Lu cuisine is famous for "official cuisine", among them, classic Lu dishes such as braised sea cucumber with green onion, nine turns of large intestine, sweet and sour carp are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. But in fact, there is a long history and a wide variety of Shandong cuisine, and there is another side of fireworks in the world and being close to the people. A plate of home-style mushu meat and a bowl of stick noodle porridge on the dining table of ordinary Shandong people can bring people the deepest taste bond.
A few days ago, Chaoyixing, a catering company originating in Shandong, has opened two branches in Beijing one after another, and it has been more than a month. Many people are curious, how are Shandong catering companies that take the fast food route doing in Beijing?Can "affordable Lu cuisine" conquer the stomachs of Beijing consumers?Can it make sense of its grassroots logic in first-tier cities?
You have to show your housekeeping skills
At 19 o'clock in the evening of December 18th, the Chaoyi Xingxinyuan store in Fengtai District, Beijing was already brightly lit. After opening for a month, the Xinyuan store has become well-known in the surrounding area, and diners who come to eat have formed a long line in front of the buffet selection area.
Look at the menu, roasted eggplant, fish-flavored shredded pork, hot and sour soup ......It is no different from any Chaoyixing store that is located in the streets and alleys of Jinan City, focusing on "people's kitchen". Looking at the dining table, almost all the tables are diners with their heads bowed, and most of the customers have a plate of Chaoyixing's signature dish on the table.
Beijing diners rave about this newcomer to the fast-food restaurant. "Avoid the rush hour of dining", "If you come late, the meat will be sold out", "Cheap, close to home, it tastes good", "When can you open a restaurant in the north of the city" ......On a social platform, the first store of Beijing Chaoyixing, which has just been full moon, has received a lot of praise.
Since 1993, when the first fast food restaurant with rice and dried rice and meat as the main product was opened near the former Jinan South Railway Station, Chao Yixing has more than 600 stores in the province. In 2023, Chaoyixing will officially take the pace of expansion out of Shandong. Following the opening of two branches in Hengshui, Hebei Province in April, two branches in Beijing have also opened in November.
Speaking of opening a store in Beijing, Li Hongpeng, general manager of Jinan Chaoyixing Catering Beijing Branch, is very cautious. In his opinion, the competition in Beijing's fast food market is fierce, and the companies that can survive here are strong.
What is the housekeeping ability of super exciting?"First of all, taste," Li said. Consumers in the north, especially in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, have a better understanding of the history of Shandong cuisine and are easy to accept the taste of Shandong cuisine, and fast food restaurants that focus on the taste of Shandong cuisine are more likely to be recognized by consumersThen there is the raw materials, there is no difference between the Beijing branch and the Shandong branch, which are directly distributed by the Jinan production base, which can ensure the quality of the dishes**On the Beijing branch, the Beijing branch continues the consistent low price of Chao Yixing, and you can eat a full meal with meat and vegetables for more than ten yuan. Palatable and inexpensive meals should also be marketable and competitive in first-tier cities.
But some of the competition between merchants comes from invisible places. Where the market is highly competitive, consumers value not only quality, weight, but also some intangible things, such as convenience, environmental atmosphere, service quality, etc., are put on the balance of choice, which has also become the focus of Li Hongpeng's opening of a branch in Beijing in September this year
The site should be close to the community, subway entrance and other places that are more concentrated, so that consumers can eat nearby
The decoration is the latest 4The 0 version of the store image, from the store signs to the tables and chairs, and the lighting have been significantly improved compared with the original, giving people an intuitive feeling that it is cleaner and brighter;
The design of the circulation line has been adjusted, and the core products such as sub-meat have been placed in the first place at the entrance of the meal selection, so that customers can easily choose
In order to ensure the service quality of the Beijing branch, about 70% of the service staff of the two branches are all excellent employees transferred from the Shandong branch
A month has passed, and Li Hongpeng feels quite satisfied with the first answer sheet delivered by Chaoyixing's "going out". Four or five days after the opening of the Xinyuan store, the dining peak period was basically in a state of waiting, and so far it has accumulated a lot of repeat customers. However, there is still room for improvement, such as in terms of service, "the peak dining period of the Beijing branch is more concentrated, and we need to set up guides to help customers solve the problems they may encounter, achieve faster diversion, and further improve the dining experience of customers." ”
Low price, but not only low price
In Shandong's fast food market, Chaoyixing focuses on a high-quality and inexpensive one. A piece of meat is 7 yuan, a home-cooked eggplant is 4 yuan, a steamed bun is 1 yuan, plus free corn porridge, customers can spend more than ten yuan to eat a full meal with meat and vegetables, highlighting the "ultimate cost performance" pursued by Chao Yixing, and most of the top meals of the same kind in brand fast food restaurants are more than 20 yuan.
In Beijing, the true character of Chao Yixing has not changed. On the price list of Xinyuan store, most of the single products** are 3-9 yuan. Li Hongpeng said that on the basis of the consistency of most of the dishes, the Beijing store has risen slightly, such as the 7 yuan of the meat in Jinan, which has increased the price by 1 yuan in Beijing. This kind of pricing is still "playable" in Beijing, and "cheap big bowl" has become the first feeling of many Beijing consumers who patronize Chaoyixing for the first time, and some people curiously asked the clerk: "Is this the *** of your activities?".”
How to guarantee profits at a low price?
Long-term meager profits are the logic of Chaoyixing's operation, which is the case in Shandong and will not change outside the province. Song Yefei, assistant general manager of Jinan Chaoyixing Catering, said that Beijing's rent, labor, distribution and other costs will be higher than Shandong's, and profits cannot be too high, but what Chaoyixing pursues is not high profits, but to benefit consumers and maintain the long-term benign operation of the enterprise.
Ideas are important, but more important than ideas is the ability to bring ideas to life. There is an industry consensus in the catering industry, that is, the development and growth of leading enterprises does not depend on stores, but on the first. It seems that the company "goes out" to open stores in various places, but in fact, it is a strong ** chain that has achieved spillover. Chao Yixing is no exception.
Out of the transfer station of Jinan Rail Transit Line 1 and Line 2, Wangfuzhuang Station, a factory building rises from the ground, which is the fifth generation of Chaoyixing's kitchen, and an important strategic fulcrum of Chaoyixing's "going out".
At present, there are three ** kitchens in use in Chao Yi Xing, which can meet the current needs of more than 600 stores in the province, but the production capacity will be increased to 800. Song Yefei said. The rear is stable, the front dares to exert force, and the imminent commissioning of the new production base has given Chaoyixing the confidence to dare to take the first step of "going out" this year.
The fifth-generation kitchen has adopted an overall planning layout, the production line is complete, the production output, efficiency and quality will be improved, and the chain support capacity will also be enhanced, from 700-800 stores to 2,000 stores, including newly opened stores in Beijing, Hebei and other places, can receive the support of this kitchen.
The secret of super Yixing's low price can also be found here. **Centralized procurement of kitchens can enable Chaoyixing to have the advantage of "exchanging the market for **", directly facing the production area, reducing the cost of intermediate links, and further reducing costs. For example, for mushroom products, Chaoyixing has established a first-class relationship with a mushroom cooperative to obtain long-term stable and low-priced mushrooms at a relatively low level.
At a time when rationality and pragmatism have become a new trend in catering consumption, more and more consumers have begun to pay attention to cost performance and return to the essence of catering. According to the "China Catering Business Research Report 2022", a number of catering brands have taken a faster pace towards the whole country after the epidemic, and they are largely aiming at the social scene of "snacks, drinks and gatherings". To a certain extent, the "going out" of Chaoyixing's affordable fast food has also stepped into the beat of "grassroots" consumption.
But for fast food companies, do they strive to keep the best down, and they have mastered the password to stand firm in the market?
For a fast food company positioned as a "people's kitchen", it is important to be cheap, the production process is clean and hygienic, and the raw materials are reliable and reliable. In other words, if you want to truly become a "people's kitchen", you must ensure low prices and quality at the same time, which is also a test for enterprises.
Song Yefei said that Chaoyixing will send the main person in charge to lead a team to the cooperative enterprise to inspect, requiring suppliers to provide "three certificates" and product quality certificates, and consumers can clearly see these certificates and commitments on the walls of each branch. Chao Yixing also has a story of sticking money to ** merchants. After learning that its rice business cooperated with the local agricultural department and universities to improve the land, Chao Yixing quickly reached an agreement with the other party, as long as the improvement results were certified by the authoritative department, Chao Yixing subsidized the other party to improve the investment of about 20%, in order to obtain better quality rice.
Occupying the market at low prices and controlling quality and achieving expansion with a highly standardized operation model are not new tricks for fast food companies, and it can even be said to be the only way to gain a firm foothold in the fierce market competition. But a fast-food company that specializes in Shandong cuisine takes this as a foothold to go nationwide, which makes people have new expectations.
When Lu cuisine embraces traffic
"Lu cuisine + grassroots" is not the usual combination of Lu cuisine "going out".
For a long time before, Lu cuisine took the route of "official cuisine" and "palace cuisine", especially Lu cuisine that set up a store in Beijing. It is recorded in "Palace Diet" that when the capital of the Ming Dynasty was moved to Beijing, most of the chefs in the court came from Shandong, so the flavor of Shandong was popularized from the palace and the people. From the Ming and Qing dynasties to the first level, the main restaurants in Beijing are basically Shandong cuisine, and seven of the highly respected "eight buildings" are Shandong restaurants.
After the reform and opening up, all kinds of delicacies gathered in Beijing, and high-end Shandong cuisine still occupied a place, and this high-end positioning continued until after the millennium. In 2005, Jingya from Weihai opened in Beijing, and the unit price of the dishes reached 600-1000 yuan, and if it was paired with wine, it was not uncommon for a table of dishes to cost 20,000 yuan. This was still a big row of noodles for dinner in Beijing at that time. In recent years, Lu Cai, Lu Shanglu, etc., who have been selected into the Michelin guide, are the representatives of Lu cuisine that have emerged in recent years, 198 yuan of Bohai Bay prawn roasted cabbage, 498 yuan of roast duck caviar sunshine pancakes, highlighting the exquisite and elegant new Lu cuisine and the high price.
The high-end is closely related to the characteristics of Lu cuisine itself. Yang Jun, a master of Chinese Lu cuisine and vice president of Shandong Tourist Hotel Association, explained that China's eight major dishes have their own characteristics, Sichuan cuisine pays attention to the prominence of spicy flavor, Cantonese cuisine pays attention to the freshness of raw materials, and Shandong cuisine is long in banquets, pays attention to etiquette, pays attention to materials, and has rich techniques, so it usually shows people with high-end faces.
High-end is the length of Lu cuisine, but also the short of Lu cuisine - high-end means that ordinary consumers can not pat their purses willfully "planting grass", reputation is often limited to the tip of the pyramid, and the huge ordinary consumer group has no chance, in the current context, that is, the traffic is not enough.
In the Internet era, if anything does not have the blessing of traffic, it means low participation and low topicality, and even if it is excellent, it is difficult to become a phenomenon. Allowing more people to participate and become its knowers, users, evaluators, and promoters is almost the logic of all "Internet celebrities" in the Internet era. Lu Cai takes the grassroots route with a low threshold, which is actually the inevitable to accumulate traffic and expand its influence.
With mountains and seas, thousands of miles of paste, Shandong's "vegetable basket", "rice bag" and "meat case" are not false. The food industry is rich in varieties and has a developed food industry, and the operating income of the province's food industry will reach 11,852 in 2022500 million yuan, accounting for more than 10% of the country. The developed industrial chain and first-class chain provide a foundation for the incubation of high-quality and low-cost Shandong catering enterprises.
In addition to its own affordable pricing, Chaoyixing's grassroots genes have a long history. The predecessor of Chao Yixing, Zhengtai Heng Rice Shop, is a restaurant on Wei 12th Road, Jinan, which is mainly engaged in big meat and rice, and the fried tofu, fried eggs, gluten, etc., made of the meat and the soup stock, are the home-cooked food of the surrounding people. The origin of the word "meat is full of grassroots", and there is a saying that it originates from the "handle meat" - the one who is in charge of the boat is called the handlebar, and the one who drives the car is called the handlebar, and the hard work is done in a hurry, and he likes to eat large pieces of meat after work to improve his life, so the meat that the "handles" like to eat is called "the meat of the handle".
The coupling of multiple elements has made it possible for Lu cuisine to "go global".
Lu cuisine not only has scallion roasted sea cucumber, but also pork with spicy chicken, and fried buns. Yang Jun said that Shandong cuisine has a wide range of materials, rich types, elegant and vulgar appreciation, both high-end dishes and home-style tastes, to create a nationally renowned fast food brand, Shandong cuisine is also promising. Chao Yi Xing out of Shandong, so that foreign consumers only need to spend more than ten yuan to enjoy a meal of Lu cuisine home cooking, not only the popularization and promotion of Lu cuisine, but also to many Shandong fast food enterprises to set an example, "Chao Yi Xing can land in Beijing, other enterprises are also possible." ”
Popular news client Li Zhen).