Writing | Retail Business Finance, Author | Wang Xiaofang, Editor | Hengxiang
Pot circle and "chrysanthemum bloom" a mother and a sibling, but why to keep a low-profile and mysterious relationship? In fact, the pot circle does not want to let the "negative brand image" transferred to the "chrysanthemum blossom" on the body, and do not want to franchisees to turn the tide once again staged.
December 8, retail business finance from the catering industry sources learned that the air-dried spicy brine chain brand "chrysanthemum open marinade" national store number has reached 900 or so.
Publicly available information shows that the "chrysanthemum bloom marinade" brand belongs to the June 2020 creation of the big Wang Food (Shanghai) Co. In May this year, the completion of 100 million yuan of B round of financing, the number of chrysanthemum open haloumi stores more than 700, and the vast majority of stores are distributed in Henan, Zhengzhou (more than 150 stores) as the center of radiation in the Central Plains of the six provinces, throughout the 100 + municipalities.
The average day at least 2 stores "Chrysanthemum open" to catch up with the momentum of "2021 will be the national store expansion to 1,200 - 1,500" grand goal, a year and a half to open 900 stores, in the industry! In terms of the industry, it is too fast; in terms of "Chrysanthemum Blossom", it is still slow.
Besides the memorable name, "Chrysanthemum Blossom" also has an invisible backer, the Pot Circle Food Exchange.
Pot circle and its early investment in the upstream supply industry Chenming food together in Henan opened a food industry park, chrysanthemum open marinade belongs to Shanghai everyone Wang food is also one of the enterprises stationed, and chrysanthemum open marinade and pot circle also have the same investor not confused venture capital.
Pot circle and "chrysanthemum bloom" is related, but also to the capital market and the catering industry to leave enough thinking and imagination space.
01 Chrysanthemum bloom, full of "gold"
It is understood that "Chrysanthemum bloom" positioning meals cooked food, the main product "hand-tearing rattan pepper chicken", different from Zhouhei duck, absolute flavor and other casual marinated flavor. Duck, absolute flavor and other casual marinade, the company claims to be a family table marinade chain brand.
At present, in the "meal marinade cooked food" sub-track, the head brand only Ziyan Barilla chicken one. The "leisure marinade" and "meal marinade" compared to the latter production process is more complex, not as heavy as the former, more like a dish rather than snacks.
"Chrysanthemum Blossom" mainly through the franchise method to open up the market and faster growth, which is very different from the Ziyan Barilla Chicken, which opened for franchising only in 2014 and now has 4,300 stores.
Obviously, "Chrysanthemum" is not afraid of tigers, in the face of more than 30 years of development history of Ziyan Foods, it is eager to break the game with the volume, and shouted "the next three years will be the country's stores to 5,000, to become China's dining table spicy brine channel head brand! "The slogan.
"Chrysanthemum bloom" nuggets of marinade market courage to come?
From the point of view of traditional Chinese food culture, consumers are looking for tongue satisfaction in the matter of marinara creativity and imagination. From a good dish for drinking to a casual snack, from the dinner table to the theater trip ..... The increasing scenarios and scope of consuming marinades are fueling the further development of the industry.
Related data show that in 2020, China's casual marinade products market size reached 123.5 billion yuan, with an average growth rate of 18% from 2015-2020, the fastest-growing category in casual food. It is expected that the next five years will continue to increase at an annual growth rate of 13%, and by 2025 the market size of halal products will exceed 220 billion yuan.
Of these, casual haloumi snacks accounted for 40% of the haloumi market, table haloumi products accounted for 60% and the market size of more than 200 billion yuan.
From the halogen products industry concentration and the major brands market share, Jiemei, Zhouheiduck, Huang Huang "tripod", and are mainly leisure halogen products, and their total market share of only 17%, the rest of the brand accounted for 79.8%, the concentration of leisure halogen segments of the track is relatively low.
As for the table marinated products track, it seems that only Ziyan Barilla Chicken is familiar. And according to the number of communities in China, the domestic market can accommodate 200,000 table marinade stores, so for table marinade brands, there is still huge room for growth in the market growth.
Decentralized industry pattern, hundreds of billions of dollars of blue ocean market and huge incremental space has become an important reason to attract new brands have entered the game. "Chrysanthemum bloom" crazy "horse enclosure", it is aimed at the table with unlimited possibilities of halogen products huge market and gold opportunities.
02 Capital story is greater than the flavor of the product
Good track everyone wants to enter, "Chrysanthemum open" how to take the lead? In a short period of time to make 900 stores?
Publicly available information shows that the first round of investment in the pot circle of food, led by the confusion of venture capital (Shanghai coincidental venture capital partnership) has also invested exclusively in the "chrysanthemum flower open".
August 12, 2019, the pot circle announced the completion of the 45 million A round of financing exclusively invested by Bu Bu Bu Venture Capital; in early 2020, "Chrysanthemum Blossom" completed Bu Bu Bu Venture Capital sole 10 million yuan angel round of financing.
From the point of view of the financing history of the two, Bewitched Venture Capital has always been throughout, which means that the pot circle food exchange and "chrysanthemum bloom" has the same "producer", the relationship between the two is extraordinary.
According to the "Henan Entrepreneurship Circle" report, "Chrysanthemum Blossom" spicy brine brand is operated by Henan Province's big Wang, the brand is held by Henan Zoushi Catering, "small bench bar type hot pot "Small bench bar hot pot", "pot food exchange" are from the hands of Yang Mingchao, the founder of the soft time.
Simply put, focusing on catering brand operation of the soft time to hold the "chrysanthemum bloom", and soft time founder Yang Mingchao is also the founder of the pot circle.
Uncovering the deeper relationship between Pot Circle and Chrysanthemum Blossom, it's not hard to find out that Yang Mingchao is the mastermind behind both Pot Circle and Chrysanthemum Blossom.
On the one hand is the "chrysanthemum bloom" that "wants to replace the food market brine store", on the other hand is the low-quality version of the "box horse hot pot" and "shuhai" pot circle. "The circle of pot.
In fact, the original genes of the pot circle and "chrysanthemum open" are focused on the "family table", the former focuses on the supply chain of kitchen ingredients for Chinese families, and the latter is a "family table scene air-dried spicy brine chain brand". The two are close to each other, and the relationship between the two is obvious.
Pot circle food sink and "chrysanthemum bloom" rely on the franchise model to open stores, in the same method of play has a similar growth rate.
It is important to know that the establishment of nearly four years of pot circle food in 2020 has more than 5,000 stores, as of July 2021, has covered 24 provinces, 3 municipalities directly under the central government and 200 municipalities, opened more than 7,000 stores in the country.
According to the statistics, the proportion of the stores of the pot circle in the third-tier and the following cities, reached about 58.71%. The positioning of "Chrysanthemum Blossom" is also surprisingly consistent: "third- and fourth-tier cities + community", specializing in the sinking market.
The same operator, the same capital side determines a similar development route and similar capital story, "Chrysanthemum open" in the marinara market soaring obviously can not be separated from the pot circle food hui "big brother" escort.
"Eat a really good flavor, once passing through Zhengzhou specifically to buy a time, want to join, ask to 70,000 or 80,000, but not with rent, and pay 10,000 management fee every year, even if, do not do leeks for many years!
"Each small store has its own taste preferences, a hundred stores hundred flavors, why replace others."
"Catering to join basically cut leeks! Do direct store is reliable"
......
From the netizen's trolling can be seen, the marinade market is always missing a good product rather than a good story, "chrysanthemum open" want to replace the market marinade store The dream of "Chrysanthemum Blossom" to replace the food market's brine shops seems to be difficult to realize.
Some people say that the brand of brine is no soul, which also confirms the fact that the brine industry has not yet formed the standardization of the development of the fact that the "standardization" challenge is "difficult to adjust the mouth", and the couple of wives outside the door of the popularity of brine store is also the reason that The unique and can not be standardized good taste.
03 Difficult to overcome, die in the C round?
According to the narrow dining eye, in 2020, the national restaurant opened about 2.5 million stores, closed about 3.55 million stores.
"Chrysanthemum bloom" must also face up to the fact that "closed store", "we have one here, less than a year, has been closed." Baidu netizen knife Jia blue cloud 59 said.
In the marinara track, not only has the listed Jelly Food, Zhou Hei Duck, Huang Shanghuang, and Ziyan Barilla Chicken seeking IPO, "Chrysanthemum bloom" is not the first by the capital market to see the brand.
Hong Chapter Capital founding partner Weng Yino believes that today's new brand investment and financing and the past many waves are not fundamentally different, "from the fresh food war to the community group purchasing, to the unmanned shelves, forward 10 years basically two or three themes a year, there is a feature - the C-round death. Next year's new consumer field, C-round death will reappear in the jungle."
Weng Yino added, "C-round death is not really dead, but sustained financing began to be difficult, can not see the growth, into the 'mid-life crisis' state."
Now, the frantic opening of the "chrysanthemum" has completed 100 million yuan of B round of financing, it will "die" in the C round?
The answer to this is to find from the "big brother" pot circle food sink.
September this year, the pot circle began to test the water marinade products, the pot circle APP "pot circle marinade" to become the home page of a separate category entrance, and uploaded nine "pot circle marinade Lara" brand products, including duck collarbone, marinade quail eggs, duck necks, duck wings, marinade chicken feet, ducks, ducks, ducks, ducks, ducks, ducks, ducks, ducks, ducks, ducks, ducks, ducks. Wings, marinated phoenix feet, duck head and other products, the price per box ranges from 9.9-22 yuan.
The product is positioned as a casual marinade with meals, and from the market development, marinade products with meals and casual marinade have been penetrating each other, just like coffee and new tea drinks, pots of marinade and "chrysanthemums" to form a category complementary to the role of paving the way for the market.
Additionally, because of the need for local delivery to ensure that the logistics time, currently only available in Henan Province, which is exactly the same as the "chrysanthemum bloom" base.
Why did the pot circle enter the field of marinade?
On the one hand, the pot circle is in the halal generally gained attention, there is growth potential to seize the market; on the other hand, the focus of the hot pot barbecue product layout is restrictive, the pot circle's strategy is to business categories from pure one-stop hot pot barbecue ingredients to the family ingredients to move forward, and the expansion of the category of its family ingredients, including fresh fruits, spicy marinade and fast food, halal to help the pot circle to open up a new business and consumption scenarios.
And the pot circle and the "chrysanthemum bloom" to maintain a low-key and mysterious relationship, seems to be the pot circle do not want to let the "negative brand image" transferred to the "chrysanthemum bloom" on the body, and do not want to franchisee turncoat wave again. The franchisee's fall from grace is once again on the cards.
"At present, many franchisees are ready to withdraw from the store, feel a round of franchisees to come to the tide." According to a recent report in the Times, a franchisee said, "In order to rush GMV, Pot Circle Food Exchange requires franchisees to do promotions and sell at a loss. In order to increase the number of stores, they also violated their previous agreement with franchisees by laying low-cost shop-in-shops inside the Wumi supermarket, which had a big impact on nearby franchisees."
From the franchisee's feedback, the pot circle food hui mainly rely on the collection of management fees and ingredients supply costs, the brand advantage is not obvious, despite the main supply chain, but the product does not have its own unique characteristics, pot circle of the franchise business want to make money and even listed, not to serve the franchisee is absolutely not work.
The so-called "brand upgrading" of the pot circle, the category will be expanded to hot pot, barbecue, pre-prepared dishes, etc., only to get rid of the hot pot ingredients off-season differentiation, broaden the revenue move, the current effect is not obvious.
Today's pot circle want to break through the "low gross profit", you must transform the traditional food supply chain road. Similarly, "Chrysanthemum Blossom" can achieve the standardized development of technology, but also rely on the scale of productivity, store supply chain perfect degree and the layout of the regional market strategy.
The long road is long, whether it is the desire to list the pot circle or efforts to cross the C round of "chrysanthemum open", with the quality and taste to win the customer's word of mouth is the unchanging truth, cut a leek on the run of the set of ways not to.