Text |Professional catering network Li Yang.
The tide of catering is surging, and the bottom line is innovative.
Coming from the post-epidemic era, the catering industry has achieved a strong recovery in the past year:
The 2023 Annual Report on China's Catering Industry shows that in 2022, the total national catering revenue will be 439 trillion yuan, down 63%；Catering income of units above designated size107 trillion yuan, down 5 percent year-on-year9%。Affected by the epidemic, catering revenue will continue to decline in 2022, and the revenue situation will be more severe than that of the previous two years. Entering 2023, with the economic recovery and the continuous innovation of the catering industry, China's catering industry will show a strong recovery trend.
At the same time, under the dual role of innovation and competition, the industry is undergoing drastic changes:
The head brands are staking their ground, the big-name restaurants are actively sinking, the cost-effective brands have become commonal, and the regional dark horses are emerging in the field. In addition, the life cycle of catering has been further compressed, the difficulty of starting a business has increased, and customer needs have become more pragmatic and focused.
Grasp the pulse and look up at the road, where will the catering tide flock in 2024, and what industry consensus is worth thinking about?
Review:
Over the past year, the F&B industry has undergone these changes ......
An intuitive feeling is that after the end of the epidemic, catering consumption in various places has recovered, the entire catering industry has risen again, and many external entrepreneurs have poured in at the beginning of the year, and major brands in the industry are also gearing up to build up a new pattern of catering:
1. The chain is deep "V" advanced, and the evolution of the head brand is accelerated
According to data from the Meituan platform, compared with the year-on-year increase in brand stores of different sizes in 2021, the number of restaurant chain stores in the 5,000-10,000 scale range grew the fastest, with an increase of 45%, followed by the scale range of 3-10 stores and the scale range of 11-100 stores, with a year-on-year increase of 40% and 15% respectively, and emerging brands are still entering the market in batches. However, the growth rate of a large number of waist and neck stores is in a state of negative growth.
The F&B industry has actually entered the stage of brand harvesting. After three years of the epidemic, the industry has accelerated the survival of the fittest, and we found the common problems behind the brand decline: first, the homogenization of products is serious, and many brands cannibalize the track;Second, there are too many single stores in the same area, and they do not go out in time;Third, there is no stable first-class chain and standardized store management system, and the comprehensive operation efficiency is low.
Excellent leading brands rely on clear financial models, stable ** chains, clear product positioning, efficient operation systems and other links to escort the continuous growth of brands.
2. Extreme cost performance, and the mainstream supply of catering at low prices is in charge
The most conspicuous keyword in 2023 must be low-price competition.
From coffee wars to tea wars, from fast food box lunches to hot pot barbecues, the same fight, the same low price, but some people are cleared and some thousands of stores are growing.
The essential difference is who keeps the product quality on the basis of low-price supply, and even continues to expand the sense of quality, so that consumers can continue to feel the quality of consumption, and let consumers crown themselves with higher requirements such as "quality-price ratio" and "sentiment-price ratio".
In fact,The ultimate cost performance has become a weapon for many catering companies to break through.
At a time when consumers are pursuing cost-effectiveness, a number of catering companies focusing on parity positioning have risen rapidly, including Luckin Coffee, Mixue Bingcheng, Saizeriya, etc., which have achieved revenue growth and continuously expanded their chain layout network.
3. The capillaries are sinking, and the county catering has become the main line of competition
The sinking of catering has entered the "deep water" area, and the major brands have formed a mighty sinking army this year, which is breaking through the original market level, replacing the former "replacement", and weakening the original urban-rural differences with real bodies.
The original county catering opened stores in the towns and villages that the big-name restaurants were reluctant to patronize earlier, taking advantage of the advantages of low cost, small capacity, low consumption, high repurchase and stable customer source in the "sinking market", on the one hand, it continued to accumulate funds, expand the scale of stores, cultivate talents and talent replication capabilities;On the other hand, we will continue to optimize and build the best chain, and the first chain is a strong support for the brand to expand its territory.
Meituan catering data shows thatIn 2022, the number of catering outlets in county-level cities will increase by 5% compared with 202157%。
The spatial "arbitrage" around the county, that is, the popular style in the first-tier cities is reduced to the county area, which may reap obvious dividends.
4. Digital management is deep in water, 30 chain digital intelligence came into being
With the development of the industry, we found that chain restaurants have also been upgraded to 30 digital intelligence era: from the earliest 90s Shaxian snacks, Lanzhou beef noodles, only the door logo this form of imitation;And then to 20 era, relying on the ** chain to start the rapid expansion of stores;Until now 30 "fine connection and strong lock", that is, relying on the SaaS system for digital intelligence online management mode.
During the epidemic period, chain brands continued to practice internal skills, pay attention to consumer tastes, craft products, pay attention to standardization, strengthen the construction of the first chain, and pursue refined store management, so that the brand operation structure was upgraded, creating 30 chain digital intelligence broke out in an all-round way.
Breaking the game:
Brand pursuit and refined operation have become the basic plate of restaurant enterprises
In the process of changing catering trends, catering companies are also well aware that the competition is becoming more and more fierce, and the disorderly stage of savage growth has long passed.
1. Extreme optimization of the single-store efficiency model
It used to be 300 square meters to make a turnover of 1 million, but now can it be used to use 200 square meters to achieve 1 million?"Can we use 5 people to achieve the performance of 10 people?”
Building a super store with extreme efficiency has become one of the core tasks of current catering brands.
As the leading king of community catering efficiency, Nancheng Xiang has worked hard to optimize the efficiency of its stores
For example, in order to ensure that the meal is served within 10 minutes, the team must find a way to take into account the taste and speed, so they resolutely cannot make stir-fried dishes, and the original large pot of boiled wontons has also become a faster small pot to cook.
The circulation in the kitchen is designed.
The kitchen of Nancheng incense is generally long strip-shaped, with a width of 27 meters, in the middle is the chef's passage, the equipment is placed on both sides of the passage, and in front is the transparent glass facing the customer.
It may not sound like a good thing, but the team has proven that the design allows the kitchen operator to move around less. At present, the chef of Nancheng Xiang is in charge of 8 stoves by himself, and the cooking speed is 6 minutes, and the human efficiency is extremely high.
2. Explore business boundaries and take the initiative to explore more business combinations
KFC opened a bubble tea shop, Lao Xiang Chicken opened a tavern, Chayan Yuese opened a café, Mixue Bingcheng sold fried skewers, and Hema Xiansheng opened a night market ......The era of borderless catering has officially arrived.
In addition, the restaurant company itself has gradually moved from the one-yuan era to diversification, and 10 years ago, our restaurants could survive well as long as they did dine-inSeven years ago, the takeaway economy rose, and dine-in + takeaway became a dual channel for catering revenueThree years ago, some catering companies began to try to do new retail;In the past two years, pre-made dishes have suddenly gone viral ......
KFC, Haidilao, Meizhou Dongpo, Dalongyi ......More and more catering companies are beginning to move from one yuan to diversification.
The epidemic has catalyzed the arrival of the era of compound catering enterprises, and enterprises need to expand their consumption scenarios and walk on multiple legs to allow them to survive in the era of thin profits.
3. Do "subtraction", and the small store model takes small steps and walks quickly
In the optimization of the brand's multi-store and multi-channel development form, more and more small and refined stores are becoming a common answer.
According to data, 20-500,000 is still the most attractive initial investment range for a single store for franchise investors. At the same time, the average investment amount of franchised catering brands is moving downward, and the type of small stores with a single store investment of 10-200,000 yuan is **47 compared with the same period in 20216%, the growth rate is the most significant.
In the eyes of many industry insiders, the small store model has three obvious advantages:
The first is to improve the coverage and adaptability of stores, and have more opportunities for location selection of channels and scenariosSecond, the product efficiency can be improved after streamlining;Third, it can improve human efficiency and achieve efficient operation through digital means, brand user stickiness enhancement, service improvement, etc. To do the "subtraction" small store model, you can also use the advantages of the first chain, product research and development, and production process to achieve menu streamlining, labor cost reduction, and seek more flexible growth points with scene breakthroughs and efficiency breakthroughs.
4. In-depth exploration of online operation
In the era of traffic, users are king. According to data, 74% of users have planted grass in the private domain, and the average repurchase rate of private domain users is as high as 45, which is in line with the needs of many catering brands seeking to attract new customers and retain customers at this stage, so online nuggets have become the mainstream demand of catering.
According to the survey, 67 restaurant companies choose to brand on the local life platform7%, and the number of restaurant companies that brand ** through social platforms is also as high as 591%。
It can be seen that catering businesses generally have a stronger perception of online operations and a stronger willingness to enter the market, and based on the fact that the digitization rate of catering businesses is still at a low level of about 20%, the online digital demand of the catering industry will still be in a long stage of explosive growth in the future.
Internal Drive:
Customer-centric, explore the essential growth drivers of business
In the process of expanding catering brands, they also began to pay attention to the importance of online refined operation to the brand, and realized the importance of accumulating customers in the private domain for the long-term operation of the brand.
Adhering to the unique "temperature" of the catering industry, helping restaurant companies understand the essence of online operations, and grasping the dividends and opportunities brought by digitalization is precisely the core concept that Meituan adheres to.
1. Deeply cultivate the positive circulation of online traffic
Some industry insiders pointed out that the catering business has begun to start from 1Phase 0 transitions to 2Stage 0.
Among them, customer growth and operational efficiency point to 1Stage 0, i.e. the operational growth of the store, with an eye on the present;And the precipitation of digital assets points to 2Stage 0, which determines how big the brand can be in the future, the more digital assets, the more compound interest can be achieved on the platform, and the more traffic or resources can be obtained.
In addition, consumers' brand awareness is becoming more and more sticky in the process of digital asset precipitation. 1.0 and 2The value of 0 is that the traffic of the brand and the store is circulating.
Meituan believes that in this circular process, including lists, sales volumes, customer consumption evaluations, and online store material displays, they are all brand data assets, which will act on the expansion and brand precipitation of chain restaurant companies, and can be achieved in any city.
Taking Bawang Chaji as an example, it attaches great importance to customer reviews, attaches importance to its short-term assistance to store operations, and incorporates Meituan's star ratings into the store QSCA evaluation system for a long time. There are monetary rewards for the success and maintenance of the first list, and the new store review star will only open takeaway if it reaches more than 4 points. It can be seen that it attaches great importance to this kind of evaluation assets.
2. Digital decision-making brand actions
When doing online business, we must start from the decision-making behavior of consumers, find the business link, emphasize the entry of each link, and closely follow the customer experience.
In this part, it is necessary to rely on a large amount of customer data as a reference to find customers' interests and decision-making power, and rely on digital infrastructure to complete intelligent output.
Meituan data shows that in 2019, on the Meituan platform, the number of searches for the four keywords of light food, fat reduction meal, ** meal, and healthy meal increased respectively compared with 2018. 4% and 116%, fully reflecting the vigorous development of personalized needs.
According to the search term data, it is possible to accurately understand the consumption g-point of consumers and create topics based on this.
In the past Shuangdan node, Meituan launched a joint event with the milk dragon, and started the eating, drinking and fun journey of the group and the milk dragon "Shuanghuangdan" combination with a cute "belly dance". And launched the "limited 101 yuan New Year's Eve coupon package" New Year's Eve venue in the station, which not only took advantage of the festival to create a topic, but also met the customer's consumption demand in the store, and stimulated the sales growth of the restaurant.
3. The global matrix creates a catering ecology
The catering industry has undergone profound changes since the epidemic: people are more and more reliant on **, and like to choose orders based on ratings and word of mouth;From in-store to home-to-home, orders for self-pickup and take-out have increasedThe number of online ordering channels has increased, and more and more consumption scenarios have emerged from takeaway platforms to short-term platforms.
Meituan uses ** + takeaway + retail + financial services to provide a complete closed loop of business needs for many catering businesses, and further brings the "antidote" to reduce costs and increase efficiency for catering merchants.
Among them, for new brands, by improving the efficiency of customer acquisition and the scope of operation through takeaway, the new brand can quickly overtake in corners.
According to the 2023 Annual Report on China's Catering Industry, in the overall data of the catering industry, the proportion of takeaway sales in catering revenue has further increased, but the expenditure of catering businesses on takeaway has decreased.
Among them, the proportion of takeaway sales of participating enterprises continued to maintain positive growth, with a growth rate of 68%, maintaining the high growth level of previous years. As the daily order volume of takeaway continues to increase, the scale effect of the industry is further highlighted. In the case of the increase in the proportion of takeaways, the growth rate of takeaway charging costs of the surveyed enterprises was negative, with a year-on-year change rate of -04%。
As a business platform that links customers and restaurants, Meituan also continues to empower chain restaurant companies at different stages with more platform resources. At the same time, focusing on the consumer side, Meituan also uses the advantages of the platform to help better consumer experience from the perspectives of attracting new users, promoting activity, and stickiness, and injecting more vitality into the development of the catering industry.
Summary of Professional Catering Network:
No matter how catering evolves, it is the real situation of today's catering industry to be consumer-centric, focus on the changes in the consumer needs of the new generation, and attach importance to global operation.
What catering brands need to do is to polish their own refined operation level, make full use of online platforms and intelligent tools, bid farewell to the traditional business decision-making model, find efficient decision-making methods, let enterprises travel lightly, make their services more accurate, and occupy the minds of customers.