"It's the last day of business, and it's closed when it's sold out. On November 21, the clerk of the Beijing Raffles City store of Momo Dim Sum Bureau said that the store would be closed after the end of the day's business.
2023 is obviously not an easy year for brand chain enterprises in the baking industry. Red meal big data shows that as of October 2023, 12 new stores have been added to the bread baking track20,000 stores, 12 closed010,000, with a net increase of 1,874 stores. Overall, the growth rate of the total number of bakery stores in the country in 2023 will only be 1%, and the registration revocation ratio will fluctuate and decline.
"The development of China's baking industry has been very good from south to north and from east to west, but behind the speed, there is more intensification of competition, intensification of involution, and intensification of bankruptcy. ”Zhu Danpeng, an analyst of China's food industry, believes that under such a node, the positioning of the entire baking industry is very critical, in other words, what kind of consumers the brand is facing, quality, first chain, service system, customer stickiness, consumption scenarios, new product promotion, etc.
According to Tianyancha news, the business status of the Wuhan company of Momo Dim Sum Bureau has been changed to cancellation recently. So far, more than 10 brands outside Hunan Province (Beijing, Wuhan, Hangzhou) have all been closed, truly "shrinking the front and retreating to the Hunan market".
Checking the Momo Dim Sum Bureau ordering applet, I found that in recent days, the status of the stores included in the mini program has been adjusted. On January 25, the mini program showed that the number of stores in operation of the brand was more than 20. The information of more than 10 stores in Changsha turned gray, showing "temporarily closed". However, today (January 27), all stores in Changsha are shown in operation, and the number of brand stores in operation has been changed to 40.
Momo Dim Sum Bureau was exposed to the news of the cancellation of the Wuhan company, and another "New Chinese Baking Twin Star", Tiger Head Bureau Standard Chartered Cake Company (hereinafter referred to as "Tiger Head Bureau"), also broke the news: the parent company was filed for bankruptcy liquidation.
Tianyan check shows that Shanghai Wanwu Youxiang Catering Management, the parent company of Hutou Bureau, has recently added a bankruptcy review case. The applicant applied to the Shanghai No. 3 Intermediate People's Court for bankruptcy liquidation of the company on the grounds that the company was unable to pay off its debts due and obviously lacked solvency.
Since 2023, the Tiger Head Bureau has been mired in rumors of bankruptcies, layoffs, and debt problems.
According to the first financial report, in January 2023, Hutou Bureau released news that the brand received a new round of financing with an amount of about tens of millions of yuan.
However, in March, it was revealed that the Shanghai headquarters was empty, all employees left, and employees were collectively defending their rights. The founder, Hu Ting, came forward to deny the rumors of bankruptcy and said that he was working hard to recover. In April, consumers found that Hutou Bureau successively shut down online channels such as Tmall, Douyin, Pinduoduo, and Dewu
Now, the ending of the Tiger Head Game is finally a foregone conclusion. Tianyancha information shows that since September 2023, Shanghai Wanwu Youxiang Catering Management, an affiliated company of Hutou Bureau, has added a number of information on the person subject to execution, with a total amount of 533470,000 yuan.
2023 will be a year of recovery for some F&B brands. However, it is a year of pressure and struggle to maintain the "top baking stream" that makes investors queue up and does not necessarily have investment opportunities, the "baking star" with a single store valuation of more than 100 million, Momo and Hutou Bureau.
The trend of "new Chinese baking" and "baking fever" led by the two major brands has come to an end.
Perhaps due to the impact of the two brands that have "stood out" in the baking circle since the beginning of last year, Hutou Bureau and Momo Dim Sum Bureau, have not been exposed to negative news about "contraction", "store closure" and "salary arrears" one after another, and the entire track is in a period of calm contraction, even in 2023, when the catering industry is fully recovered, there will be no large-scale financing information about baking.
According to incomplete statistics, a total of 18 financings will be completed in the baking track in 2021, and this number will be 12 in 2022In 2023, it will be 6, with an amount of about 500 million yuan.
The decreasing number of financings year by year illustrates the "wait-and-see" state of capital for the entire track. According to Venture Capital, some investors saidThey don't want the invested brands to open too many stores in a short period of time, and rapid expansion is not conducive to brand development and long-term planning. The Tiger Head Bureau and the Momo Dim Sum Bureau are precedents.
Looking back, it seems that the bakery brands in 2023 have learned this lesson, working product innovation trends, polishing store models, and catering more to consumer trends, and moving slower and more steadily.
Last year, the few brands in the baking circle that received financing, Hesuo and Taoximanman, both played the banners of "zero sugar" and "low sugar".
Tsurusho community store.
In order to differentiate its products, Tsuru focuses on the concept of zero sucrose, and also declares that it refuses to use "hydrogenated vegetable oils, hydrogenated fats, margarine, margarine, and margarine" in an attempt to create healthier pastries.
Taoximan, which also received financing, made differentiation with the selling points of "low sugar" and "probiotics". Nearly 20 stores have been opened in Tianjin, Qingdao, Wuhan, Nanjing, Chengdu and other places. It is understood that in order to create differentiated products, its R&D investment accounts for 30% of the start-up capital, and adjustments are made in terms of raw materials, sugar reduction ratio, taste and taste, and the effect of probiotics after integration.
Du Jianfei, the founder of Taoximan, once publicly said"Sugar reduction is an irreversible trend, and in another three years, low-sugar or even zero-sugar products will sweep the entire baking market. ”
Different from cutting-edge brands, Luxihe, which has 10 years of product precipitation, invited H&H to do the logo and store design last year, and the overall brand identity is more prominent. Although many netizens complained about "ugly rejection", the redesigned brand gives consumers a more "affordable" and "easy to recognize" look.
At present, Luxihe currently has 141 stores in first-tier cities, and there are more in the new first-tier cities, with 172 stores and 85 stores in the second-tier. In first-tier cities, shopping malls account for 45% of the stores. According to Bright Company statistics, as the rents of shopping malls in new first-tier and second-tier cities have declined, the proportion of Luxi River in shopping malls is higher, reaching 53% and 55%.
This is Luxi River paving the way for its own "sinking".
At the same time, the development model of "offline direct sales + front store and back factory + online e-commerce" in Luxi River has made its back-end construction more solid, and the increase in the density of the first-chain network has made it easier to expand to the sinking market.
Under the sinking, another momentum closer to the consumer is also emerging. The offline products of traditional bakery brands have certain snack attributes, unstable demand and high customer unit price, which gives "2 yuan bread" an excellent opportunity to take off.
Low rent, low labor, low SKU, and low customer order are the biggest labels of 2 yuan bread. Most of them are opened in the community, around schools or in small stalls, and the employees of the "front hall and back kitchen" add up to 2 people, relying on extreme cost reduction to drive down the price of a loaf of bread. Although the current business model of 2 yuan bread is obviously immature, it has also created a new development direction for the overall baking track, that is, whether it can be used to make products at lower prices and closer to consumers.
And all of these trends suggest that the once-prevalent strategy of "scale over profit" is failingBakery brands are no longer complacent about the rapid expansion of scale, but pay more attention to the optimization of store models.
Founded in 2021, although it has received two financings in 2023, it still chooses to be steady in stores. The opening of 5 stores in the past two years is not a lot compared to the tiger head bureau that is also soaring after financing.
Luxihe is also very flat in terms of the number of new stores. Before the first quarter of 2022, Luxihe expanded about 50 stores in a single quarter. At the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, it dropped slightly, and then returned to around 40 new additions.
The baking track is cooling down at breakneck speed. According to the public data of the Internet,More than 100,000 bakeries will fall in 2023.
As of October 2023, 12 new stores have been added to the bread baking track20,000 stores, 12 closed010,000, with a net increase of 1,874 stores. Overall, the growth rate of the total number of bakery stores in the country in 2023 will be only 1%.
"The roasting cycle is two years. ”After seeing the latest news of Hutou Bureau and Momo Dim Sum Bureau, a senior catering practitioner said.
Looking back on the past ten years, the baking track has continued to rush out of the top stream, and has continued to encounter a "cooling-off period". In the fluctuations, the cycle is repeated: the top stream is the cheesecake of Uncle Rick and Grandpa Chesi, and the dirty buns became popular all over the Internet, and were once fried to "120 yuan, and the new Chinese baking was born, and then set off a trend......
There is no shortage of "explosive products" and "hot spots" in the baking track, but few brands have the ability to "go through the cycle". Most of the domestic bakery enterprises are small individual stores, mom-and-pop shops or regional brands, and there are few large-scale national chain brands.
2023 will be a painful period for the baking track. The last wave of trends has faded, Momo has returned to the identity of "regional king", and many new baking trends are still developing, and there is no absolute volume. The provincial capitals of some regional markets have gradually given birth to regional kings and are moving forward conservatively.
Under this lull period, many brands are poised to take off. Who is the next top baking class to go out of the regional market and shine, the answer needs to be given by time.