From the perspective of the consumer market, 2023 is a year of recovery, but it is also a year of testing.
This is especially true for the restaurant industry. According to the data of enterprise checking, from January to October this year, the cumulative number of new registrations of restaurants in the country was 35010,000, 37 more than the same period last year40,000. At the same time, the cumulative sales volume of catering in the country from January to October this year reached 10560,000.
Although China's catering industry is often non-chain catering enterprises, for large-scale chain catering enterprises, rigid costs such as rent and manpower are also two mountains on the head of enterprises. The financial situation of many companies is recovering, and the imagined revenge consumption is not yet coming. At this time, in addition to price reduction, does the enterprise have other incremental markets to do?The answer is yes.
Let's start with a number. There is a national chain catering enterprise that will achieve 2 billion yuan in 2023 for takeaway alone. That's almost a year's income for many small and medium-sized catering businesses. Moreover, this company is not a fast-food chain that focuses on takeout, but Xibei Noodle Village, which is famous for its "small expensiveness". Compared with fast food, it is not easy to do takeaway for dinner, which means that many products and production processes are adjusted, especially the higher the unit price of the restaurant, the more difficult it is to make takeaway orders, but Xibei has found a way.
The adjustment of takeaway is just one of the efforts made by Xibei in 2023, and their practices and thinking are worthy of reference by more catering companies.
Take-out can also be done at the main meal
According to the latest data, the takeaway business revenue of Xibei Noodle Village this year will reach 2 billion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 25% in revenue and a year-on-year increase of 35% in order volume5%。In addition, takeaway revenue accounts for 33% of the overall revenue of Xibei Noodle Village5%。
It can be said that this business, which was launched in 2016 and developed in 2019, has become an important driving force for the business development of Xibei Noodle Village.
From a certain point of view, Xibei's takeaway business was "forced" out. In the past, it was difficult for a large number of dishes and a high level of food to compete directly with cheap and trouble-free fast food, so it was difficult for traditional restaurants to make achievements in the takeaway business.
However, due to the severe restrictions on dine-in due to the epidemic, takeaway is an inevitable choice to stand out. For the catering industry, practice is far more important than theory, no matter how 3721 hangs the takeaway menu first, the demand will be generated little by little.
In the collision of exploration and demand, the takeaway team of Xibei Noodle Village found that in addition to one-person food and two-person food, Xibei can fully adapt to the improved scene of Friday dinner and weekend. In this improvement scenario, high-quality takeaways with an average price of more than 70 yuan have become more competitive products.
However, for a restaurant chain brand, the challenge is still huge if it wants to achieve the same level of product quality as the main meal. And among them, the first thing is stability and speed.
Chinese meals are often extremely complex, with a wide variety of beef and mutton, stir-fried vegetables, soups, noodles and other types of complex operations, even if you want to achieve rapid production, it means that people, products and processes are fully cooperative. In order to ensure the stability of the product, Xibei Noodle Village store estimates the expected order quantity and hot-selling products of the day through Xibei's self-developed estimation production system and inventory system, combined with past data, data of the same period and weather conditions.
In addition, consumers have more stringent requirements for takeaway delivery time, from order to delivery, at most no more than 45 minutes, except for about 30 minutes away, leaving very limited time for preparation. After calculation, Xibei Noodle Village has compressed the delivery speed to 14 minutes, which is far lower than the 25-minute dining requirement for dine-in in stores.
This is a huge challenge for the product and the process. It is not only necessary to select dishes that are suitable for take-out and can be processed and made quickly, but also to systematically carry out first-chain transformation to improve the operation efficiency of the store, and ensure that the taste of the dishes after take-out arrives at home is no different from dine-in. At present, the takeaway business of Xibei Noodle Village has more than 90 SKUs, among which two single products with annual sales of more than 100 million yuan, beef and carrot stewed rice and Xibei gluten, have also been produced. At present, the takeaway products of Xibei Noodle Village are the same as those in the store, and in the future, it will plan to develop a variety of products for single meals, double meals and healthy meals.
This is a product line that started in 2016, was fully invested in 2019, and repeatedly polished for 3 years before it matured. At the internal organizational level, a team of people in charge of the takeaway support department + branch of the headquarters was formed: at the headquarters level, Xibei set up a special group for the takeaway business, headed by Dong Junyi, CEO of Xibei Noodle Village;At the division level, Xibei currently has 14 operating divisions, each of which has a branch takeaway person in charge to manage the stores to which the branch belongs, and the branch also has a takeaway manager. In addition, Xibei is also equipped with an exclusive 400 customer service center to solve customer needs from both internal and external perspectives.
Price reductions are not the only way out
In fact, in the takeaway case of Xibei, one of the most important points is that in today's sensitive world, whether it is a meal or a takeaway, if the company does not reduce the price, will the user still pay?
On Douyin, you can see 9 everywhere9 yuan**, 8$8 coupon;On social platforms, tags such as "college students eating boxed lunches at the construction site in groups" and "poor ghosts" have become hot topicsThere is also a restaurant in Harbin that has launched a 4 yuan box lunch, and a restaurant in Anhui has even launched 88 yuan box lunch buffet, 50 dishes to eat.
On the other hand, some leading restaurant chain brands are also following the market trend and taking the initiative to reduce prices. Hey Tea and Nai Xue's tea have released price reduction signals, and restaurant chain brands such as West Young Master, Hefu Lao Noodles, and Nancheng Xiang have also opened a price reduction mode.
Behind this is the overall attitude of the consumer market, which tends to be cautious. According to the 2023 Global Consumer Outlook report released by Nielsen IQ, globally, consumer goods inflation continues to rise, but the rate of growth has slowed. At the same time, consumer spending increased, but the number of purchases decreased. On the other hand, 43% of respondents believe that their financial situation will improve by the end of 2023. Consumers will continue to prioritize in-home needs, focus on basic needs, and continue the buying patterns that have dominated and helped them cope with change over the past 3 years.
However, in the view of Song Xuan, vice president of Xibei Catering Group, in today's market situation, it is not so much a consumption downgrade as a process of consumption stratification. Everyone has an infinite pursuit of a better life, and on the basis of upholding the near and those who are far away, if the brand can stick to and continue to cultivate on its own track, it can still achieve sustainable growth.
According to the data, in the first 8 months of this year, Xibei's revenue has exceeded the level of the same period in 2019, and the founder Jia Guolong estimates that the overall revenue in 2023 will also exceed 6.2 billion yuan in 2019, becoming the highest revenue level in the history of Xibei's development.
Whether people upgrade or downgrade their consumption is actually determined by the scene and time. In Song Xuan's view, in the field of high-quality takeaway, the competition is not very fierce. The difficulty and opponent in this is yourself, and whether the restaurant brand can make high-quality takeaway products is the key to success. Most of today's consumers are looking for small satisfaction, small happiness, and they want to get happiness and satisfaction from a meal, so everyone's requirements for catering will become higher, and it is normal to be harsh. (This article was first published by Titanium**app, author|.)Xie Xuan, editor|Fang Yu).