Bo Hu nodded: healthy or unhealthy, not nutritious, capital does not care, capital only cares about whether it can make money.
After eating a lot of food, Wang Weiwei, an investor of Huaying Capital, was not impressed. A year ago, a bowl of noodles eaten downstairs in the Shanghai company gave him a new understanding of the noodles he had eaten a few years ago.
The door plaque with white characters on a black background, the decoration style of the bookstore, a bowl of 40 yuan noodles, even in the epidemic there are still endless customers, these characteristics have attracted Wang Weiwei. He has been studying new consumption upgrades, and immediately felt that this store is worth investing in.
The small noodles that Huaying Capital took the initiative to invest in are now the Internet celebrity brand of the noodle track", "Hefu Fish noodles", "from the first time I met the team, to the completion of the investment experienced eight months", Wang Weiwei felt afterwards, although the time was long, it was still worth it, and even lucky.
Because in July 2021, Hefu Fishing Noodles completed the E round of 800 million yuan financing, which was less than a year away from the D round of 450 million yuan.
So, what is the origin of the hotly popular Hefu noodles? Why is Capital so keen on the new noodle shop track?
1. A store every two days, the "study noodles" in the mall
For a long time, the public's impression of Chinese noodle restaurants is mostly a small street shop, and it is the most economical choice to walk into a noodle restaurant when hungry.
However, the Hefu noodles that came from Shanghai and spread rapidly throughout the country have subverted the traditional cognition of the public opposite the restaurant with such a unique scene as "health noodles in the study", so that the small matter of eating noodles has also become exquisite.
Founded in 2012, Hefu Lao noodles is a Chinese noodle direct chain restaurant brand, positioning in the high-end noodle restaurant, the unit price of customers is around 50 yuan, its stores are mainly opened in shopping malls in first- and second-tier cities, facing white-collar consumers working nearby, paying attention to quality and environment.
(Source: Network)
The sense of high-end atmosphere is one of the biggest differences between Wafu noodles and other noodle restaurants.
Since the opening of the first store in Shanghai in 2013, Hefu Lao noodles have successively entered the national markets of East China, North China, Central China, South China, etc., and the main store type of "Chinese Study" with the brand logo has landed in high-end shopping malls in first- and second-tier cities.
As of the end of June 2021, the number of Hefu Noodles stores nationwide exceeded 340. In May this year, the 100th store of Hefu Lao noodles in Shanghai was opened. It is reported that after the hundred stores in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, it is expected that by the end of this year, the number of stores in North China will also exceed 100. In addition, Hefu is also trying to sink second- and third-tier cities, entering Cities such as Shijiazhuang, Huizhou, Lishui, and Zibo.
According to statistics, the number of new stores added by Hefu Lao noodles in 2021 has doubled compared with 2020, which is equivalent to opening a new store in about 2 days.
Even if the expansion is accelerating, he is still full of challenges.
"We are now thinking more about how to make Hefu live longer," said Li Xuelin, founder of Hefu Noodles.
The hardest part of the restaurant industry has always been sustainability. It can be said that there are few century-old brands in the domestic local catering brands, among which there are very few century-old brands that can be compared with chain giants such as KFC and McDonald's.
In the face of this situation, Hefu Lao noodles "have a dream" and are determined to be a sustainable catering brand.
On May 1 this year, Hefu Noodles landed a sub-brand "Hefu Small Noodles Small Wine" in Shanghai 96 Square, and successively entered Fuzhou, Tianjin, Zibo and other places.
In addition, the "Fortuna Food Stall" also began testing in Shanghai Metro City and Volley SOHO.
"Hefu to Home" focuses on new retail consumption scenarios, including a number of staple foods and side dishes snack products, and has launched more than 20 retail products, including fresh boiled noodles, microwave rice, prepared dishes, etc.
Official data shows that hefu dajia star products have sold more than 10,000 orders a month on the e-commerce platform.
From "Hefu Noodles" to "Hefu Small Noodles and Small Wine", to "Fortuna Food Stalls" and "Hefu to Home", Hefu Noodles not only realize the category extension from noodles to the "meal + drink" market, but also realize the extension from a single scene to multiple scenes.
2. "Face McDonald's"?
Many investors said that in the domestic new noodle restaurant track, everyone is competing to create "Chinese noodles McDonald's" and "Chinese noodles KFC".
"Face the McDonald's, KFC", this is undoubtedly the "super dream" of The House Noodles.
However, if you want to know whether Hefu Fish noodles can be achieved in the end, you first need to understand the business models of the two.
For chain catering enterprises, direct operation and franchise are the two most common business models. The advantage of joining is that the brand side is a light asset expansion model, the franchisee funds to open a store, the brand side provides services such as supply and technical guidance, as long as the brand power is enough to achieve the purpose of rapid expansion in a short period of time, the disadvantage is that the store management is difficult, and the product control ability is weak.
In contrast, the direct operation model is conducive to improving the control ability of stores and establishing standardized product services, but the early opening of stores is high, the expansion speed of stores is slower than the franchise model, it is difficult to achieve scale effects in the short term, and it is easy to be preemptively occupied by competitors.
McDonald's is the world's largest player in the catering industry, operating nearly 40,000 restaurants in 121 countries and regions around the world, adopting a direct operation + franchise model. Here is also a small story about McDonald's, which insisted on the direct operation model when it first entered the Chinese market, and then because the pace of expansion was much lower than that of competitors, the effect of the franchise model was immediate.
Perhaps for the sake of maintaining brand value, Hefu Fish noodles all adopt a direct operation model. Although the franchise and direct operation models have their own advantages and disadvantages, if Hefu Lao noodles want to become China's McDonald's and form a huge brand scale, the franchise model is obviously more suitable than the direct operation model; on the other hand, under the epidemic situation, the asset-light model of joining is more resistant to risks than the direct operation model.
At present, the profitability of Hefu Lao noodle single store is stable, the average turnover can reach 550,000 yuan / month, the ping effect is 4800 yuan / month, and the human effect is 55,000 / month, which is a good result in the flour noodle track. However, Hefu Noodles is still a single product profit model, relying on store revenue to make a profit.
McDonald's, on the other hand, has stepped out of its own unique route, and the sources of income are more diversified, in addition to the revenue of directly operated stores, it is more profitable by real estate, and adopts the profit model of "low fixed franchise fee + low sales share ratio + operating site rent difference".
Under the franchise model, McDonald's owns the ownership of the land and buildings of these restaurants, or a long-term lease contract, and then subleases to the franchisee, McDonald's is not responsible for the day-to-day operation, only collects a certain percentage of the rent, income from the franchisee royalties and initial franchise fees. In 2017, for example, up to 55% of McDonald's main business pre-tax profit was generated by the real estate model.
Chart: McDonald's Business Model (Source: Business Model Upgrade and Sustainable Development: The McDonald's Case)
In addition, There are also differences in consumer groups and consumption scenarios between Hefu Noodles and McDonald's.
In terms of consumer groups, the average price of Hefu Noodles is 45 yuan +, aiming at white-collar workers and other insensitive people, taking the high-end catering route; the average price of McDonald's people is 30 yuan +, taking the popular route, covering all levels of groups, therefore, McDonald's consumer groups are far wider than Hefu Noodles, and the difficulty of expanding Hefu Noodles is higher than that of McDonald's.
In the consumption scene, although Hefu Fish noodles advocate the concept of slow catering and want to retain consumers, consumers have formed a potential consumer thinking, and the subconscious has equated McDonald's with leisure space, and will choose to sit idle at McDonald's, rather than choose to go to a noodle restaurant, so the retention rate is not as good as McDonald's.
It can be seen that the "super dream" of "McDonald's" is not so easy to achieve.
<h1>3. Why are investors optimistic about the noodle track? </h1>
Since "McDonald's in the noodle world" is so difficult to achieve, why is capital still so hot on the pasta track? Bohu New Consumption believes that there are two points:
1. The market capacity is large enough, there is no relatively formed chain brand
In the past, China's catering industry was mostly in the form of mom-and-pop shops, with fewer chain brands, and the rest of the TOP5 were Western food except For Haidilao.
This year, China's catering chain rate increased from 12% in 2018 to 13% in 2019, and by the end of 2020, it will continue to rise to 15%, and the scale of the catering market is expected to break through a new high of 4.6 trillion, which is "big in the pool" with capital, adding capital as a catalyst will soon form a trend.
2. The supply chain is relatively mature
In the eyes of capitalists, the once highly immature supply chain management and operation management in this industry, coupled with the low degree of standardization that is difficult to replicate, has jointly caused a market pattern of low chain rate and high elimination rate of catering stores.
However, after 2018, some leading institutions began to lay out the catering supply chain, such as Zhen Fund, Tiantu Capital, Today Capital, etc., so that China's catering supply chain began to rise continuously.
Moreover, after years of development, China's chain catering enterprises are becoming more and more mature in stores, brands and management, and have the foundation of large-scale chaining.
It can be said that whether it is Hefu Lao noodles, meeting small noodles or Lanzhou ramen Ma Jiyong, Chen Xianggui, Zhang Lala, it is the product of the large-scale development of the chain.
Based on the above two points, the capital's optimism about brands such as Hefu Fish noodles can be understood.
Meet Xiaomian was valued at 1 billion yuan after the A+ round of financing in March, and was valued at 3 billion yuan after a new round of financing in July, tripling the valuation in just 4 months; Chen Xianggui was valued at 1 billion yuan after the A round of financing, while Chen Xianggui was only born 3 years ago, and the number of stores was only more than 50; and The current valuation of Hefu Lao noodles was 10 billion, which shows the popularity of the cutting-edge noodle brand.
Industry insiders have divided the development of chain catering into three stages: 0-1 initial stage, focusing on creating good products and good models; 1-10 development stage, focusing on the use of resources to achieve rapid replication, and gradually play brand awareness; 10-100 growth period stage, focusing on capital and systematic operation.
In this regard, With its supply chain advantages and early entry, Hefu Lao noodles are currently ahead of competitors in stages 1-10, but the competition in the powder noodle track is fierce, and rising stars continue to emerge. How to seize market share, further sink the market, and seek a breakthrough point is a point that must be considered when Hefu Fishing Noodles enters the next stage.
Capital is pouring in madly, the valuation of noodle shops is rising, and who can really run out needs time to verify.
Informational messages:
1. New Eyes: Will Hefu Noodles be China's McDonald's?
2. Spirit Beast: Capital is crazy, noodles are crazy?
3. Shenzhen Tencent News: Crazy Ramen | Deep web