Outside the "Ride the Sky Road" high-altitude cycling extreme race, the contestants are eating the self-hi pot. Courtesy of the brand
Convenience food shelves in a supermarket in Beijing. Photo by Kang Pu, a reporter of this newspaper
At the commemorative exhibition of the anime game "fgo" held in Shanghai, ramen said that customized products were welcomed. Courtesy of the brand
When it comes to convenient fast food, consumers often think of the image of bagged and cup-packed instant noodles, although some of the tastes are mouth-watering, but the labels of "filling the stomach" and "not healthy enough" also linger.
However, in recent years, with the rise of the "lazy house economy", this situation has quietly changed, "I am busy, I am lazy, but I want quality" consumers have more choices: hot pot, rice, ramen, pasta, snail powder and other new categories into the track, related brands together, greatly enriching the "family tree" of convenient fast food; adding cold water can self-heat, so that the consumption of convenient fast food is less restrictive; the main healthy nutrition, comparable to the concept of restaurant-level, so that convenient fast food is no longer as simple as a full stomach.
How did the convenience fast food market fission? How can new brands grow fast and well? Our reporter will take you to explore the relevant brands.
Discover new trends –
Segment categories to seize business opportunities
Time back to 2016. At that time, the "Big Brother" instant noodle category, which was convenient for fast food, was experiencing Waterloo: sales reached 46.2 billion bales in 2013, and since then it has begun to show decline, which has dropped to about 38 billion bales that year.
At the same time, the takeaway industry has sprung up and seized some markets: as of December 2016, the scale of online takeaway users in China reached 209 million, with an annual growth rate of 83.7%.
In the face of market trends, the instant food category seems to be a hero of the twilight. How many more opportunities are there on this track?
This is the innate environment of the Japanese ramen brand "Ramen Talk".
One day in September 2016, Yao Qidi and two other co-founders came to a noodle restaurant to eat, and a bowl of flavorful ramen noodles was served in a few minutes, and the inspiration came suddenly: traditional instant noodles are not healthy enough and it is difficult to meet consumers' taste needs for Japanese ramen; making at home, facing long preparation time and inconvenient operation; ordering takeaway, taste and freshness will be affected in the delivery process. Can you "move the ramen restaurant home" and bring delicious and healthy food to consumers?
In 2017, ramen with square cartons as the outer packaging, containing semi-dry fresh noodles and 8 side dishes such as char siu meat, hemp shoots, and fungus, came out and was quickly recognized by the market; in 2018, sales exceeded 80 million yuan; in 2019, 16 million packs of products were sold; during the "Double 11" period in 2020, sales of nearly 80 million yuan were achieved, more than double that of 2019. Today, ramen is said to be the head brand of fast-food ramen.
"We chose the subdivision of ramen under the instant food category, and committed to creating a 'ramen restaurant at home', that is, we saw that there were not many brands in the domestic market before, and ramen said to fill this gap." The relevant person in charge of ramen said that the taste of consumers has changed, and instant noodles cannot meet consumers' needs for health and rich experience, which is where the opportunity for new brands and new categories lies.
The original intention of the pasta brand "Empty Carving" is similar to that of ramen.
The team's preliminary research found that fast food pasta has a high market share in foreign countries, but in China, convenient fast food is still dominated by Chinese food. Although there are also pasta brands in China, it is still necessary to buy noodles, sauces and condiments separately, "that is to say, the logic of selling pasta in China is essentially to sell noodles." Wang Yichao, co-founder of Empty Carving, said. The team therefore aimed at a new category of instant pasta and expanded its territory on the "wasteland".
A 110-gram packet of pasta noodles, a 150g bag of tomato meat sauce, and other different grams of sea salt, oil sachets, cheese and chopped parsley, all of the ingredients needed for an authentic pasta are included and do not have to be purchased separately. The theme of "You can make Michelin-grade pasta in 15 minutes at home" is to define the audience among texture-conscious urban white-collar workers and young mothers.
In 2019, as soon as it was listed, it was welcomed, and for two consecutive years, "Double 11" won the top 1 sales volume of fast food pasta, with a market share of more than 70%.
Play a good combination of punches ——
Online marketing and offline reach
Some people are moving forward on the track they have created; some people are on the existing track and breaking the game.
In 2017, the self-heating hot pot has been developed for more than two years, and there are more than 40 kinds of similar products on the market, and there are many brands such as Haidilao that operate physical stores. The latter has accumulated a number of customers for the products because of its offline business, which has a natural sales advantage.
However, zi hi pot turned out to be the first in the search volume of Tmall's self-heating category in 2020 "6·18", and "Double 11" became the first business in the fast food category with a revenue of more than 100 million, successfully staged a "curve overtaking" in brand competition.
What's the secret? In the view of Shi Fupeng, co-founder of Zi Hi Pot, "Internet celebrity products do not necessarily achieve great brands, but in the Internet era, the latter must have gone through the road of Internet celebrity." "If you want to become an Internet celebrity, you must deeply cultivate online marketing."
Relying on celebrities to promote products, create an atmosphere of "half of the entertainment circle is eating from the hi pot", so as to obtain the "original accumulation" of traffic; advertising is implanted in variety shows and film and television dramas, and shows the audience the product consumption scene to strengthen the sense of existence; by inviting kol (key opinion leaders) and up masters to share the tasting experience, the good reputation of the product can be established.
When more and more consumers regard "self-heating pot" as synonymous with "self-heating hot pot", "curve overtaking" naturally comes naturally.
However, online sales are not all. To this day, traditional instant noodles are still the main force of the "convenient fast food area" of physical supermarkets, and if you want to quickly reach consumers, you can't ignore offline sales.
Time is tight, what should I do if I want to eat quickly? "Post-90s" office worker Xiao Pan said that the easiest way to do it before was to go downstairs to a convenience store to buy instant noodles. Now, not only are there many kinds of instant noodles, but more and more new convenience fast food is also appearing on the supermarket shelves, and self-heating hot pot, various mixed noodles, red oil dough skin, etc. are also enriching her choices.
At the end of 2018, since the Hi Pot began to exert efforts on offline channels, as of now, online and offline sales have been opened to 55. Not only supermarkets, "there are more scenes of daily life that are worth digging into." Shi Fupeng said, "For example, ski resorts, fishing tackle shops, scenic spot shops, we are also laying out in these places." ”
Ramen said that at the beginning of 2020, the products were first listed in boutique supermarkets such as Hema Fresh and OLE, facing high-end consumers; in the middle of the year, a wider range of offline investment began to enter large chain supermarkets and convenience stores.
"You can't just do 'net' red brand." The relevant person in charge of Ramen said that on the one hand, everyone is a potential source of customers in direct contact with physical products; on the other hand, due to logistics restrictions, online shopping cannot be quickly received after shopping. After all, convenience fast food is that food, "if consumers want to eat our ramen on the same day, but online shopping still has to wait for three or five days, convenient fast food will lose part of its significance." ”
Competition repurchase rate——
Enhance the appearance of polishing taste
Whether it is marketing or channels, as fast-moving consumer goods, the final fight is still the repurchase rate. In the era of "beauty economy", consumers pay more and more attention to product beauty, "good looking" has become an important dimension of product competitiveness, "whether it is suitable for taking pictures" is a major factor for users to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of products, and empty carving is well versed in this way:
Look at the packaging -
The box, about 30 centimeters long, is visually divided into two parts, one half painted orange, which is printed with the words "airmeter empty engraving" in white font; half coated with white, and 5 orange horizontal stripes symbolizing pasta are flush with the left font.
This is the outer packaging of the tomato meat sauce pasta produced in the air, which is simple and clean, creating a simple beauty. In addition, there are black pepper beef fillet pasta with brown and white colors, red and white turkey pasta, yellow and white curry chicken pasta, etc., several different products put together, but also form a color gradient.
Look at the value of the face——
Open the box, open the 6 small packages in order, and simply cook and plate, it is a restaurant-like pasta, with bright colors and rich aromas, which are mouth-watering.
On social platforms such as Weibo and Xiaohongshu, some users stacked the outer boxes of empty deliberate noodles of different flavors, took photos and shared them together with the prepared pasta, and lamented that "design praise" and "excellent results can be taken without filters".
"Today, consumption and aesthetic iteration upgrades, the 'look and feel' of product packaging and cooking effect transmission is very important." Wang Yichao believes that good design promotes communication and sales, and high value can be included in the "product content" to enhance the brand memory point. "The team has been studying how to make packaging and pasta products more photogenic and stimulate consumers' desire to buy. It can be said that our products are 'pushed back' by short videos. ”
The appearance should be durable, and the product should be "able to fight". In addition to paying attention to the appearance value, convenient fast food brands can not be satisfied with being a "vase", attracting consumers also needs higher product quality, so that "color and fragrance" are complete.
Whether the hot pot is good or not, the base is the key, and the self-heating hot pot is no exception. To this end, Cai Hongliang, the founder of Zi Hi Pot, led the team to go deep into Sichuan and Chongqing, walked the streets and alleys to try hot pot, did a year of product research, and finally selected a base made by a 60-year-old chef to restore the "hemp, spicy, fresh and fragrant" of authentic Chongqing hot pot.
Nowadays, the red oil tumbles and emits hot gas with a spicy taste, which is no longer limited to hot pot restaurants, and human fireworks can also be experienced when eating self-heating hot pot.
The snail powder brand "Hao Huan Snail" also focuses on taste, and the person in charge of the brand introduced that each brine ratio is mixed by Zhang Xiaoxian, the founder of the deeply cultivated snail powder industry for many years. It is precisely because of this that the goods of the Haohuanluo online store are full of praise such as "authentic Liuzhou flavor" and "after eating so much snail powder, I still love haohuan snail".
In addition, many convenience fast food brands have worked raw material processes, and the dehydrated side dishes that were not healthy enough due to the production process in the past have now been replaced by freeze-dried technology that can maintain nutrients; the past high-oil and high-calorie noodles are now replaced by semi-dried fresh noodles with a shelf life of about 2 months.
As Shi Fupeng said, product strength is a barrier between brands. Indeed, only by deeply polishing product quality can we rely on our own strong strength to gain more consumer recognition.