Image source @ Visual China
Wen 丨 Retail Business Finance Official (ID: Retail-Finance), author 丨 Liu Hexiang
The halogen track has become hotter, and the influx of capital has added fuel to its salary.
Ziyan Baiwei chicken is about to be listed, "venture capital queen" Xu Xin shot "hungry bandits" (instant bowl bowl chicken), Tencent led the hot halogen brand "Sheng Xiang Ting", since April this year, the halogen hot pot brand "Jingpai fresh brine", the hot halogen brand "chrysanthemum blossom", "hot brine food light", "five-spice house" have been favored by capital.
Fundamentally, the brine market is particularly large, the industry concentration is low, and the consumer demand is increasing. At the same time, the industry is growing fast and the competition pattern is very obvious. Brine is also a rare category of omni-channel distribution.
According to the "2021 Halogen Products Industry Consumption Trend Report", the sales volume of halogen products has increased significantly in the past two years, and among the leisure snacks actively purchased by consumers, the consumption scale of halogen snacks accounts for a large proportion. Huang Shanghuang's 2020 annual report said that under the background of the China Food Industry Association predicting that the overall leisure food industry will reach a compound growth rate of 8% in the next 5 years, its market size of leisure halogen products is expected to reach 227.5 billion yuan in 2025.
The pandemic has brought unprecedented challenges to the retail industry. The leisure food and convenience fast food markets have ushered in such an unprecedented moment of development, and the "lazy house economy" has supported most of China's Internet consumption.
Wang Xiaohao and other halogen brands specializing in online brine have accelerated the food sharing market with the huge traffic of the e-commerce platform, and with the blessing of capital, various new brands have begun to accelerate their staking. Brands such as Zi Hi Pot, Haidilao, Liangpin Shop, Three Squirrels, and Baicao Flavor have also extended their categories to the brine series.
Source/Parity
Emerging players and cross-border players have seized the subdivision track that originally belonged to the traditional brine brand, the brine flavor is no longer calm, and the halogen "three-legged standing" pattern of the absolute duck neck, Zhou Black Duck and Huang Shanghuang no longer exists.
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01. Direct operation or franchise? Zhou Black Duck was forced to throw away the "idol baggage"
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On the evening of August 24, Zhou Black Duck released the first half of 2021 financial report, it is gratifying that under the decline of gross profit margin for five consecutive years, in the first half of 2021, Zhou Black Duck finally has some "turnaround" momentum, and they attribute the main reason for the increase in performance to the full liberalization of the franchise model.
The direct operation model was once the moat that Zhou Black Duck was proud of, and it was recognized by investors, after all, it could directly control the terminal store in terms of product quality and sales service. However, it is undeniable that the nature of heavy asset investment also leads to higher operating costs and a relatively slow expansion rate.
The most intuitive feeling is that when the tasteless duck neck entered the era of ten thousand stores (2020), the number of stores of Zhou Black Duck did not exceed 2,000. For offline brine brands, Zhou Black Duck has obviously lost in terms of revenue scale and market share.
In fact, the direct operation model and the franchise model have their own advantages and disadvantages, the key lies in whether we can make full use of our strengths and avoid our weaknesses and choose the best solution in the appropriate development period.
On the issue of direct operation or franchise, Zhou Black Duck is extremely conservative, and the "idol baggage" is extremely heavy. However, in the face of the difficulties of the development of reality, Zhou Black Duck had to tear off the human label, put down his body, and jump into the "big pit" that was once scorned.
In November 2019, when Zhou Black Duck officially opened the development franchise model for the first time, in addition to requiring franchisees to have an initial capital of more than 5 million yuan, there were also requirements for public resources and social resources owned by franchisees. Half a year later, Zhou Black Duck announced that small and medium-sized investors can also participate, and the threshold is more than 300,000 yuan of its own funds.
From the extremely strict franchise conditions, it seems that Zhou Black Duck is pushed by the times to go helplessly, and the mentality of "reluctance" to open franchise, but with the gradual reduction of franchisee funds and resource thresholds, its high-end store positioning and pricing strategies are moving towards low-end.
In the competition with traditional brine brands such as Absolute Duck Neck and Huangshanghuang, zhou black duck's profitability is relatively excellent, but it has never been able to stand the absolute advantage of the number of competitors' stores. Despite the opening of the franchise model in the past two years, the excessive franchise fee of Zhou Black Duck still deters most small and medium-sized self-employed households, perhaps it has never been able to become or unwilling to become the "close to the people" Zhou Black Duck, and the brine market at this time has also entered the era of "group competition" from the previous "three-legged standing" era.
<h2>02, "Duck King" is lonely, niche and low frequency, brand and channel aging</h2>
"Don't you think Zhou Black Duck is expensive?????? A pound of duck goods are 60 yuan!! Mom, grab the money!!!!! "Zhou Black Duck is too expensive, it is recommended to start discounting in the afternoon according to the time period; do not sell overnight brine products, so that life is healthier!"
On the online platform, whether it was 3 years ago or now, "expensive" has become the main slot point for consumers to Zhou Black Duck.
Relevant data show that from 2013 to 2018, the average unit price of the goods sold by Zhou Black Duck was 77.4 yuan / kg, while the average unit price of the tasteless food in the same period was 33.4 yuan / kg, and the unit price per kilogram of Zhou Black Duck was about 2.3 times that of the tasteless food. Judging from the disclosed financial report data, the sales price of Zhou Black Duck is indeed much higher than that of Absolute Taste.
Image source/Zhihu
The demand for cheap brine has not disappeared, but has grown rapidly, and the key point for many consumers to compare Zhou Black Duck with the absolutely delicious duck neck is precisely this, similar tastes, similar ingredients, cheaper prices, and more stores to provide purchase channels. When brands compete in different dimensions, in the absence of absolute advantage, the one with the highest overall score will win.
Some people say that the unique taste of sweet and spicy is the unique place of Zhou Black Duck. But it is an indisputable fact that some people love sweet and spicy, and some people do not like this strange taste. It can be seen that Zhou Black Duck does not please consumers at all in terms of taste.
Sweet and spicy and high price so that zhou black duck "niche low frequency" characteristics gradually appear, just think, how long have you not bought zhou black duck?
"Recreate a low-priced brand, and occupy the high-end and low-end positions of the brine taste..." Some netizens once put forward such suggestions to Zhou Black Duck, who also had transformation and attempts in brands and channels, but the reality is cruel.
Another major pain point of Zhou Black Duck is that the brand innovation is insufficient, and it has not found a direction in the wave of enterprise transformation.
"The noble among the ducks", "Hermès in the duck world", Zhou Black Duck has been maintaining a "high-end" personality in the product, but the development of new products is insufficient, and there has been no new explosive model to drive sales growth, on the other hand, star products are constantly facing challenges in the market with diversified tastes, and the traffic pool of loyal fans is limited after all. In the current market, where brine casual cooked food products are extremely abundant, Zhou Black Duck has lost its original sharp momentum.
In terms of developing channels, in recent years, Zhou Black Duck has cooperated with retail companies such as FamilyMart, 7-ELEVEn Convenience Store, Hema Fresh, Walmart and so on, but these channels originally included more competitive categories such as private brands and Internet celebrity brands, and it is not easy to get consumer attention and purchase here.
In terms of brand marketing, in the face of Wang Xiaohao and other brine brands with strong Internet thinking, Zhou Black Duck does not seem to know how to become a "social currency" for young people, and the brand slogan of "will entertain, be happier" has not made it truly happy, and the new slogan of "eating Zhou Black Duck without taste" Although the focus is pulled back to "taste" and emphasizes "taste", the word "taste" has also become a difficult point in advertising and marketing activities.
In contrast, in today's leisure brine products market, local brands such as Quzhou Duck Head and Liufu Duck, which mainly target local consumers, are eager to get a share in the brine market.
Image source/network
The emerging halogen brands are aiming at social platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin for accurate delivery, cooperation with talents for evaluation, celebrity endorsement, cross-border joint names... In the face of the hot track, diversified gameplay and mode, the "Duck King" who nibbled on the old book has not yet found new circle breaking points and growth points.
<h2>03, brine flavor instant food, catering light food</h2>
With the launch of new products such as Texas Grilled Chicken, Zi Hi Pot (Halogen Hongyun Calf, Halogen Flavor Fortune Wind Claw), Haidilao (Halogen Flavor Mao Blood Wang), Shu Dao Nan (Beef Hoof Tendon Brine Rice) and so on, the trend of brine flavor instant food is becoming more and more obvious, which is closely related to the consumption trend of "lazy house" under the normalization of the epidemic, and is also inseparable from the maturity of production technology and the upgrading of the catering industry supply chain.
Halogen flavor instant food is based on the "industrialization" of food, halogen brand on the product shelf life, packaging, distribution requirements continue to increase, especially for the supply chain, central kitchen, production process has a more extreme pursuit, how to maximize the "lock fresh" has become the core of the development of halogen products.
When the online and offline brine brands are scorching, the brine restaurant is full of wolf smoke, and the hot brine that can be dine-in makes the catering become light.
These brine restaurants focus on special snacks and develop a variety of spices, but also pay attention to the eating habits of young people, soft glutinous pig hands, chicken feet, marinade flavored dried beans, potatoes, as well as full of brine noodles, summer indispensable ice powder... Many brine brands are also cleverly combined with taverns, hot pots and other forms. There are also some hot brine brands in the mall, which also contain a variety of snacks, flour, noodles and other staple foods.
As a "canteen for workers", Sheng Xiang Ting, a light food brand focusing on hot brine, has become a representative of the brine restaurant. However, this year, a Nanchang franchise store in 315 Sheng Xiang Ting was exposed to kitchen hygiene problems. Afterwards, the founder of Sheng Xiang Ting apologized and admitted regulatory negligence, while terminating the cooperation with the franchisee.
Nowadays, favorable policies have blown the east wind to offline catering.
On August 26, according to the website of the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Finance, the People's Bank of China, the State Administration of Taxation, the Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange recently jointly issued the Notice on Supporting the Rescue and Development of Market Entities such as Offline Retail, Accommodation and Catering, and Foreign Trade (hereinafter referred to as the Notice). It is clear that innovation optimizes financing products and services. Combined with the characteristics of enterprises in offline retail, accommodation and catering industries, under the premise of real transactions and controllable risks, strengthen and innovate financing such as accounts receivable, orders, warehouse receipts, inventory pledges, etc., to alleviate the financing difficulties of enterprises.
The Notice proposes specific measures from 12 aspects, such as inclusive financial services, meeting the reasonable capital needs of enterprises, and innovating and optimizing financing products and services, to further increase targeted support for offline retail, accommodation and catering, foreign-funded foreign trade and other enterprises that are continuously affected by the epidemic (hereinafter referred to as the three types of entities), to help enterprises in related industries effectively respond to the current epidemic situation and better serve the construction of a new development pattern.
The development trend of "Halogen +" will be intuitively reflected in the new pattern of offline catering, the originally calm industry will usher in development opportunities, and the intensification of competition will also promote the rapid maturity of the halogen industry.
Image source/enterprise check
In the retail industry, traditional brands and emerging brands have different understandings of "people's yards". Traditional brine chain brands are forced by market pressure to transform, expand stores, and look for a "second growth curve". Emerging brands are also thinking about how to transform the market and more easily retain more consumers.
For Zhou Black Duck, who wants to reverse the decline, it is necessary to re-examine the business model and management methods of franchise and direct operation, conform to the times, read young people, find breakthroughs in brands and channels, avoid channel management risks, solve problems such as store iteration and short-term poor profitability, in order to become the unique one in the "halogen jianghu".
Under the big wave of sand, how to accurately understand the needs of consumers, iterative products and expand channels has become the only choice to follow the law of retail development. Whether to pay attention to food safety issues from the perspective of consumers can often determine how far a brand can go.