"With a monthly salary of 20,000 yuan, I can't afford to eat bread!”
I don't know where to start, bread, as the most common staple food in life, is getting more and more expensive.
A croissant costs 20 yuan, a whole wheat bread costs 30 yuan, a croissant costs 38 yuan, and a bagel can even be sold for ...... 58 yuan
casually walk into an Internet celebrity bakery, and the price is ridiculously expensive. The average price of the "first generation of Internet celebrity" Yuanmai Hill, which sells relatively well, is above 20 yuan, and the Internet celebrity brand Ginza Inzhichuan sells for an 800g piece of toast as high as 98 yuan.
Even small cities outside the third and fourth tiers are difficult to find bakeries under 10 yuan.
There is a dazzling array of bread in the bag shop, and even those who like to eat bread must quickly cover their pockets and shout "I can't afford it".
In the face of more and more expensive bread, do young people still have bread freedom?
Is bread so expensive now?An ordinary toast actually costs 20!”
Is there really no one to take care of the bakery now?”
I can't afford to climb the bakery now. ”
opened Xiaohongshu, and many netizens complained that bread had become "unaffordable", and each topic would get hundreds of thousands of likes.
Some time ago, the topic of "why is bread getting more and more expensive" rushed to the hot search on Weibo.
But in the beginning, bread wasn't something people couldn't afford.
Bread is a foreign food that has been introduced to China since the end of the Qing Dynasty and is popular with the Chinese people because of its fluffy and delicious taste.
At that time, the amount of bread was relatively small, and not everyone could eat it, and eating bread even became a status symbol.
With the gradual sinicization of bread, there are more and more businesses making bread in China, and bread has begun to become popular in China, and it is no longer difficult to eat bread.
Bread is used as a staple food abroad, but when I first came to China, I only ate it as a snack. With the changes of the times, people's living habits Xi constantly changing, and slowly bread has begun to have the attributes of a staple food in China.
With the characteristics of being suitable for all ages, plus it is not expensive, it occupies an important position in the breakfast industry.
But now there are fewer and fewer cheap breads.
The lowest ** is generally in supermarkets, all of which are packaged pre-made bread, generally about 10 yuan.
The second type of ** is between 20-40 yuan, which is generally distributed in various physical bakeries, and is freshly baked on the same day.
The highest level of more than 40 yuan generally appears in major Internet celebrity physical stores.
A netizen in Beijing visited the Beijing "Red Star Forward" bakery, a bread of about 150 grams is sold for as much as 16 yuan, and a pound of bread is sold for more than 50 yuan.
Ms. Zhang, from Beijing, got a 69 minus 10 coupon at the supermarket checkout, so she thought of buying a bread in the baking area next door to get a discount.
However, in the past, I found that 3 doughnuts cost 10 yuan, and a bag of croissants costs 20 yuan.
Not only in Beijing, but also in Shanghai, an Internet celebrity bread was sold for 98 yuan.
This year, Ginza, Japan's No. 2 raw toast baking brand, Ginza Inshikawa, opened its first store in Shanghai, and it was very popular as soon as it opened.
The raw toast of 98 yuan was actually fried to 300 yuan.
This Internet celebrity toast is said to have been made by Japan's 72-year-old "toast god". It is said that the "God of Toast" has increased the moisture content of the bread.
But whether the product itself can't hold up ** is another story.
According to the data on Dianping, 4% of the bread in first-tier cities is more than 20 yuan.
Some netizens said: Beijing and Shanghai are both first-tier cities in China, people's wages are high, and their spending power is also strong, so the bread ** is naturally high.
But in China.
Fourth- and fifth-tier cities are also at the same time.
In these small cities, only a quarter of bread is less than 10 yuan, in the consumption of bread.
The experience in fourth- and fifth-tier cities is similar to that in first-tier cities.
As a staple food of daily food, consumers need the best of daily food that can be consumed.
When the ** exceeds a certain range, it will discourage consumers.
The bread premium is getting worse, but why is it so expensive?
In fact, the ** rise of bread began many years ago. This is related to the consumption upgrade in previous years, as people's consumption level is getting higher and higher, ordinary bread types can no longer meet people's requirements.
Bread lovers want to eat better tasting and more refined bread.
In order to meet consumer demand for tastier, richer raw materials and more refined appearance of bread, bakers are constantly innovating.
Some have added more fillings to the bread, and in the past, they were mainly based on red bean paste and raisins, but now they can be filled with meat and fruits.
Some merchants also roll up the shape of the bread, striving to be more beautiful and delicate, and stimulate consumers' desire to buy.
There is even a more detailed classification now, and a single variety is processed in more detail.
For example, a toast specialty store specializing in toast, in addition to the previous red bean toast, raisin toast, etc., will also launch butter toast, almond toast, cheese toast and even crayfish toast.
Because the category is single, it will need to be more refined and differentiated in a single category. These innovative factors have correspondingly increased the cost of bread.
On the other hand, the increase in raw materials is also a key factor.
Butter, for example, is twice as high as it was two years ago. Some data show that sugar is also in the market, and the current spot price of sugar has reached 7,600 yuan, an increase of 40 yuan year-on-year.
Some bakeries also place special emphasis on the production of "imported raw materials". For example, the bread is made of French T55 flour, and the toast is made of Japanese camellia flour.
In order to show customers that their bread is made of good and sufficient ingredients, the merchant will also specially explain and mark the raw materials of the bread to reflect the reasonableness of the bread.
Coupled with people's pursuit of bread freshness, it increases the cost of bread.
More brands are choosing to work marketing.
In order to win a place in the fierce competition, major businesses have used self-marketing to invite major Internet celebrities to plant grass, and the notes such as "eating strategy" and "queuing strategy" can reach millions.
The brand also holds regular events**, such as bread tastings, bread-making competitions, etc.
Some Internet celebrity stores are positioned as light luxury, and even detached from the essence of bread for eating.
They play the gimmick of "health and nutrition", claiming that it can "reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and boost metabolism".
These breads with the gimmick of "health" are twice as expensive as ordinary ones, but this "health" of merchants is purely an IQ tax, and whole wheat bread is not healthier than ordinary bread.
Some foreign online celebrity bakeries are not particularly popular in their local area, and after coming to China, they are sought after by Chinese people because of their marketing momentum.
At the "New York Bagel Museum" in Xintiandi, Shanghai, bread lovers usually have to queue for more than two hours to buy bagels.
There are also South Korean B&C brands, which are also sought after in China.
Bread is expensive, is the bakery's business easy to do?Not.
In recent years, the ** of bread has risen again and again, but the bread business is not so good.
According to a survey of the bakery industry on Meituan, 80,000 bakeries closed in a year.
At present, there are two forms of bakery, one is to join a chain store, and the other is a self-operated community store.
Although chain stores have certain advantages in many aspects, their upfront investment is very large.
Franchise fees, technical training fees, equipment costs, operating costs, as well as store decoration fees, venue rental fees, etc., these large and small expenses add up to hundreds of thousands.
At the same time, the labor cost of the bakery is also relatively high, and the production of bread requires professional and technical professionals, which requires more money than ordinary personnel.
These huge upfront costs also result in a longer payback period for bakeries and a harder time to survive.
Another way is to run your own community bread workshop. This kind of store has less upfront investment than a chain store. However, bakeries are less innovative and have a worse competitive advantage over chains.
This requires bakers in bakeries to go out for regular Xi training, which also increases operating costs.
After all, it is not easy to open a bakery that can make money.
According to some data, the average survival rate of bakeries in China is only 189 months.
In the first half of 2023, 77 new stores opened in Shanghai, while 100 old stores closed. And those Internet celebrity stores that sell bread can't last long, and there are still a few that can survive.
Shanghai's influencer brand "dikka" opened in February this year, and it also caused a queue boom in the early days of its opening, but in less than five months, the influencer store was cold;
In May this year, Len Tre, known as the "ceiling of the French sweet world", also closed its store in the MixC in Shenzhen.
There is a premium for many breads**, but the premium products that consumers are willing to buy are generally scarce products. A product with a low technical barrier, such as bread making, will not become a scarce commodity.
The world has been suffering from "bread assassins" for a long time, and some people have found their own way to create a "2 yuan bakery".
Whether it's raisins, bean paste or nuts, freshly baked bread is 2 yuan. Many people buy six or seven at a time, and most of the consumers are students and community residents.
It's really bread that sells for the price of steamed buns.
Today, there are more than 30 "2 yuan bakeries" on the streets of Jinan, and in Chongqing, Hebei, Anhui and other places, "2 yuan bakeries" are also quickly out of the circle.
A bakery called "Su Yu 2 Yuan Bakery" has opened more than 500 branches across the country in just 2 months.
What does 2 yuan bread make money on?The shopkeeper said that small profits are quick turnover.
But at present, the "2 yuan bakery" mostly relies on opening franchise stores and selling baking technology to make money. It is difficult to say whether such a model can last for a long time.
In today's environment of consumption downgrade, when consumers return to rationality, it may be difficult to have a large market for high-premium bread.
Nowadays, the situation of the bread industry presents the status quo of "heavy imitation, inflated, and excessive marketing", and there is still a great distance from making products "popular".
Taking coffee as an example, it is also a foreign product, and merchants first start with the Xi of Chinese residents who like to drink tea, and launch milk tea brands. I have the Xi of drinking milk tea, and then gradually transition to the Xi of drinking coffee. Then use the localization of coffee raw materials to realize the downgrading of coffee ** and make coffee popular in China.
Nowadays 99 cups of Luckin Coffee have almost swept their peers to death.
The bread industry also needs to reduce costs, reduce the quality of bread, and make bread localized and popular, so as to form a healthy and sustainable bread market.
On the other hand, consumers' tastes are not specific, and increasing innovation in the shape and taste of bread is a great tool to attract traffic.
In general, only by actively promoting the "popularization" and innovation of bread and bringing affordable and delicious bread to consumers can the bread market develop more sustainably and steadily.
After all, bread is meant to be eaten, not to be seen.
For us ordinary people, bread that can be eaten is good bread.