It is the Luckin of the hot pot industry, and it claims to "roll up" Haidilao as soon as it is shot.
In just 4 years, it has received an investment of 3 billion yuan, and 7 years later, it has surpassed the scale of 10,000+ stores that "Mixue Bingcheng" took 13 years to achieve.
In addition to 10,000 stores, its online development momentum is even stronger, not only has more than 22.4 million members, but also successfully listed by selling hot pot ingredients, becoming the "first stock to go home for dinner".
It is the "unicorn" brand "Guoquan Shihui" that grew up from Henan.
On November 2, Guoquan Food Exchange was officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and its **issuance** was 5HK$98 shares, which have a market value of about $16.8 billion so far.
Guoquan Food Exchange successfully entered the **, which made Yang Mingchao, who was at the helm, listed on the "Hurun Report" with a market value of 50 billion, thus becoming the richest man in Luyi.
This is a company that grew up in Henan, and despite the competitive pressure of many leading companies such as Haidilao, Xiabu Xiapu and Nan Hot Pot, it can still stand out in the lively hot pot track, which is enough to explain its glorious history.
Founded in 2017 in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, Guoquan Shihui is a core business that provides ready-to-eat, ready-to-heat and pre-made ingredients.
In short, the supermarket is located on the doorstep of the masses and is a chain of stores that specialize in hot pot and barbecue ingredients, and also provides an additional pot base, dipping sauce, and various tools.
Whether it's buying directly from the specialty supermarket of Guoquan Food Hui, or choosing to place an order online or offline, their service is very fast, and they proudly proclaim: "You can enjoy hot pot and barbecue at home in just 5 minutes".
The pot ring food exchange is not only "fast", but also quite attractive.
At present, if you choose a hot pot restaurant at random, it is difficult to taste hot pot even if the per capita consumption does not exceed 100 yuan, let alone hot pot with an average per capita consumption of more than 200 yuan.
Some netizens shared a bill, mentioning that two girls went to eat hot pot, and the cost was between 500-600 yuan.
At present, the hot pot on the market, the ** at the bottom of the pot is 66 yuan, plus some small ingredients and tableware, basically nothing is eaten, so it is already 100 yuan as the base material.
Given the high cost of hot pot, it has become especially appropriate to choose to make your own hot pot when eating at home.
The original slogan of Guoquan Food Market is very in line with the public psychology: "Let consumers spend less than 50 yuan per capita to eat an authentic hot pot." ”
That year, after the release of the product's consumer slogan, it quickly attracted the attention of many young consumers.
The reason why its unique style has attracted attention is that in those online posts that strongly condemned the "hot pot assassin", netizens took the initiative to recommend the "pot ring food exchange" below.
Through the fermentation technology and high cost performance, the pot ring food exchange began to become popular rapidly.
In the physical store of Guoquan Food Hui, you can find mutton rolls and snowflake fat beef, each box of ** is about 20 yuan, the price of vegetables is about 7 yuan, and when eating hot pot, the ** of potato flour and Sichuan noodles is about four or five yuan per bag.
is so close to the people, so that the hot pot consumption of 50 yuan can not only make people full, but also make people feel delicious, which has become a reality.
According to the statistics of Narrow Door Restaurant, the per capita consumption of Guoquan Food Exchange in Beijing, Suzhou, Shanghai and other cities is about 70 yuan.
In first-tier cities, the per capita consumption of Haidilao, the leader in the hot pot industry, is 114$2.
Spending more than 100 yuan, it is debatable whether you can eat enough in Haidilao, but you can't eat it in the pot ring food exchange, and you definitely can't eat it.
With its characteristics of "delicious, convenient and reasonable", Guoquan Shihui has gradually stabilized its position in the hot pot arena where many large enterprises compete fiercely.
What is shocking is that the small supermarket that once operated in Zhengzhou has more than 10,000 physical stores six years later, and has been successfully listed, quickly emerging as a leader in the hot pot industry.
When it comes to this, we must mention Yang Mingchao, the founder of the pot ring food exchange.
Yang Mingchao, born in poverty, graduated from the Chinese Department of Zhengzhou University.
After completing his university studies, Yang Mingchao was very fortunate to get a stable job and started his career in a hotel in a reception house in Henan Province.
However, Yang Mingchao is clearly not interested in such a work at a glance. Working as a clerk in a company, although he earns a lot of money, he doesn't have much sense of accomplishment and pride, let alone realize his dreams. After a difficult time, he firmly decided to quit his job and embark on his entrepreneurial journey.
In 2006, Yang Mingchao started a food stall business in Zhengzhou's night market. Because he was good at observing the market and keenly seizing business opportunities, he soon became a well-known local boss of the big row. With his unique business strategy, he successfully made the business flourish, and opened more than 10 branches in succession, with an astonishing annual sales of more than 100 million yuan.
However, while the food stall business is booming, Yang Mingchao has a different plan for his future life.
In the scorching heat of summer, of course, the business of food stalls will be very hot, but in the cold winter months, it is often crowded. This is because this year's Spring Festival is particularly early, and many people did not go to Chinese New Year's Eve to eat, so after the Spring Festival, many stores are facing closure. In order to ensure the continuous operation of each branch, Yang Mingchao began to spare no effort to find new solutions.
In 2013, after extensive research and research, Yang Mingchao became the first person to launch a "small bench" style of bar-style hot pot.
When the innovative business strategy of "eating hot pot in a bar" was introduced, it quickly became the most popular way to trade on the streets of Zhengzhou.
In less than a year, Yang Mingchao has managed to open more than 80 stores, and at the peak of his career, the number of stores has reached a staggering 10,000.
Despite this brilliant achievement, Yang Mingchao's ambition remains unmet. In his opinion, he is just an ordinary person, an ordinary person. What he longed for was a broader and grander stage.
In 2015, Yang Mingchao and several partners jointly created Henan Pot Ring Chain Management and planned to enter the hot pot ingredients industry.
Originally, the ** chain of pot rings was mainly for the B-end market, and at that time, it was mainly for the ** ingredients of hot pot restaurants such as Dezhuang hot pot and century-old mother.
Over time, in addition to the provision of ingredients, frozen foods were gradually incorporated. In the field of frozen food, the pot ring chain has always been a good competitor, but with the intensification of competition, his market share is declining year by year. As a result, the first chain company of pot rings began to get involved in the wholesale business of ingredients.
Despite the growing prosperity of the ingredient business, the traditional "small bench" hot pot has gradually lost the vitality of the market. Yang Mingchao acted decisively and handed over the C-end to him.
In January 2017, Guoquan Shihui opened its first physical store in Zhengzhou.
When the store first opened, the red and green signboard and cost-effective ingredients quickly won over the diners."
Like Henan's Honey Snow Ice City, Guoquan Food Exchange has adopted a different business strategy.
These companies are mainly committed to the strategy of sinking into the market, opening pot ring stores, and giving priority to locations in second- and third-tier cities, with community residents as the core, to quickly and accurately meet the needs of their target customer base.
Subsequently, they decided to gradually expand from county-level cities to large cities, a strategy similar to "rural around city", which made Guoquan quickly attract many partners.
According to the financial report of Guoquan Shihui, by the end of 2022, among all franchisees, the number of stores below the county level has reached 436%。
By 2023, there will be more than 10,000 partners in Guoquan Shihui, but among these stores, only 6 are truly directly operated stores.
Despite having a large number of franchise stores, he himself chose to travel light, and he was very precise in his strategy of Guoquan Shihui.
When we discuss how to quickly attract franchisees, we have to mention the "0 yuan franchise" strategy of Guoquan Shihui.
Guoquan Shihui has made it clear that they will not charge any fees to franchisees. But the actual situation is that if you want to open a store, you need to pay for the equipment in the store, and you also need to pay 20,000 yuan per year to the pot ring for logistics services, etc., even if it is roughly calculated, the cost is about two or three hundred thousand.
In addition, all the ingredients needed in the store must be sourced from the pot ring food collection.
Guoquan Shihui is highly dependent on its franchisees, which not only ensures that its own ingredients have a stable sales channel, but also further strengthens the stability of its revenue because of the existence of many branches.
In the 2020-2021 period, the number of partners in the pot ring increased by 2,883 and 2,762, respectively, despite this, it still faces 04.3 billion and 4A loss of $6.1 billion.
Guoquan Food Exchange has turned from a loss-making state to a profit before 2022, which is the first time it has achieved profitability and brought 2Net profit of 400 million yuan.
In 2022, the number of stores surged, and the annual operating income increased from 395.8 billion increased to 71 in 20227.4 billion.
Thanks to the help of franchisees, the pot ring not only did not fall into a downturn, but won a victory.
As early as 2020, in order to quickly increase the popularity of the pot ring, they vigorously invited Yue Yunpeng, the "top in the cross talk industry", to serve as the spokesperson of the brand.
In 2021, Guoquan will once again appear on the show as a gastronomic partner of CCTV-5.
Subsequently, the brand was featured in Dragon TV's "Come on!Xiaodian" and Beijing Satellite TV's "Warm Hot Pot" and other programs appeared, the purpose of which is to show the audience a more three-dimensional image of the pot ring from a commercial perspective.
Guoquan Food Exchange has made frequent appearances in many mainstream programs, which not only has the brand received wide attention and popularity, but also attracted a lot of capital investment.
After raising its popularity, Guoquan Food Exchange has gone through five rounds of financing activities, each of which has been successfully profitable, attracting a total of 3 billion investments.
After a series of financing activities, large consumer enterprises and top investment institutions such as IDG Capital, Jiayu Capital, Sanquan Foods and Moutai** have emerged and become the leaders behind the pot ring.
Thanks to the strong background and the support of capital, Guoquan Shihui is the leader in the arena of hot pot**.
Subsequently, driven by the "home economy", the pot ring, which originally focused on "the first choice for family meals", rose rapidly above the tuyere.
The reason why the pot ring can occupy a favorable position in the market is that its core competitive advantage mainly stems from the "ammunition depot" that already exists behind it.
In the early years, Guoquan Shihui had acquired three food processing factories, which were the beef processing factory "Heyi Meat Industry", the meatball manufacturing factory "Maru Lai Maru Go", and the hot pot base factory "Chengming Food".
Guoquan Shihui has also invested in the production of shrimp slippery "Catch Shrimp".
In addition, Guoquan Food Exchange has established cooperative relations with Yasui, Sanquan and 266 other food ingredient merchants, and launched a cooperation strategy of "single product single factory", which further ensures the stability of the first product.
Having its own food processing plant not only solves the production cost from the source, but also improves the risk control of quality and other problems. The large amount of ingredients consumed by 10,000 stores also gives the pot ring the capital to negotiate and reduce prices with major food factories.
The two-way strategy allows the "delicious and inexpensive" of the pot ring to really land.
At present, 95% of the ingredients in the product portfolio of Guoquan Food Exchange come from Guoquan Food Hui's own brand.
In addition to the layout of commercial development, the pursuit of market demand has never stopped.
The pot ring, which focuses on hot pot, first started to make barbecue, and soon began the research and development of prefabricated dishes.
The pot ring has invested heavily in prefabricated dishes, and the direction is clear, and it even said that it will make different products according to different regions.
In March 2023, Guoquan Food Exchange will launch various pre-made dishes in Guangdong such as coconut chicken hot pot, cheese shrimp cake, and fatty beef enoki mushroom rolls.
But at present, it seems that although the prefabricated vegetable market has broad prospects, there are many entrants, and the competition is very fierce, it is not easy for the pot ring to really do well.
Just last month, Luckin Pot Circle, which focuses on the hot pot industry, opened the first high-end hot pot restaurant in his hometown of Zhengzhou.
The owner of this restaurant has been very luxurious from the beginning, in addition to providing high-end ingredients such as caviar and Jinhua ham, he also provides hot pot and dine-in service, which is even as high as 298-798 yuan.
In addition, Guoquan has announced that this kind of high-end store will be opened in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macau, and even some Southeast Asian cities in the future.
From the initial low-cost ingredient strategy to today's store strategy, the main high-end products seem to have become the core development direction of the pot ring in the next step.
After consumption was downgraded, the pot circle made such a decision, whether it was to better spread the story in the capital market, or to sincerely pursue a bigger breakthrough, it became difficult.
In the four months at the beginning of 2023, the cumulative revenue of Guoquan Food Exchange was 207.8 billion, compared to 21 in the same period in 2022600 million, a decrease of 4%.
He is good at implementing the strategy of "differentiation + segmentation", and can continue to innovate the pot circle through the method of "scenario-based + themed". Although he has accurately grasped the market dynamics over the past few years, his outlook for the future is not as rosy as one might expect.
Although hot pot does not account for a large share of our daily diet, at present, major supermarkets have successively launched "hot pot zones", such as Freshippo, Dingdong Grocery Shopping, and even small supermarkets have also provided corresponding hot pot services.
When people get out of the house and are faced with more and more economical options, there is clearly no absolute advantage in pot rings.
Whether you're planning to make a big splash in the pre-made food industry, or you're planning to rely on high-end hot pot restaurants to break the traditional single-revenue model, you'll face a long battle on the road ahead.
Guoquan Shihui chose to gradually move away from the sinking market and turn to the high-end market, losing the advantage of timing and location, so what is the foundation for it to gain a solid foothold?