Recently listed on the New York Stock Exchange, "DayDayCook" has acquired another overseas brand. On December 26, DayDayCook announced a partnership with the American Thai food brand YAI'SDHAI has entered into an agreement to acquire the company, which is the company's second acquisition in the U.S. market.
yai's thai***yai's thai
DayDayCook originated in the gastronomic community that "taught you to cook". Norma Chu from Hong Kong founded the food community DayCook in 2012, and has gradually become a food self-leader with traffic on platforms including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Youku, Tencent, and Xiaohongshu. The company then tried the content e-commerce and online store inspection model one after another, and then launched its own brandNow it has become a new economy consumer company that integrates content, products, brands, and channels. Unlike other entrants in the prefabricated food industry, most of whom are from the food manufacturing industry, DayDayCook is a brand that has transformed from a content platform to make prefabricated dishes. And this company has also realized the traffic monetization from food and found a business model that is in line with the current trend. Seize the tuyere of prefabricated dishes, and with the help of the domestic first-class chain advantages, DayDayCook expands the overseas market to achieve dislocation competition. Even if it is on the wind, there is no shortage of competitors from all parties in the prefabricated food track. How does the company grasp consumer trends, develop products that meet the needs of market segments, and how does it respond to the challenges of different cultural markets?DayDayCook's founder, Norma Chu, Jiaying Zhu, gave FBIF a detailed analysis of its transformation opportunities, insights and strategies.
The founder of DayDayCook, Norma Chu, Zhu Jiaying***DayDayCook.
From the food community to making your own brand, step on the prefabricationVegetable outlets
Just like when social networking was on the rise, countless bloggers started businesses by creating content, and Zhu Jiaying also earned the first pot of gold through food. In 2012, she uploaded her first homemade delicacies on DayDayCook**, focusing on recipe exchange and teaching;Subsequently, accounts on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram platforms were opened one after another, and the first batch of traffic was accumulated. In 2015, DayDayCook officially entered the Chinese mainland market, and simultaneously launched content on Youku, Tencent**, Sina Weibo, Xiaohongshu, WeChat and other platforms, becoming a well-known KOL in the field of food.
Screenshot of the webpage of DayDayCook***.
On the path of exploring the commercialization of content communities, DayDayCook has successively tried various models such as advertising, content e-commerce, and knowledge payment. In 2017, DayDayCook opened its first offline food experience hall in mainland China at K11 in Shanghai, and later expanded to Guangzhou and Wuhan, providing food and beverage education and selling products such as kitchenware, tableware and semi-finished food kits. After going through the stage of starting online communities and combining content e-commerce with online ** store inspections, DayDayCook launched its own brand business in 2019 - convenient fast food. The reason for creating a private label is that the model of "bringing goods" to other brands lacks pricing power, and the ready-to-eat products are highly relevant to the previous food content and the audience is also matchedIn addition, in terms of product research and development, the food community has accumulated user interaction data, which has an advantage in gaining insight into consumer demand. "I didn't deliberately pursue the outlet, but just conformed to the market demand to do the right thing and do the right thing, and I just caught the outlet. Referring to why she has transformed into pre-made dishes, Zhu Jiaying believes that since the epidemic, not only young people, but also modern consumers are still cooking at home, and their demand for diversified and convenient products still needs to be met. In fact, among the top 10 global food and beverage trends in 2024 released by Innova Market Insights, the globalization of local cuisine and home cooking are still important consumer trends. [1] This is also in line with DayDayCook's practice of promoting traditional Asian cuisine overseas and introducing a rich and diverse range of pre-made dishes. According to its prospectus, as of March 31, 2023, DayDayCook's main products include self-heating convenient fast food, fast cooking and trendy health series, and the consumption scenarios cover office, travel and home self-cooking.
Cook seafood rice every day*** Cook every dayIn terms of brand strategy, day by dayCook to insistEstablish a multi-brand matrix. For the company, by operating multiple brands, it can further diversify the business risk of a single brand, and further broaden the sales channel and expand the consumer group. The three major brands of DayDayCook in Chinese mainland are "DayDayCook", "Fisherman" and "Mengwei". As the flagship brand, DayDayCook has developed more than 100 SKUs, and Yujiaweng focuses on flavored aquatic products such as scallops and deep-sea fish, as well as ready-to-eat flavored surimi snacksMengwei focuses on self-heating and fast food such as self-heating hot pot, self-heating rice and fast food rice.
DayDayCook's brand***DayDayCook.
Domestic ** chainPlus overseaschannels, to achieve dislocation competition
Zhu Jiaying also admits that in today's Chinese market, prefabricated dishes are quite a "roll" competitive field. However, the mature food industry system has created an efficient, developed and cost-effective chain, making it relatively easy to incubate a new brand. So Zhu Jiaying found an opportunity to compete differentlyThat is, make full use of the developed ** chain in Chinese mainland to manufacture attractive products, and then put products overseas through international brand capabilities to obtain greater market space. In July 2022, DayDayCook launched a shopping platform for Asian goods in North America, Yamibuycom, enter the U.S. market. Selling products is the first step, and if you want to achieve sustainable growth and channel expansion overseas, and enhance the brand impression of DayDayCook overseas consumers, the core strategy is acquisition. In addition to the Thai food brand yai mentioned above'In addition to S Thai, its prospectus shows that DayDayCook completed four acquisitions in 2022, and in 2023, it acquired "Nona Lim", an Asian food brand based in San Francisco, USA - which is also the company's first acquisition in the United States.
nona lim***nona lim
In Zhu Jiaying's view,The acquisition of overseas brands can effectively complement each other's advantages。For example, Nona Lim focuses on Southeast Asian noodle products, and only made frozen collections before being acquired, so the channel is limited to offline, focusing on major retailers such as Whole Foods Market, Target and Kroger.
After the acquisition, DayDayCook used the advantages of the domestic ** chain to launch room temperature products that meet the US food safety standards and meet the needs of "clean label" for the brand within 4 months.
"This is a perfect case that combines our consumer insights, the advantages of the ** chain and overseas channels. Zhu Jiaying said. It is not difficult to see that the brands acquired by DayDayCook are mainly concentrated in the Asian-style ready-to-eat category. "Chinese, Indian, Thai, Korean are all popular in the U.S., and one of the opportunities to introduce these Asian-inspired pre-made dishes is the complexity of the home kitchen to create these authentic flavors. Zhu Jiaying said that this is also a key factor in DayDayCook's focus on Asian food categories.
The M&A strategy will continue to be a growth path for the next step. Zhu Jiaying revealed that when judging whether a brand is worth investing in,Factors to consider include the founder's positioning of the brand;Reflections on product development, such as a clean ingredient list;and performance growth, profit margins, and so on.
For DayDayCook after listing, there are three clear goals for future development: one is to actively implement the multi-brand strategy, the second is to continue to expand overseas markets, and the third is to control costs and expand profits. In the increasingly competitive prefabricated food industry, there are still challenges in how to carry out R&D and innovation at a lower cost, improve logistics efficiency, coordinate sales channels, and grasp trends in the ever-changing market.
Article**: FBIF Food & Beverage Innovation.