It is reported that Anhui Laociangjiao Catering Co., Ltd (hereinafter referred to as "Laociangjiao") signed a listing counseling agreement with Guoyuan Securities at the end of September, and then filed a record with Anhui Securities Regulatory Bureau to prepare for listing on the main board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
As one of the representative enterprises of Chinese catering, Laoxiangjiao started in Anhui, and now it is fighting for the whole country, in the end, what is the attraction, and what thresholds does it need to cross on the road to IPO?
Tracking back to the roots, Laoxiang chicken was first established in 2003, as a native of Anhui brand, not only in Anhui to do the first Chinese fast food industry, but also successfully "out of the circle", from the region to broaden the territory of the country.
October 2003, Laoxiang chicken predecessor "Feixi old hen" of the first fast-food restaurant in Hefei officially opened for business, followed by rapid development; in March 2012, Feixi old hen spent 50 million yuan for brand upgrading, officially renamed "Laoxiang chicken "; in 2018, Laoshang Chicken Catering received RMB 200 million in Series B financing, invested by Jiahua Capital; in 2019, its directly-managed stores across the country reached more than 800; in 2020, Laoshang Chicken announced at the strategic conference that it had officially entered Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and other cities.
Currently, Laoxiangjiao has more than 1,000 stores nationwide.
Additionally, netizens in cities without Laoxiang Chicken have lined up to call out the chairman of the board of directors, enough to glimpse the extent of its fire.
A brand that is on fire all over the country, but also fire to hundreds of millions of netizens heart, why?
From 0 to 1000, the success of Laoxiang chicken, from its continuous strategic innovation and change.
Who would have thought that a chain restaurant brand would come out of a chicken farm?
The predecessor of Laoxiang Chicken is called "Feixi old hen", the founder of the bunch from the Xuan is Anhui Feixi people, grew up in the army. 1982 from the army to transfer, the bunch from the Xuan back to his hometown of Feixi County, out of the marriage of the parents to give the 1,800 yuan to buy 1,000 chickens, focus on entrepreneurship, and has been with the "chicken" to fight with the "chicken". The "chicken" career.
He was so young and willing to do the hard work of research that he even lived directly in the chicken coop for seven years. Ten years later, Shuang became the biggest chicken farmer in Anhui province, selling hundreds of thousands of chickens a month.
With more and more farmers, an oversupply in the market and a long period of stagnant prices, Shu realized that the time had come for a change.
During this period, foreign fast-food brands entered the Chinese market. An accidental opportunity,束从轩得到餐饮业特许经营的培训信息，他带团队进去学习3天，第一次深入了解快餐业和连锁经营行业。
Shuang Congxuan saw the huge growth of the fast food industry and decided to open a restaurant to combine catering and his old profession of farming, while taking the road of fast food chain, with chicken soup as the core product.
No one's entrepreneurial journey is smooth sailing, Laoxiang chicken is also so. 2003, beam from the Xuan opened the first fast-food restaurant, the resulting dishes and operating costs are too high, the end of the year clear accounts, all the losses, beam from the Xuan invited a professional manager, and staff training and fine-tuning management, which is the first major change; and then, due to the expansion of the brand name, the name in the "Feixi", "Feixi", the name of the "Xiexi". Then, due to brand expansion, the name of the "Feixi" local color is too thick, it is difficult to expand to the country, bundle from the Xuan bear the pain, in 2011 to start the positioning strategy, in 2012, the brand name was officially renamed "Laoxiang Chicken", which is the second major change. The third change in 20016, Laoxiang chicken successively stationed in Nanjing, Wuhan and other cities, and in 2018, the acquisition of Wuhan Yonghe, the pace of national expansion officially accelerated.
By 2020, under the influence of the epidemic, Shuu Congxuan did an online national strategy conference, announcing that Laoxiang chicken officially entered Beijing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and other cities. And this year, the fast-food chain stood in front of the IPO gates.
As we all know, Chinese food is much harder to make into a chain than Western food.
Western recipes pay attention to the precise, do fast-food chain of standardization of the water into the canal, but Chinese food pay attention to the chef's "feeling", all rely on the fire and technology. So, what is the backbone of Laoxiang chicken to hit the IPO?
As the saying goes, the small opportunity to rely on luck, the big trend to spell time, a look at the industry benchmarks, will find that they are all, without exception, patient hikers. Stores over 10,000 KFC, McDonald's, is in the 80s layout of the world, and pry the entire Chinese food and beverage market Laoxiang chicken has been adhering to the long-term returns, Laoxiang chicken has two major killer apps.
1. Product level: do let the user screaming products
Shuang from Xuan said: "do business must have a good product, the product is 1, the rest are all 0."
The good or bad of the product is related to the brand of the enterprise.
Quality quality, quality in the first, quality in the second, as long as the quality is good, your brand and reputation will naturally be good.
If your product is not good enough, the brand is likely to be a negative score, then no one will buy.
Founded in 2003, Laoxiang Chicken has had countless opportunities to expand in a big way. But for a long enough period of time, Laoxiang chicken only do one thing, focus, focus on the product. It wasn't until the group as a whole figured out how to do it that Laoshang Chicken went on the regional offensive in 2016.
In the choice of raw materials, and beam from the Xuan chicken principles, Laoxiang chicken "refused to use instant chicken", insisting on the use of more than half a year of green healthy chicken, different from the foreign fast food commonly used in the instant white feather chicken.
This product has given Laohsiung Chicken a firm foothold in the market.
In terms of distribution, Laoshang Chicken has a central kitchen in Hefei, covering an area of 60,000 square meters, with a capacity to supply 1,200 restaurants, which ensures that all Laoshang Chicken's dishes are standardized raw and clean vegetables delivered to transparent kitchens for on-site cooking;
In addition to this, Laoshang Chicken has also built its own 4,000-ton cold storage facility as well as its own constant-temperature cold-chain logistics fleet, which is available to all its restaurants for one day of distribution, ensuring that the ingredients are delivered to all restaurants. distribution, maximizing the freshness of the ingredients.
Laohsiung Chicken is one of the few companies that has its own production, supply and marketing system. It has built a nearly complete supply chain system of farming, slaughtering, processing, distribution and refrigeration.
This fully proves that supply chain management is a breakthrough to enhance the competitiveness of enterprises, but also catering enterprises are urgently needed to dig the gold mine.
2. Strategic level: brand power is a booster
2011, the fat west old hen profit of 6 million yuan, beam from the Xuan decided to take out 4 million yuan as a consulting fee, asked Trout to assist in its strategic positioning.
However, the first program Trout gave was a name change.
At that time, "Feixi Old Hen" was known to everyone in Anhui Province, and changing its name was a "fatal" move.
"Feixi old hen", in Anhui this is actually a good name, but to go to the whole country, was very limited, because it is difficult to be effectively perceived in other places.
New customers are making decisions based on simple information like a name.
Shuang Congxuan changed the name from "Feixi Old Mother Hen" to "Laoxiang Chicken", and changed the name from "Special Old Mother Hen Fast Food" to "Anhui's Largest Fast Food Chain". Anhui's largest fast-food chain", making the brand image immediately perceivable.
Woodruff, the former president of Coca-Cola, once said that even if the entire Coca-Cola Company is reduced to ashes overnight, he can immediately rise again with the brand name "Coca-Cola". Why? Because a brand is an amplifier of value. The brand is an amplifier of value, and Laoxiangchicken has stuck to it.
After the strategic upgrade, Laohsiung Chicken did not venture into the market, but continued to plow the Anhui market for four years.
It wasn't until 2016 that Laoshiang Chicken began to expand outward into cities such as Wuhan, Nanjing and Shanghai, with the total number of stores exceeding 400, and now it has exceeded 800, with annual sales of more than 3 billion!
In 2018, Laoshang Chicken got a financing of RMB 200 million from Jiahua Weiye, and for a while, Laoshang Chicken became a star company in the fast food market.
Laoshang Chicken, which has developed from Anhui to the whole country, has seen its profit turn 30 times in 5 years.Laoshang Chicken, which has always been committed to providing users with more value, has not only worked on its products and brand, but also attached great importance to the consumer experience.
1. Insist on 24-hour business
Laoxiang chicken most stores are practicing 24-hour business, which is a condition to compete with foreign fast-food brands, and provide around-the-clock takeaway delivery service. In addition, Laoxiangjiao's stores are mainly located in business districts not far from people's residential areas, and are positioned as 24-hour "community canteens".
This location makes it possible for customers to get there at the turn of a corner and eat 24 hours a day.
2. Insist on not sacrificing the user experience
Behind the catering business, not only is a mature business model, but also to face the challenge of consumer upgrading.
In the past, the standardization of fast food was to cope with the sudden increase in the demand for dining out, to improve the efficiency of the meal, to facilitate the scale of the brand, inevitably sacrificing some taste.
But in the wave of consumer upgrading, consumer demand for catering enterprises not only stay in the level of food, but more diversified. For example, the taste of the meal, decoration design style, restaurant service experience are reference standards.
In order to increase the consumer experience, different from the traditional Chinese fast food set meal form, Laoxiang chicken does not sell set meals, insisting that customers order food, so that customers can take their favorite dishes on demand.
In consideration of consumer spending habits and the continuous upgrading of the consumer experience, the new stores to "green" as the basis for the Laoxiang Chicken to "nutrition", "health", "intimate", "warm" and other images to occupy the minds of consumers of all ages.
In the change of consumption pattern, the casual dining represented by Laoxiangjiao is more likely to catch young consumers.
3. Insisting on creating a family kitchen
Besides the ultimate in environment and cuisine, Shuu Congxuan also hopes that the new-generation stores can make customers feel at home and comfortable.
In order to make customers feel at home, the family kitchen is mostly filled with home-cooked food.
Laoxiang Chicken also specially designed a self-help area in the new-generation store. It provides free hot water, barley tea, clean cutlery, and children's spoons specially prepared for kids.
These humanized services, infinitely close to the family rituals of the dining atmosphere, giving customers a super-expected consumer experience.
And these super-expected user experience, become the deepest moat of Laoxiang chicken. And behind the change of Laoxiang chicken, seemingly because of consumer upgrading, in fact, the root is still from the insight of the user's needs.
China's catering market has huge potential at present, with 9.4 million catering stores and 30 million employees, and the compound growth rate of the market is nearly 10%.
And Chinese fast food is undoubtedly the largest track in the catering industry.
Nowadays, whether it is the old brand that has been practicing for many years, or the young brand is seeking for new changes, what is the way out?
From 16 years to do the first Chinese fast food Laoxiang chicken can be seen, if you want to remain competitive, must find an advantage category, patiently re-do, re-pricing again.
Currently, the epidemic seems to have a resurgence of the trend of uncertainty, no one is not difficult, but the truth is that the strongest can eventually sneak restart.
From a small store in Hefei, to Chinese fast food No. 1, Laoxiang Chicken has exploded across the country, opening 978 directly-managed stores, and selling 20 million servings of freshly boiled chicken soup every year. This has never been a story of overnight success. It's a story of perseverance toward a lighthouse, day by day.
Not everyone can get a perfect score, but improving from 60 to 80 is something everyone can do. Think deeper, be more conscientious, pay attention to every detail, and you'll enjoy the dividends of the times.
Remember at all times: do things in good faith and have your own future.