If it weren't for the recent outbreak of the "small composition" incident in Dongfang Selection, the big drama staged by the snack industry not long ago would still be the preferred topic for many ** to report on "rubbing traffic". However, although the heat is gone, the competition in this industry continues. One of the protagonists, "BESTORE", directly cut more than 300 products on sale in the store, with an average reduction of 22% and a maximum reduction of 45%. According to BESTORE officials, the ultimate goal is to make 80% of the products** more accessible to the people. Although the price reduction momentum of another snack giant "Laiyifen" is not large, it has also launched a ** activity of "Weekly Explosion", updating a popular product every week, claiming to allow consumers to save 30% 60%. "Three Squirrels" did not follow the trend in this round, but its founder Zhang Liaoyuan said in the circle of friends that as early as a year ago, the three squirrels launched the "high-end cost-effective" strategy. It sounds a bit awkward, but it also points to quality and **. The price reductions in the snack industry are the same as the underlying logic of the discount storm featuring "quality-price ratio" launched by Hema not long ago. So, what is the difference between cost performance and quality-price ratio in the "discount wind" blown by new consumption?In addition to price reduction, what are the new means of competition in the snack industry?1
The quality-price ratio of the difference of one word
Explanation, cost performance refers to the ratio of the performance value of the commodity to the ** value, which is a quantitative measurement method that reflects the degree of purchase of the item. The performance of snacks is actually very simple, it is to meet the needs of people's mouths outside of meals. However, the function of snacks is not simple, as a food, it also needs to have the important performance of food safety. Student Dang Pippi is a snack professional, and when she goes to college, she goes home every week, and one of the most important things is to complete the snack supply work. At the beginning, she loved to go to Miniso's near her home, and fish balls and kelp knots were all items that she repurchased infinitely. Later, she found that a good sale is a treasure trove of snacks, not only with many categories, but also with the illusion that if you don't buy it, you will lose money. However, she later discovered that the products on sale were different at each store, and even the snacks sold at different times in the same store were also different. Although every time I go, there will be a kind of "** fun", but delicious and low-cost brand snacks are often snatched up as soon as they are put on the shelves, and those who have not heard of the brand often step on thunder. 
It can be seen from the new retail business review that this high cost performance is achieved to a certain extent by the high discount of expiring goods. Discount stores led by Good Sale and Hi Special Purchase, their magic weapon is to sell those food or tail goods that are close to the expiration date at the price of cabbage. However, this model is often due to the instability of the supply of goods, which makes it difficult to fix the goods in the store, which is probably an important reason for the gradual decline in the proportion of temporary products in some discount stores. There is also a kind of hard discount stores represented by Snack is Busy, Snack Youming, Zhao Yiming, etc., their model is to skip all middleman links, purchase directly from the manufacturer, and then go directly to the store. Most of these hard-discount brands start in lower-tier cities and obtain low-cost goods through large-scale procurement, which means that procurement costs are often linked to purchase volume. Not long ago, snack discount brand Zhao Yiming and Snack were busy announcing a strategic merger. Zhao Yiming Snacks told the New Retail Business Review that from the perspective of the first chain, after the merger, the two parties will have more bargaining power in the negotiation of upstream goods, so as to bring more competitive and high-quality goods to franchisees and consumers. 
Photo source: Zhao Yiming snacksCompared with the simple and crude cost performance, the quality-price ratio not only pays attention to the first thing, but also pays attention to the quality. To apply the consumption concept of young people now, it is not only performance, but also quality. It may seem contradictory, but the quality-to-price ratio has been successfully practiced abroad. The famous Don Quijote supermarket in Japan aims to provide consumers with low-cost and high-quality goods. In the process of development, don Quijote has moved from the region to the whole country and even entered the global markets such as the United States and Southeast Asia through acquisitions. According to Guotai Junan's research, in the economic downturn, Don Quixote's performance is still growing against the trend, and the stock price has soared all the way, from 1998 to 2005, when it was just listed, the stock price has skyrocketed 6 times, and since 2022, the stock price has still increased by 65%. 2
From monopoly to integration
According to iiMedia Research, the market size of China's snack food industry has continued to grow in the past decade, from 410 billion yuan to 1,165.4 billion yuan, and it is expected that the market size of China's snack food industry will reach 1,237.8 billion yuan in 2027. This growth rate can be clearly felt from the proliferation of snack shops around me. Especially in the past two years, snack wholesalers featuring discounts have expanded rapidly across the country after starting from the sinking market. But the trillion market size is destined to be difficult for this industry to be "eaten all" by one model. A person from BESTORE told the New Retail Business Review that the current competitive landscape of the industry is still in a relatively dynamic stage, which is not only related to changes in the external environment, consumption grading, but also related to the diversity of the entire commodity circulation channel. Innovation is only possible in a dynamic competitive landscape. Not long ago, the world-renowned coffee chain brand Tim Hortons China Business and the fried chicken brand Popeyes China Business (hereinafter referred to as "Tims Tianhao China") announced that they have reached a strategic cooperation with BESTORE. In the future, BESTORE will gradually see Tims Express (Lingfeng store) in its stores. The current plan is to open 3 stores in Wuhan and 2 stores in Xi'an around the end of the year, and use this to expand into the northwest market. As early as the first half of this year, BESTORE has tried to launch the freshly ground coffee brand "Liangjia" in stores to provide consumers with a new experience of "eating + drinking". At present, the coffee business has been extended to 300 BESTORE stores across the country. "BESTORE will form three types of stores in the future: first, 'BESTORE +', which will implant innovative categories and products into existing stores;The second is '+ BESTORE', a store type based on new categories and supplemented by pre-packaged snacks;Third, based on the above two types of store type tests, a multi-category and multi-brand snack kingdom store is formed. Yang Yinfen, chairman and general manager of BESTORE, said. 
Source: BESTORE Of course, BESTORE is not the first snack brand to set foot in the coffee business. As early as the end of 2017, Laiyifen had already tested the coffee business in its own stores. After 4 years of trying, "Come to Coffee" was officially launched in 2021. In August this year, Laiyifen upgraded "Laicafe" to "Laicafe" and said that by the end of the year, it would open shop-in-shops in 800 1,000 stores. Judging from the market reaction, Laiyifen's coffee did not make much splash, but this kind of water test is not expensive for the diversified operation of the store. Regarding the future of Laika, Laiyifen has said that in two years, it may let Laika operate independently. However, the risks of operating a coffee brand independently are much greater than that of a shop-in-shop. On the one hand, the coffee industry is no longer a blue ocean track, and it can even be said that the coffee industry is not inferior to the snack industry. In addition, from the perspective of the market structure, the coffee industry leaves fewer and fewer opportunities for new entrants. After all, the current number of Luckin stores in China has exceeded 10,000, 5000+ store players and Starbucks and Cudi, 3000+ store players have NOWWA, 1000+ store players have MANNER, etc., not counting some cross-border tea brands and some independent coffee shops and specialty coffee brands to eat the market. 3
To the ** chain for efficiency
In the early stage of the development of the snack industry, the ability of channels became an important component of the market competitiveness of a brand. With the advent of the e-commerce era, the huge online traffic has created snack brands such as "Three Squirrels". However, with the gradual integration of channels, physical offline stores have regained the right to speak for brands in the fierce competition. In the capital market, the number of stores has become an important indicator of the brand's valuation in a round of financing. In the past few days, the "Snack is Busy" group, which has just been merged for a month, has obtained 700 million yuan and 3 million yuan respectively from "Miss You" and "Yanjin Shop".500 million yuan in financing. According to this calculation, the valuation of the snack group has reached 105400 million yuan. Use the ** battle to squeeze out competitors and take the opportunity to stake yourself. Or simply annex or merge with competitors smaller than themselves to expand their size. Such a competitive approach is understandable in the early stage of industry development. But after a long time, the "cheapness" under the ** war is actually only a temporary measure. The real long-term cheapness needs to rely on the high-efficiency ** chain to "squeeze" the water of the entire ** chain link. This is a very painful thing, especially in the snack industry, from pastries to nuts to preserved fruits, meat, etc., the categories are very diverse, and the Chinese population is large, and the preferences for snacks vary greatly from place to place. "Due to the differences in living habits and tastes between the north and the south, how to choose products has become one of the challenges faced by brands at present. Zhao Yiming said. After determining the selection, the next step is to connect with the factory from the source. At this point, both snack stores and snack brand stores are trying to solve the efficiency problem through source procurement. In the view of BESTORE, the core competence of the first chain actually includes raw material capabilities, upstream capabilities, operation and control capabilities, and so on. "We can't just go to the business pressure. Yang Yinfen said that "squeezing water" is to be completed through lean management in terms of cost control, production efficiency, business efficiency, etc., so that every leading business in the industrial chain can become a participant, contributor and beneficiary of reducing costs and increasing efficiency. 
Source: BESTOREGrowing up with enterprises in the industrial chain is destined to be a difficult road, but it is also the road that must be taken to achieve "quality". For example, for snacks with explosive potential, BESTORE will adopt the strategy of "scale first, profit later" to achieve a "high quality-price ratio" by improving the overall procurement scale and bargaining power. Taking a purple cashew nut as an example, BESTORE first provides funds to the ** merchant to purchase raw materials, and the ** merchant only charges processing fees. In this way, the price of 500 grams of purple cashew nuts can be as low as 499 yuan, not only lower than the average price of the same model in the industry, but also ***4
Summary
Change is a painful thing, especially in industries where profits are not high. Although the gross profit of snack stores is generally about 18%, as a snack store with the advantage of **, it is facing new challenges after the change of market pattern after staking land. On the one hand, the entire industry has entered the "Warring States" era, and on the other hand, consumers have begun to tighten their wallets, and snack companies must innovate themselves as non-rigid needs. In the short term, the jury is out on whether to win or lose. But what is certain is that in this era of consumption grading, consumers are the only winners.