Author:He Danlin (Original)
Customers who often come to KFC for breakfast will surely find that the "foreign fast food" giant is appearing on the menu of more and more famous snacks from all over China.
One of the latest moves is that KFC has announced that it will sell hot dry noodles nationwide for a limited time during breakfast from September 27 to November 14. XiaoShidai once introduced that in January this year, KFC opened hot dry noodles in more than 100 Wuhan stores. This is the first time in more than 30 years since the fast food chain giant entered the Chinese market that it has started selling noodles. In order to sell hot dry noodles, KFC also provided chopsticks in restaurants for the first time.
In fact, since launching a project called "Good Morning Taste of the City" this year, the fast food giant has successively listed a number of new breakfast products with local characteristics in different cities.
For example, Snack Generation noted that in addition to the launch of hot dry noodles in Wuhan stores, in mid-May this year, KFC launched a small dumpling product "Zhiwei Xiaolong" in cooperation with the century-old "Zhiweiguan" in some restaurants in Hangzhou, Wenzhou and Shaoxing. Subsequently, in July, KFC launched the "Tongli Meat Swallow" in Fuzhou and Xiamen, which is jointly named with the local long-established brand. By September, "peppery soup" appeared in all KFC restaurants in Henan Province that sold breakfast.
Let's take a look at KFC's further upgraded localization strategy behind the breakfast "big change".
From "Regional" to "National"
In recent years, the fast food giant has made a change in the localization of dishes: compared with the more popular "Chinese food" such as porridge, flatbread, rice balls, bean blossoms, etc., KFC is increasingly digging deeper into China's local "regional cuisine". But it's worth noting that after launching a series of local snacks in different cities, hot dry noodles were the first regional gastronomic products to go to KFC National Restaurants.
KFC Breakfast "Tongli Meat Swallow"
This means that KFC is not satisfied with exploring the "regional" sales opportunities of regional cuisine, but also further explores the "national" scale expansion.
On the one hand, the launch of products that integrate local food culture elements in different cities will undoubtedly allow KFC to better resonate with local consumers.
Taking breakfast as an example, KFC has been nearly 20 years since it first launched Chinese breakfast in 2002. "With the continuous introduction of Chinese breakfasts such as porridge, flatbread, rice balls, and bean blossoms, the regional characteristics of breakfast have also been more obviously highlighted." For example, we found that flatbread sold better in the north and rice balls sold better in the southeast. KFC told The Eaters.
"Chinese breakfast is very regional, and each city has its own taste. So, we are now encouraging the market to do a regional strategy. The company told The Small Eater Generation today.
KFC Breakfast "Peppery Soup"
On the other hand, the fast-food giant also sees the potential to expand regional specialties to more markets.
It is reported that at the beginning of this year, KFC launched hot dry noodles in Wuhan after the response was enthusiastic, followed by listing in Jiangxi Province and Shenzhen, and also achieved wide acclaim. "Based on the market response in these three regions, we believe that hot dry noodles have the potential to be promoted nationwide." So we have already launched hot dry noodles in KFC stores nationwide on September 27. "KFC told The Eater Generation today.
In the future, KFC also plans to promote more breakfast regional food products to the whole country.
"Our strategy is relatively firm, the only thing to wait and see is which regionalized product, we need to select a regionalized product that is really suitable for the people of the whole country." In addition, these products also need to be suitable for making in the back kitchen of KFC. The company told the small food generation that in the future, it may not only be breakfast, but also these regional delicacies will enter the menu of afternoon tea, supper and other periods.
According to KFC, any regionalized menu going nationwide needs to be "verified through a series of validations." At the same time, as with the national launch of hot dry noodles, these products will most likely appear in the form of limited-time activities, but it will not be ruled out that they will enter the regular menu, and everything depends on the feedback of the market.
In fact, as Chinese consumers pay more attention to the localization of food, and social media accelerates the rapid departure of "regional cuisine" that was originally popular in a certain place, expanding the potential consumer population, the restaurant chain giants do face huge opportunities in the introduction of regional cuisine to restaurants in other cities.
According to a February 2020 report from Mintel, which was obtained by Snack Generation, based on a survey of 3,000 Internet users aged 18-49, almost all respondents wanted more domestic foreign restaurants in their cities. At the same time, respondents from first-tier cities who want to see more regional cuisine are more likely to be high-income people.
Mintel surveys show that respondents' interest in learning how local dishes are cooked and the local ingredients used suggest that localization requires not only providing consumers with local dishes, but also telling them what makes them special.
The pursuit of "authenticity"
However, it is not easy to sell breakfast products with local characteristics across the country.
Generally speaking, customers' pursuit of regional cuisine includes, first of all, "authentic taste". In order to meet this, KFC's approach is to pull its own "teammates" - choose to cooperate with centuries-old brands.
For example, Snack Generation has introduced that in order to make the traditional flavor of hot dry noodles, KFC and Wuhan's well-known brand "Dahankou" cooperate, from the selection of raw materials, production process to taste matching are quite exquisite. According to reports, among them, the raw materials of the noodles are made of authentic alkaline water surface, which ensures the taste of "smooth and strong", and then blanchs the noodles with hot water when selling, and finally mixes the noodles with sesame sauce, sprinkles with crispy diced radish and fresh green onions.
In order to launch authentic small dumpling products in Hangzhou, Wenzhou and other places, KFC has also reached a cooperation with the century-old brand "Zhiweiguan". According to the data, Zhiweiguan is known as the "Xiaolong Family", and its traditional dim sum making skills have been selected into the "Third Batch of Zhejiang Intangible Cultural Heritage List".
KFC Breakfast "ZhiWei Guan Xiao Long Bao"
But this approach also faces challenges – in the minds of many consumers, it seems that only original, artisanal, workshop-style cuisine is "classic authentic taste". When KFC and the century-old brand joined forces to launch the special local breakfast series, how to reproduce the classic taste into a standardized product that facilitates mass production?
Taking KFC's first small dumpling product "Zhiwei Xiaolong" as an example, it is understood that before the official launch of the product, KFC has undergone thousands of uninterrupted tests and set up test environments for different oven models, and finally determined the oven parameters required for the "steaming" of pasta in the traditional process to ensure that the small dumplings steamed out of the oven are "full of skin, flexible in taste, and rich in soup". In addition, KFC also adjusts the proportion of dough, filling and grams of small dumplings to make it more suitable for the oven "steaming" environment.
Secondly, customers' pursuit of regional cuisine usually includes "authentic ingredients". This means that behind the expansion of regional gastronomic products needs to be supported by a strong local supply chain.
At present, KFC has about 550 raw material suppliers in China, purchasing thousands of goods ranging from chicken, vegetables and bread to packaging boxes, equipment, building materials and so on. According to statistics, the raw materials provided by Chinese suppliers have now accounted for more than 90% of KFC's total procurement. Take chicken raw materials as an example, more than 90% of which are locally sourced.
The national listing of KFC hot dry noodles also benefits from this. As early as November 2020, the Hubei Provincial People's Government signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with Yum China Holdings Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of KFC, according to which Yum China will increase the procurement of eligible Hubei raw materials and promote the integration of "Hubei-made" products into the supply chain system.
Flipping through the history messages of netizens, "When can you dry noodles in KFC?" "KFC has the ability to make a peppery soup!" "KFC is going to turn into a Chinese restaurant?" ...... All kinds of "brain-opening" ridicule is gradually becoming a reality. From improving exotic flavors, to launching Chinese fast food, to developing new dishes with regional Chinese characteristics, KFC has always adhered to "based on China and integrated into life" and practiced "balanced nutrition and healthy life".
Snack Generation noted that at the Yum China 2021 Online Investor Day event held last Thursday, KFC General Manager Huang Jinshuo mentioned that with the continuous development of the Chinese market, KFC is committed to finding more Chinese cuisine, with its understanding of the Chinese market, KFC in the menu innovation, overcome the various complex challenges of supply chain and operation, and continue to create new local flavor menus with the majority of suppliers.
"From hot dried noodles in Wuhan, meat swallows in Fujian to dog buns in Tianjin, and peppery soup in Henan, KFC will extend the flavor of the region to more regions, time periods and categories." Huang Jinshuo said that in the future, KFC will strive to tap the food culture of more cities, introduce more products representing different urban tastes into KFC, help the development of local industries, and promote Chinese food culture.