The news of Haidilao's opening to join was like a thunderclap on the ground, which shook the entire catering circle. All of a sudden, there was a lot of discussion, and many people went around to inquire about the details of the franchise, so that even the backstage of the meal book received nearly 100 inquiries.
So, what are the requirements for Haidilao to join? How much does it cost to join and open a Haidilao?
To know the requirements, look at the expectations. Haidilao's expectation for open franchises is: by introducing moreHigh-quality resourcesto improve operational efficiency and help the Haidilao brand expand toMore cities, to provide more noodles with the delicacy and service of Haidilao.
Notice that there are two key words in this sentence: high-quality resources, more cities.
So what is a "quality resource"?
There are 4 evaluation criteria given by Haidilao, of which the last two are: having a financial foundation for multi-store development; Have local property resources and have experience in enterprise management.
There is one key factor mentioned here: money. It is also what many people are concerned about: how much is the franchise fee? How much to invest?
Judging from the information currently public, Haidilao has not yet clarified how much the franchise fee is, but there is a relevant information that can be analyzed about the investment amount.
On Haidilao's "Cooperation Application" page, there is a question that asks "Funds that can be invested in Haidilao's business (excluding loans)", and there are 4 options, and the "starting price" is "less than 10 million yuan". It is speculated that 10 million yuan is probably the capital threshold required to join Haidilao.
According to public information, Haidilao needs to invest 800.10 million yuan in upfront costs for every new store opened. This further confirms the previous speculation.
It's just one store, what if it's multiple stores? Naturally, more financial resources are needed. - So, what is a "quality resource"? At the very least, there should be enough money.
Another key word is "more cities". This is not difficult to understand, because the opening of franchises is all about covering more regions. However, Haidilao has made a different design on the application page, and related topics have also been hot searched on Weibo: To join Haidilao, you must apply for at least 3 provinces. Some analysts believe that the reason why Haidilao is designed this way is to develop new stores more accurately.
Now that we've talked about the requirements, let's talk about the impact. Haidilao's opening up to franchise is a major event in the catering industry, and its impact is both deep and wide. Let's talk about the impact on itself and the hot pot category.
In the current hot pot market, the involution is extremely serious, and a large number of hot pot restaurants have been swept to death; But at the same time, more hot pot restaurants have been opened, and the scale of the entire hot pot market is still increasing year by year. According to NCBD's "2023 China Restaurant Switch Report", in 2023, the size of China's hot pot market will be 975.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 44%；It is estimated that the size of China's hot pot market will exceed 1,000 billion yuan in 2024. Also in this year, there are 360,000 hot pot enterprises are revocation, and there are 750,000 hot pot enterprises were newly established.
At the same time as this category trend, it is the willingness of catering entrepreneurs. According to NCBD's "2023-2024 China Catering Entrepreneurs Survey Report", in 2023, the top 3 categories that Chinese catering entrepreneurs most want to engage in are tea, fast food and hot pot. Among them, the hot pot has made significant progress, jumping from the tenth place in the previous year to the third place this year, and the enthusiasm of entrepreneurs for hot pot can be seen.
The above two sets of data show thatThere is still enough space in the hot pot market, and entrepreneurs are also enthusiastic enough. At this time, Haidilao is open to joining, and it may not be too much to say "just in time".
According to the 2023 semi-annual report, as of June 30 of that year, Haidilao had 1,382 stores in Greater China. At the semi-annual report results conference, Haidilao said that second-tier cities show the potential to continue to encrypt, and the potential market for third-tier and below is broad. After the opening of the franchise, the number of Haidilao stores will usher in rapid growth.
The growth of Haidilao's scale will also make the hot pot category break through the ceiling and change people's existing cognition. For a long time, people's extreme imagination of the hot pot business is like Haidilao, because it has the largest number of stores. The scale of Haidilao has been hovering at the level of more than 1,000 stores for a long time. In other words, there are only more than 1,000 restaurants in the hot pot business. Now, with the opening of Haidilao to join, this perception will undoubtedly be refreshed, and it is expected to what extent it will be refreshed.
What impact will Haidilao's opening up to join the entire catering industry have? Analysts believe that there are three main aspects:
First, promote the catering industry into the "full franchise era". In the past, the catering categories of the franchise chain business model were mainly tea, coffee, snacks, fast food, etc., which were relatively "light" categories, and a single store could invest hundreds of thousands. Now Haidilao, a giant that requires tens of millions of dollars in a single store, has also entered the market, which has greatly increased the investment ceiling of franchise stores. This means,No matter how much you invest in a single store, you can theoretically open up to join.
Before Haidilao, Jiumaojiu, which announced the opening of the franchise last month, was also a representative of the "heavy" model, and now Haidilao is a little more "heavy" than it.
There are two characteristics of the "full franchise era", which are also happening at the moment: one is that more direct brands have begun to join, such as Heytea, Naixue, Le Caesar, and Tai.
Second, Haidilao, etc.; The second is that those that have been opened to join have begun to lower the threshold for joining, such as Luckin, Heytea, Naixue, Tea Baidao, etc.
In the "full franchise era", the competition for high-quality franchisees and high-quality points will become the key to the brand's victory.
The second impact of Haidilao's franchise on the industry is to drive more catering companies to change their business models. As the leading brother of the catering industry, Haidilao has many measures, especially major decisions, which are of benchmarking significance.
However, it is worth noting here that Haidilao makes hot pot, which has a relatively high degree of standardization and does not require a chef, which is suitable for joining; And some restaurants that rely more on chefs may not be suitable for franchise at present. Then, in this case, the latter kind of restaurant may speed up the "de-cooking", only in this way can it be more convenient to join the chain. This also leads to the third impact of Haidilao's opening up to join the catering industry: prefabricated dishes will usher in new development in the catering industry.
In August last year, the news of Haidilao's entry into the night market to set up a stall once swept the screen, and some readers asked in the backstage of the dining book, "How to join Haidilao's night market stall?" "At that time, our reaction was that this was a question that even Haidilao would be silent about. Haidilao itself said, "The recent form of outward swing ......."Not open for joining".
Yes, in the perception of many people (including us, of course), Haidilao is almost the one that is the least likely to open up to joining. So, when it was announced that it was open for joining, people were shocked. In addition to the shock, people also realized that catering has truly entered a new era.
One of the most striking features of this new era is the rising rate of chaining. Large-scale and intensive will become the mainstream of the industry, and the living space of "small scattered" will be further compressed. Last year's catering revenue exceeded 5 trillion yuan for the first time, which is a good start to this new era.