from 2015, created the peak moment in 2018, the avalanche in 2019, the impact of the epidemic in 2020, and now, the crayfish era seems to have "fallen silent".
Many merchants began to stop losses in time to resist the reality that crayfish are not welcome. Either change course, change the product structure, or directly change the category track; Either calm down and wait for the next category bonus cycle to come.
Jiang Yi bluntly said that in the next 3~5 years, the category of lobster will be in a downturn, and then opening a lobster shop alone means ultra-high risk. Because, no new restaurant is willing to make money for only three months, and there is no new restaurant that can rely on two or three months of profit to maintain the rent and labor for the whole year.
However, each category has a cycle, and now the crayfish has reached a period of decline, and even has reached the "bottom", even if it is bad, it will not be worse than now. Because you are at the bottom, you are always going up.
Summary of Professional Catering Network:
Consumption downgrades, seasonal barriers, endless price wars, economic cycles...... The shortening peak season, fewer and fewer customers, and frequent closures of stores are all evidence of the absence of the halo of "top supper".
It was not the last straw that crushed the camel, but the straw that kept accumulating. The transformation of crayfish's identity from "top stream" to "civilian" is not because of a certain reason, but the result of layers of pressure.
In the face of the era of rapid changes in the external environment, as a trendsetter of the times, what can be done is to be more "resistant" than anyone.
In Jiang Yi's words: "follow the trend". Since the situation is not good, we will hide, not fight against the trend, and become the survivor who is most resistant. If the situation has been bad, we can at least stay alive, and once the situation improves, we can become the lobster shop that can get back up the fastest!
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Editor-in-Chief丨Chen Qing Co-ordinator| Yang Yang Ed. | Hou Shuoli