In the last two weeks of 2023, the food industry was shocked by two pieces of news.
First of all, the first share of Tianwei Food, which has been walking on the road of "buying, buying, buying", rarely sells fixed assets.
On the evening of December 12, Tianwei Food announced that it intends to carry out the land and land attachments (plants), machinery and equipment and other assets located in the courtyard of No. 618, Section 3, Huangjia Avenue, Xihanggang Street, Shuangliu District, Chengdu, with a transaction amount of 24 million yuan. In this regard, the company said that the main purpose is to optimize the asset structure and revitalize the stock assets.
Secondly, on December 15, New Hope "abandoned the car to protect the handsome", 4.2 billion ** poultry industry, food deep processing business, to alleviate the pressure on the capital side.
Prior to this, on November 30, New Hope also announced a private placement fundraising plan, planning to raise 73500 million yuan for asset acquisition, pig farm upgrading and debt repayment. This is the largest private placement of the amount launched by New Hope since its listing 25 years ago.
Although this year, especially in the second half of the year, affected by the "middle class back to poverty" and shrinking consumption, both catering and food companies are hovering in the downturn, but in mid-to-late December, it is rare for two listed companies to dispose of assets successively to obtain cash flow.
At the same time, at the Wuliangye Manufacturers Sharing Conference, Zeng Congqin, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Wuliangye Group (Co., Ltd.) Company, also proposed to "make every effort to promote the improvement of channel profits, and reasonable channel profits are the primary problems that we must work hard to solve." ”
So, what is the current status of the consumer goods industry, and what can be broken through in the future?
First Food Information has gone deep into Beijing, Guangdong, Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan and Chongqing, Henan, and even Europe to understand the format of the food industry in different regions, deeply link the upstream, middle and downstream of the entire industry, and visit thousands of enterprises, covering brands, chains, factories, distributors, suppliers, service providers and terminal stores. In the process, we have identified changes in the food industry this year and next.
ThanksLiu Yong, partner of Yellow Swan, Wen Ping, chairman of Zhang Fei Beef, and Shi Jun, general manager of Sichuan Hanzi Food IndustryPeng Long, general manager of Chengdu AirMaster Logistics, Huang Yijun, chairman of Chengdu Zhongheng Printing Co., Ltd., and Shi Yanyu, a food big V, support the views of this article. (in no particular order).
In the survey, we learned that the current food and catering enterprises are struggling to survive, and the following phenomena may happen around you and me.
1. About layoffs
In order to reduce costs and increase efficiency, a food company merged two factories with more than 500 people into one, leaving only 160 people.
According to news reports, Internet companies have laid off more employees, but there are still many food companies that have made internal personnel adjustments and optimizations this year. In addition, many companies have laid off some employees in the past few years of the epidemic, and they have not hired anyone this year.
Another company, which had 130 employees before the pandemic, now has only 30 employees. Everyone has business KPIs, and the boss says "you can't mess around".
2. About channels
Recently, all offline supermarkets are reforming to survive, in the past, as long as there was a relationship to the barcode fee, it was in, and the display fee was on the resources, on the pile. Now there is a team to review the products, which product sells well, the store will take the initiative or even give resources for free to support.
Sam's Supermarket, which is popular this year, will be eliminated if a single product cannot sell 5000w in 1 year.
The customer base of the snack wholesale system is mainly low- and middle-income consumers, and the base is very large. Some low-end products have low profits but volume.
In many enterprises, the company comes forward to negotiate and hand it over to the dealer, and the dealer docks the supply and puts the risk on the dealer. For snack wholesalers, the core is that the product must be recognized by consumers and have repurchase.
For this system, in the first half of next year, low-priced products and discount snack stores are still popular, but they are actually indiscriminate and self-harming. Even if it is a customized product, it cannot completely avoid the damage to the brand, which is the behavior of killing the chicken and taking the eggs but having to get on the car.
In terms of online, Ali and JD.com are in the trough, due to the decline of traditional e-commerce caused by the M-shaped structure, and the middle class has been beaten down, and cautious consumption. The same is true for e-commerce merchants, whose GMV is generally less than half of last year's GMV.
For the brand, Pinduoduo has a fast growth rate, but it does not meet the original customer base, and the product quality must be sacrificed. And consumers who are rich themselves don't care, and they don't care about being poor.
3. About enterprise growth
An enterprise mainly engaged in OEM business, during the epidemic, because of OEM for brands such as Li Ziqi and Ma Liuji, business exploded, and the factory expanded from 3,000 square meters to 40,000 square meters. But now, Li Ziqi and Ma Liuji are adjusting, and the business of this factory has plummeted. Not only this company, but also many production-oriented enterprises are basically not saturated with production capacity.
In addition, there is also a company that does the best chain, which has lost more than 10 million this year. But there is no turning back from the bow, there are many shareholders and investment, and the boss said that he can only bite the bullet and continue to lose money next year.
There is also a company, the company's customized project net profit is only a few points, but the boss did not give up, thinking about making some money by scale.
4. About consumption grading
Global luxury sales reached a record high of €345 billion in 2022. Sales increased by approximately 19% compared to 2021.
In 2022, in China, the sales growth rate of outlets, which focuses on discount retail, will be 8%, which is much higher than the growth rate of other retail formats, such as convenience stores, supermarkets, specialty stores, etc.
Through the above two sets of data, we will find that the polarization of consumption is becoming more and more obvious.
Rather than spending money on premiums, today's consumers value value for money more and want to spend less without downgrading. Everyone's consumption has become rational.
The consumption classification is obvious, and high-end consumption is not greatly affected, but it cannot constitute the main consumer force. The main consumption lies in the middle and waist of the pyramid, and the income of this part of the consumer is low or unstable, and the lack of security has caused the decline and weakness of the consumer market.
5. Categories with large changes
Convenient fast food enters the shuffle stage. On the one hand, the rapid recovery of dine-in catering at the beginning of the year had an impact on the fast food industry, which relied on the home sceneOn the other hand, the sales performance of sub-categories in the fast food industry is differentiated, and the transformation of demand and supply has added diversity and uncertainty to category expansion, and the overall market is facing dual pressures of involution and outward expansion.
6. About some "misunderstandings".
The term quality-price ratio is not completely applicable to TOC products, consumers can not directly perceive the quality of your products, what can be directly perceived is the taste and **, and doing a good job in taste is the core of TOC snacks.
For example, First Food Information learned that there is a Sichuan enterprise that has never done brand promotion at all, relying on excellent product power to drive the brand, and has won consumers' product repurchase and the brand's initiative to come to the OEM order.
In addition, although it is a general trend for consumers to pay attention to "health" and clean labels, what is the proportion of this part of the snack track?In the case of a high proportion, this is not the core factor of the purchase decision, nor is it the focus of the survival and development of enterprises.
7. About catering
The "poor ghost**" on Douyin is very popular, which also shows the involution of catering. For example, KFC 99 yuan two pieces of **, Hey Tea 129 yuan for a cup of milk tea, 12All-you-can-eat McDonald's for 9 yuan, and even braised prawns in oil can be cut for 39 yuan and 10 catties, and a staple food is also given.
In previous years, the wave of restaurant closures appeared around the Spring Festival, but this year it came early. The second-hand equipment dealer "Brother Dog" received equipment from about 60 catering stores in August and September, and the number soared to 150 in October, with the most going to 9 in one day, and the single-day peak in November has exceeded 20.
Now there are still many operators who close their stores and sell equipment to find him every day, but he plans to put it off and need to clear the inventory in the warehouse first to make room for the wave of closures before the Spring Festival.
8. About food logistics
From the perspective of logistics, the logistics volume of the original traditional sales channels is declining, and the logistics volume of new channel sales is increasing (such as snack channels, OEM customer channels, and online content e-commerce sales channels).
The volume of single order transportation has become smaller, and customers purchase goods in small batches and multiple batches;Customers' demand for logistics service quality is increasing, especially innovative value-added services and logistics digitalization are increasing, and we hope to provide them with cost reduction ideas through innovation and professional advice.
Among the food categories with large changes in logistics demand, the catering sector has increased appropriately (the reason for the opening of the epidemic);Healthy and innovative and value-matched leisure food is increasing (consumption is downgrading), and the volume of logistics of snack foods that have always been traditional has declined.
9. Capital and investment
Why aren't there any bright food products this year?The core reason is the red and yellow light policy of capital, the restriction of food listing, and the lack of an exit mechanism for capital, which cannot ensure returns.
Without the attention of capital, the food industry will not be able to attract high-quality talent, teams and resources, and accordingly there will be no more impressive output.
According to the latest news, Mi Mazi and Jule have suspended their IPO applications.
In addition, local investment has decreased, and the large investment in real estate and infrastructure has also decreased, which is not good, and the economic recovery is slow. During this period, there will be more and more phenomena of enterprise capital chain breaking or even bankruptcy.
The pressure next year will be greater, good companies will be more and more relaxed, more level, bad companies will have a lot of closures, polarization will break out, and the spring of consumption is estimated to come in 2-3 years.
Despite the difficult circumstances, crisis and opportunity often coexist. This year and the upcoming 2024, what are the highlights and ways out of the FMCG industry?
1. Those companies that have achieved growth
The products of a snack food brand have ranked first in Walmart's meat snack sales for three consecutive years, and the channel has given resource support, divided into separate areas, and enterprises can also build their own stores in stores. This year's newly developed pickled pepper beef, spicy beef, and thin-cut products are all Wal-Mart's customized products, and their sales are good.
The same company, online Douyin, Kuaishou, Pinduoduo channels are increasing, their own team unified delivery and receipt, outsourcing teams in Zhejiang, Shanghai to do sales (online distributors), before three or four hundred orders a day, now five or six thousand orders a day.
The above-mentioned companies have also classified their products: products with relatively low profit points, the original 20-30 single products, have been reduced to 5-10 single products. At present, it is mainly to use products with high profit points and can be sold to expand products.
Another leisure company has seen a double increase in sales profits this year, with an increase of about 20-30%, which is more than in 2019 before the epidemic. Why is this business growing?
First, with the recovery of the tourism market after the opening of the epidemic, the gift giving channel is increasing, and the company has increased the cultivation of this channel.
Second, in terms of products, they used to be based on Datuo beef, but this year, the lamp shadow silk was added, and it was made into a core explosive product. At present, the proportion of sales is basically the same as that of old products. At the same time, the customer order for leisure products such as cold beef has been reduced, filling the vacancy of the original product line.
Third, online growth of 70-80%, mainly due to the growth of traditional e-commerce. However, the head anchor can still be driven, and the middle-waist anchor can't ask for profit margins and advantages.
Fourth, the growth of the offline market outside the province is relatively large, and the wholesale market and distributors (stores, convenience stores, snack discount stores, etc.) are more popular, and the core is still due to the change in product structure, and leisure products (to specialize) are more suitable for traditional markets outside the province.
An egg product company, although the growth is not as large as before, but this year there is still a double-digit growth. Even on the online market, where traffic acquisition is becoming more and more expensive, the online ** of its category is declining, and the company's online sales growth is still more than 20%.
Next year, the company's channels will expand more offline channels, penetrating into second- and third-tier cities, third- and fourth-tier cities in East China and South China. After all, these economically developed places have a greater demand for quality eggs, and the county-level cities in these places have a lot of space.
2. Those categories that have achieved growth
This year, many white-label products have gained the market with low **.
In addition, there have been breakthroughs in many categories, such as the konjac products of Yanjin Shop, which itself is a health attribute ingredient that is also suitable for current consumer demand, and the cost of konjac ingredients is low. In addition, there are also Jinzai's quail egg series products, and their growth is not bad.
In interviews with industry professionals, we also learned about some opportunities in the food industry.
1. About channels
First of all, there is still a lot to be done if offline channels can meet the demand for instant purchases. Especially in some economically developed areas of counties and markets, enterprises may wish to sink and deepen.
Some companies even said, "The 10 million that the talent brings is less than the 1 million that is sold offline."
Secondly, although it is said that online traffic is more expensive, especially the gross profit of pre-packaged food and instant food products is also decreasing, the fresh business increment of the e-commerce business segment has been good.
2. About user needs and consumption scenarios
Enterprises need to target the consumption needs and consumption scenarios of target users, and do innovation and education.
For example, in the soft-boiled egg category, because the target users are young people and quality-oriented families, because everyone is exempted from the process of boiling eggs in the morning, there is a lot of market space.
3. About quality and brand
The most important thing is that the food industry is a people's livelihood industry, as long as you have a brand and can give consumers a better cost performance, consumers will still pay. For example, the above-mentioned growth companies are completely dependent on product power.
In short, brands and quality are growing. Enterprises with no brand power and poor quality are particularly annoyed to survive. And this is also the logic and idea of enterprise development for a long time to come.