At 6 p.m., Wang Yi (a pseudonym) opened his light meal on time.

This is a light food store he spent 1,200 yuan in a customized "30-day package", which is delivered to his home on time every day, from the dragon fish, chicken breast and vegetables into a combination of light dinner, in his opinion, "although the taste is not as good as the traditional diet, but in order to lose weight can not be cared about. It's not as good as a traditional diet, but I don't think I'm going to care."

Are you a "grazer"?

Nowadays, the wind of light food is prevailing in the domestic young groups. I believe you must have friends around you who are "eating grass". Maybe it's the idea of healthy living, or maybe it's the anxiety of the face and body, so more and more young people are joining the "light food family" or "herbivorous family".

It is estimated that the scale of China's light food industry is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan in three years, and gradually account for about 10% of total food and beverage revenue in five years.

The outbreak of the light food trend has attracted countless young people, and has also been recognized by the business opportunities. For a while, light food stores emerged in the gym, residential neighborhoods around, as well as a number of takeaway platform. But the impact of fierce competition and serious homogenization has also made many newcomers feel the reality of the cruelty, a little carelessness will be eliminated from the game.

Some people enter, some people exit, in order to grab the market, more and more light food store owners are no longer limited to casual orders. Some of them try to launch a "30-day package", and some try to cooperate with the gym and other institutions to get a more stable order.

"Despite the ups and downs of the light food industry, as long as there are people who have a need to lose weight, then there is a natural market for light food." Zhang Yong (a pseudonym), who still runs a light food store, said.

"Eating grass" wind rise:

face value anxiety, body anxiety to promote the market outbreak

After the end of the gym, Wang Ke (a pseudonym) habitually into the gym next to the light food store

After the end of the gym, Wang Ke (a pseudonym) into a light food store.

In recent years, the domestic young consumer groups in the "light food culture" is gradually emerging. The so-called "light food" is not a specific food, but a form of catering. Cold, boiled, steamed and other methods of cooking, to provide consumers with low-fat, low-calorie, low-sugar and high-fiber, high satiety food. Under the premise of ensuring a normal dietary structure and a certain amount of calories, the pursuit of simple, balanced, healthy diet concept.

Behind the outbreak of light food, which is jokingly called "grazing" by young people, is the gradual rise of young people's face value anxiety and body anxiety in recent years. According to the "2021 Netizen Body Anxiety Report" released by Stranger, about 54.1% of netizens have body anxiety, 46.4% of netizens think they need to lose weight, and the proportion of women is even higher, with 54.3% of female netizens believing they are too fat.

The young people's pursuit of many businesses to see the business opportunities. Soon, more and more light food stores emerged in gyms, residential neighborhoods around, as well as a number of takeaway platforms.

"Light food is a new type of diet born from the pursuit of health by young people. This preference is not only seen by many traditional food and beverage brands, countless newcomers to the industry for the first time also hope to cut into the track to realize profits." Wang Ke said.

Light food business:

Low-calorie, meta, and fancy, all to catch the young people's stomach

At 10:30 a.m., the light food store operated by Zhang Yong (a pseudonym) is gradually bustling. The chef was busy cooking the lobster, chicken breast and other ingredients after slicing, the waiter will be a light food box labeled delivery ticket, waiting for the delivery boy took over and rushed to the distribution of various customers.

Zhang Yong said, open the light food store's original intention stems from the epidemic, around a lot of friends because of the house at home caused by the fat have expressed plans to lose weight. This has previously operated a number of years of traditional catering Zhang Yong sprouted the idea of transitioning to a light food store.

Intended to do light food, Zhang Yong alone at home to do a long time of research. He bought kale, cabbage, dragon fruit, dragon fish, chicken breast and other ingredients to study cooking and collocation, ran throughout the city to try the taste of each light food store dishes, and record the strengths and weaknesses of peers, in order to develop their own menu.

After many attempts, he launched a few staple light food to win the friends around the affirmation. 2020 September, the confidence of Zhang Yong smashed down 100,000 yuan in Sichuan hometown officially opened a light food store.

Zhang Yong has done a portrait of the consumer groups, he found that the choice of light food customer groups are mainly young people after 90, the needs of this group is focused on the "beauty" and "thin", which makes him in the choice of dishes, design menu are deliberately to the "low-calorie", "low-calorie", "low-calorie", "low-calorie", "low-calorie", "low-calorie", "low-calorie". "Low-calorie", "energy" and "healthy" as a selling point, "in addition to taking into account the habits of young people who like to take pictures, in the dishes placed also need to do design, so as to allow photos Need to do the design, in order to make the photo taken out particularly exquisite."

Today, Zhang Yong can sell more than 40 light meals a day. He has done the math, excluding costs such as rent, utilities and labor, he can earn about 20,000 yuan per month. If you maintain this income, you can recover the cost in almost half a year.

But what he doesn't dare to slacken on is the fact that more and more counterparts are appearing in the market due to the rise of the light food trend. The competition in the light food industry has also become quite fierce.

Li Tao (a pseudonym), who has been running a light food business in Jiangsu for many years, also feels the great pressure of competition.

"In the past, there were not many stores specializing in light food around, and now there are 3 or 4 on this street alone." Li Tao said, "To survive from this, operators need to put more thought into designing dishes, as well as improving the quality of light food."

Li Tao operated by the light food store mainly fruit and vegetable salads, but also attracted a lot of eager to lose weight customers, "light food will strictly control the calories of the ingredients. Usually the traditional food and drink to the human body to bring calories in 1200 calories up and down, and light food is only 350 calories. Long-term adherence to definitely have a slimming effect."

But it's not easy to make customers like "grazing". The core selling point of light food is health, which means the ingredients must be fresh. "Light food is usually lighter in flavor, the customer is easy to eat the original flavor of the food, if not fresh, it is easy to lose customers because of the quality."

Li Tao is also on the menu every day to drill updates, "peers are coming out of the new categories, if your dishes are always the same, customers will soon lose interest."

Harder than expected:

Offline fiasco online survival is not easy price war work?

Despite the fact that the light food market is heating up, it's not a good business.

In fact, behind the explosion of the light food business, there did appear a large number of light food stores due to poor management, business depression and other reasons eventually disappeared in the market.

"Unlike traditional restaurants that adopt the model of synchronized online and offline sales, small-scale light food stores are more focused on online sales. Offline only opened near the gym to have a stable business, and it is difficult to get guests elsewhere." Han Fei (a pseudonym), who now only does online, said he once failed miserably in the operation of offline stores.

At the end of 2019, Han Fei, who is interested in the light food business, rented a store in a prime location on a local pedestrian street and opened a light food offline store. Originally thought that with the influence of the light food wind, as well as the store and opened in the location of the young people concentrated, should not worry about business. But to his surprise, usually into the store customers are not much, and even on weekends there are only sporadic flow of people into the store to consume. And next to the traditional restaurant counterparts, customer traffic is only 30% of the other side.

An inquiry, Han Fei realized that the original in addition to keen fitness crowd will choose light food every day, more young people to treat light food is often just a whim, and after shopping more inclined to traditional food. "In addition to those brands of light food stores can continue to operate offline, small individual brands simply can not support the loss of physical stores." Han Fei said.

But online is equally bad. Light food industry threshold is low, but in order to ensure the freshness of the ingredients, usually take the cold chain transportation, which invariably raises the operating costs. In addition, many newcomers in the dish design often copy each other, the ingredients used are mostly similar, which makes the market more and more serious homogenization, in order to pull customers, businessmen eventually fell into a price war.

"Previously, a light meal price in more than 40 yuan, profit almost 20 yuan. And now in order to grab customers, the price has been lowered to 30 yuan out." But the price cut still did not bring a lot of orders for Han Fei, he found that many of his peers have also taken the way of price cuts, and even reduced the price to more than 20 yuan, "this selling price deducted costs may be a few dollars profit, there is no stable large number of orders, then, simply can not do it."

Another reason for Han Fei and his peers to be anxious is that the sales of light food is also significantly affected by the season. "Usually the summer business is much better, and after September sales decline significantly, may have to wait until December to rebound." Now Han Fei's light food store in the summer order volume in the 2000 single each month, while the highest order volume in the fall and winter only more than 400 single, "Customers in the fall and winter are hoping to eat some hot food, and cold food-based light food is naturally unpopular."

In addition, more let small practitioners worry about is that the freshness of the dishes determine the quality of light food. But how to balance between ensuring quality and reducing the purchase price has become a difficult problem in front of them. Zhang Yong has tried to talk to the supplier about the price, but ultimately did not reach an agreement, "the supplier needs to be how many goods you must enter every day before you are willing to give a more favorable price, but on the scale of the present, certainly can not eat that large amount."

The cruelty of the industry's reality is also constantly dissuading newcomers. "Previously there was a peer group, the most time there are nearly a hundred store owners, we discuss dishes, seasonings, and prices, and now it feels like every day someone disappears from it." Han Fei said.

Transformation of the light food store fumbling:

Push 30 days customization, and cooperation with the gym, a stable source of customers is more important

According to public information, 2014 is considered to be the first year of the light food salad. In this year, the first batch of domestic salad brands such as Miyu Salad and Sweetheart Rock Salad appeared on the market. 2015 to 2017, the light food market continued to explode, more and more entrepreneurs pouring into it, while some brands including Miyu Salad and Sweetheart Rock Salad were supported by capital.

But the lively scene changed after 2018. At that time, the industry reshuffle, a number of light food brands because of poor management and other reasons gradually withdrew, the capital then cooled down, the market gradually tends to be rational.

Although the market is constantly eliminating practitioners, light food is still attracting an influx of newcomers.

The difference is that in addition to daily retail, the newcomers are also beginning to seek a more secure development path.

"More and more light eateries are adopting the '30-day customization' model. This can provide some protection for both customer orders and revenue." Zhang Yong's store also launched this package, he set the price at 900 yuan, 1,200 yuan and 1,800 yuan of different standards to match the corresponding dishes, and suggested that some acquaintances with a high rate of repurchase to choose the 30-day period of light food customization.

"In this way, not only do we have relatively stable sales, but more importantly, we can also avoid the takeout platform's drawbacks, and our profits are higher than before." Now Zhang Yong and a local delivery company to cooperate, the delivery company is responsible for daily delivery, "customers do not have to spend time every day to pick, just need to wait for the light food to be delivered to the door."

Li Tao has also started to try to work with gyms.

"Light food, although the unit price can easily be 30 or 40 yuan a copy, but in addition to the ingredients, cold chain transportation and the platform share of the reasons, the profit is not high." Li Tao said, "Instead of receiving unknown bulk orders online, we should take the initiative to seek a more stable source of customers."

In order to win the goodwill of the fitness crowd, Li Tao not only invited a professional dietitian to design the menu, but also deliberately calculate the calories contained in each dish one by one, and will be displayed on the dishes, "fitness people are particularly sensitive to calorie intake, to get this crowd is more difficult than the average consumer, however, once recognized, the brand's adhesion is also higher than the bulk of the customers. ."

Although the current operation is not easy, Zhang Yong still has confidence in the light food market. "Although the light food industry has had its ups and downs over the years, the explosion of the market, as well as the growth rate of customers make it perhaps another hundred billion dollar market in the catering industry in the future." Zhang Yong said, "After all, as long as there are people who have a need to lose weight, then there is a natural market for light food."