Recently, at the "Evolution" brand strategy and new product launch conference, Hefu Lao Mian officially released the brand strategy deployment, which will focus on the three key words of "health, green, and inclusiveness" and open 20 brand evolution. In the view of Li Xuelin, the founder of Hefu Lao Mian, the health bloodline of young people is awakening. In the face of the strong demand for the health market, Hefu Lao Mian has launched a new "Four Treasures of Health", and has reached cooperation with Nanjing Tong Ren Tang Health and other health care to continuously deepen the brand's health concept. At the same time, Hefu Lao Mian also started from the strategy of "health and inclusiveness", and made the ultimate stratification, striving to get rid of the label of "expensive".
In the face of the "second decade", Li Xuelin made a strategic positioning of "looking for friends, going to sea, sinking, and deep layout" for Hefu Group, and Hefu Group will officially enter the "direct + joint operation" model. In the eyes of industry insiders, through the "direct + associate" model, Hefu Group can attract more strategic partners, jointly develop multi-line markets, and achieve rapid expansion of scale.
Focus on "health".
In the brand is about to enter the 2At the node of stage 0, Hefu Lao Mian shows three key words: health, green, and inclusive.
In fact, since its inception in 2012, Hefu Lao Mian has started from the concept of "herbal soup, a bowl of health", and created the restaurant into a study concept, and has become an Internet celebrity noodle restaurant in the eyes of many consumers with a bowl of healthy noodles in the study.
The release of the new strategy also demonstrates the determination of Hefu Lao Mian to further deepen the brand's health concept. In the view of Li Xuelin, the founder of Hefu Lao Mian, from disdain for health preservation, to attention to health preservation, and then to love health preservation, the health blood of young people is awakening, and health and health preservation are becoming a major trend in the whole society.
At the press conference, Hefu Lao Mian signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Nanjing Tong Ren Tang Health, and in the future, the two sides will focus on the related fields of "medicine and food" and carry out cooperation in product research and development, innovation and upgrading. Hefu Lao Mian has also reached a strategic cooperation with the Rugao Agricultural Bureau to realize the direct procurement of the production area of the national geographical indication product black tatami cabbage.
At the same time, with its rich experience in product research and development in "herbal health", Hefu Lao Mian has also launched a new "Four Treasures of Health" - herbal soup, coarse grain noodles, longevity vegetables, and health tea, providing consumers with high-quality diversified choices.
Xu Xiongjun, a strategic positioning expert and founder of Jiude Positioning Consulting Company, said that focusing on health preservation can provide a unique and differentiated positioning for Hefu Lao Mian. The inclusion of herbs in the product also adds more value and soul to the product. In the future, the prospect of Chinese-style health noodles will be very good, and noodles are a kind of food that can be eaten in both the north and the south, and the prospects of Hefu Lao noodles are very broad.
Hefu Lao Mein, which focuses on health preservation, has also been recognized by professional institutions. At the press conference, Frost & Sullivan, an international authoritative consulting organization, awarded Hefu Lao Mian the title of "No. 1 Brand of Chinese Noodle Restaurant" and "Pioneer of Chinese Health Noodles".
According to the "Blue Book of China's Noodle Industry" report released by Frost & Sullivan, the annual noodle consumption in the country will be close to one trillion yuan in 2023. In the long run, the noodle restaurant has the characteristics of standardization and chaining, coupled with a huge mass base, the noodle track has a broad room for improvement and is very attractive. As of September 2023, in the domestic noodle market, Hefu Lao Mian is the largest enterprise in direct revenue, leading the industry in terms of growth rate of direct revenue and the growth rate of the number of directly operated stores.
Get rid of the "expensive" label.
It is worth mentioning that "Pratt & Whitney", one of the three key words, reflects the future changes of Hefu Lao Mian in terms of product quality.
In addition to the "Internet celebrity" label, the 30-40 yuan product ** of Hefu Lao Mian has also made many consumers "prohibitive", and regard Hefu Lao Mian as a low-cost brand, and "40 yuan a bowl of Internet celebrity noodles can't be sold" has become a hot topic many times.
At this press conference, Hefu Lao Mian put forward the concept of "health and inclusiveness" for the first time, and made the ultimate stratification, not only covering the range of 25 yuan to 108 yuan, but also enlarged the product matrix of 20 yuan to 30 yuan, bringing "quality and cost performance" to consumers.
According to the latest data released by Hefu Group, Hefu Lao Mian has 20 million+ members, and without investing too much operating expenses, the proportion of consumption from member stores has reached about 65%, and the user stickiness is considerable. Based on the member price, at present, half of the products below 30 yuan have been accounted for in Hefu Lao Noodles, about 45% of the products in the price range of 30 yuan to 40 yuan, and 5% of products above 40 yuan. In order to enrich the product menu of 20 to 30 yuan, Hefu Lao Mian has also successively launched snacks, fried foods and drinks.
Li Xuelin said, "Hefu does not do cheap and low-quality things. Let everyone spend less money and enjoy higher quality, the essence has not changed. I hope that no matter how the general environment changes, consumers can maintain their health, heart and mind in Hefu. Full of energy, set off again. ”
In fact, in August 2023, Li Xuelin disclosed the adjustment of Hefu Lao Mian in **. Li Xuelin said that in 2023, Hefu Lao Mian will make frequent moves on the first level, make the best stratification, increase the proportion of products within 30 yuan, and also make multi-dimensional and granular membership operations, including issuing discounts to users.
In the eyes of industry insiders, the proposal of ** stratification means that Hefu Lao Mian will move from high-end brand positioning to quality-price ratio, and attract more consumers with quality-price ratio.
The continuous adjustment of the product has also brought positive effects to Hefu Lao Noodles. In the first half of 2023, Hefu Lao Mian's revenue and the number of new stores both hit a record high, with monthly revenue rising continuously and single-day peaks continuously refreshing, with new stores in third- and fourth-tier cities performing outstandingly. According to the "Blue Book of China's Noodle Industry", from January to August 2023, the revenue of new + classic upgraded products of Hefu Lao Mian accounted for 77% of the total revenue6%。
Turn on "Light" mode.
It is understood that Hefu's footprint has spread to more than 80 cities across the country, with 500+ directly-operated stores. On this basis, Li Xuelin announced at the press conference that Hefu will look for "5000+ business partners" in the future and officially enter the "direct + associate" model. It is expected that by 2026, the number of Hefu Lao Mian stores will exceed 2,000, and the Alan family will exceed 1,500.
In the eyes of industry insiders, the catering industry is experiencing a "franchise wave", and many noodle brands are expanding with lighter and more flexible store models. After the opening of the joint venture, the anti-risk ability and flexibility of Hefu Lao Mian will be improved.
Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, pointed out that the direct sales model can ensure the unity of the brand and the quality of service, while the joint operation model can quickly expand the market with the help of partners. At the same time, through the open partner program, Hefu can attract more strategic partners to jointly develop multi-line markets and achieve rapid expansion on a large scale.
In Li Xuelin's view, as a restaurant chain enterprise, the back-end must be heavy, and the front-end can be more "light" in order to better achieve scale.
It is understood that at the beginning of its establishment, Hefu Group invested a lot of resources in the construction of the first chain and digital intelligence. At present, Hefu Lao Mian has a modern food industrial park of nearly 100,000 square meters, and its first-class kitchen is one of the largest central kitchens in the country, and the full-link intelligent operation system efficiently supports the operation of stores around the country and the demand for cold chain distribution nationwide. At the same time, Hefu Group has built an efficient operation and business middle platform, improved the decision-making ability of big data, and built a multi-platform collaboration system such as digital ** chain, omni-channel operation, digital retail, intelligent marketing, and industrial collaboration and sharing, which can also empower the development of the industry while upgrading digital intelligence.
Facing the future, Li Xuelin proposed that Hefu Group will start the group strategy of "finding friends, going to sea, sinking, and deep layout". On the one hand, Hefu Group will actively explore the multi-line market, plan to go deep into more than 2,000 county-level units, and join hands with 5,000+ strategic partners to achieve brand value sharing. On the other hand, Hefu Group will use Hong Kong as a bridgehead to go abroad to Japan, Singapore and other countries to explore the possibilities of the global market. At the same time, Hefu Group will encrypt the network of urban stores to achieve high-quality and large-scale development.