I remember that a few years ago, Hema at that time became the highlight of the retail industry with low-priced Boston lobster and king crab, and even Carrefour, Wal-Mart and other bigwigs came to learn a little, and even customers from Hebei drove to Beijing to buy. However, time has passed, and what was once a dazzling high-end seafood item is no longer a glamorous sign. Nowadays, when you open the fresh app, whether it is Dingdong or Meituan, all kinds of high-end seafood are dazzling, and they are no longer dazzling.
The wind of the market has shifted to cost performance, and even Hema has begun to play discounts**. Now, Hema is trying to raise fish in containers, hoping to refresh the image of their fish products. Unlike traditional methods, the fish here live in a confined and controlled environment, the meat has no earthy smell and is exercised enough to ensure the elasticity and freshness of the meat. This model, compared with traditional breeding, is more costly, but it highlights the differentiated competitiveness of Hema in the first chain.
The vision is beautiful, but the reality is challenging. Trying to expand its stores across the country, Hema encountered countless problems, from water temperature adaptation, survival rate, to monitoring various indicators during transportation, Hema tried to find a balance. Now, the fish they raise that are not high-end, such as rainbow sea bream and sea bass, have gradually occupied a place in stores across the country.
With the increase of variety, behind every new product on the shelves is a new challenge to the first chain. Despite the high cost of container fish farming, Hema seems to be more interested in building a brand in a specific species and quality assurance in controlled farming. They hope to attract a group of consumers who have specific needs for ingredients, trying to make"Bao Ma preferred"and other labels become a guarantee of brand loyalty.
The pressure on Hema is also even greater. Recently, they started a discount revolution, not only to occupy an advantage in the first place, but more in the hope of finding a breakthrough in the new retail model through targeted product strategy and ultimate operating cost control. Container fish farming is just one part of many plans for Freshippo, and they have even planned a number of self-production and self-sale plans for the core categories of the first chain, intending to use the ultimate internal control to pursue efficiency and quality win-win.
Now it seems that through a series of changes, Hema is not only looking for a competitive advantage in a category, but also trying to upgrade the ordinary aquatic products in the store to provide healthier and greener fresh options, hoping to create new benefits in the rigid demand category and reduce costs through scale effect. For consumers, this could turn into an attractive new shopping highlight;For the industry, it may be a new attempt to differentiate competition in the fresh category.