Two days ago, Xibei, Nine Mau Nine, Laoxiang Chicken, and Le Caesar jointly appealed to the government to introduce policies to alleviate the more affected industries in the epidemic, and to solve the problem of capital flow turnover. Xibei Avena Village even said that 20,000 employees will need 150 million yuan for a month's salary, and the current capital situation can only support three months of payroll.

In fact, this is to put it bluntly, these several catering enterprises, is to hope that the financial institutions can put some money out, and reduce some interest. Many people may be very unhappy, making money, how do not see you donate more out.

We do not do moral abduction, I believe that if not forced, should not be at this point in time to say these words. These are some of the best-run catering companies in the country, both in terms of market size and profitability, and they should be at the top of their game. If these few catering enterprises are not able to survive, some other catering enterprises that are already struggling on the survival line may face even greater difficulties, just because of the limited influence and the inability to make a sound.

We can all understand that the brick-and-mortar sector has been affected by the epidemic, but why didn't the apparel companies say anything, the cell phone industry didn't say anything, and it was the restaurant industry that sank to the bottom of the barrel?

1, the online system is more fragile

The same as the entity industry clothing, electronics, although the physical store accounted for a certain proportion, but when the epidemic came, this demand can also be translated into online shopping.

Dining as one of the most difficult to standardize the industry, network sales performance is very fragile. Although there are Meituan, Hungry Mou these platforms delivery, but they are more in line with the low-end fast food restaurants mainly takeaway. For the middle and high-end restaurants, the output of takeaway must not be as good as dine-in. So whether it's Xibei or Ninety Nine Cents, it's all about focusing on the dine-in, and Taiji Pickled Fish doesn't even offer a takeaway service as a way to differentiate itself from low-end restaurants.

The difficulty with takeout is that it is 45 minutes from the merchant to the customer's hand, a time gap that reduces the experience to the "full" standard.

2, heavy asset investment

The dining room-based catering industry, there are three: heavy hardware investment, heavy staff salaries, heavy wear and tear burden.

Take Westbay as an example, many people think that Westbay earns so much money, is there only 500 million cash flow on the books? In fact, most of the money West Bay profits are invested in the opening of new stores. A store opening requires heavy renovation and expensive rent. A considerable amount of money needs to be invested in each store opening. Xibei didn't try to develop franchises for a few cities until this year, and before that the stores were all directly managed.

Employee salaries account for more than 30% of the cost of food and beverage, especially in the case of dine-in-oriented, large-scale restaurant brands, this burden is very heavy. We can often also see a medium-sized restaurant, there will be more than a dozen waiters busy, plus the back of the kitchen chef, staff salary expenses are very large.

Dining loss is also particularly large, can run a good restaurant, in addition to taste, the most important thing is to control the loss, when the epidemic appeared, consumption plummeted, the loss will certainly increase, and procurement costs will increase.

Like this year, this large-scale public **** epidemic prevention events, in fact, for all walks of life, belong to a very small probability of events. No one will take this risk into account at the outset, but once it occurs, it is a fatal blow to the catering industry. Even once, it may drain decades of accumulation.

Xibei is appealing to the government for help while also actively rescuing itself. In the past two days, Westbay has resumed takeout business at some of its stores. Although it is a drop in the bucket for the hundreds of millions of dollars of expenses every month, it can also see the future development of the restaurant industry.

As the boss of the domestic catering industry, Haidilao's style has always been very similar to Ali, and has never been at the forefront of the industry. Early on, they realized that the labor-intensive catering industry has a low ability to withstand risks. So while exploring the unmanned restaurant, once again in the increase in the share of takeaway.

The Internetization and intelligence of the restaurant industry will greatly reduce operating costs, and in an ideal supply chain state, the daily demand for food will be accurately predicted. The store is divided into takeaway stores and dine-in stores, and dine-in stores are more about selling scenarios in addition to selling food. And in the case of dine-in stores because of the unexpected risk of impact, the smaller takeaway stores can meet the needs of users to order food at home.

Less labor, more reasonable loss, smaller footprint, can make the restaurant industry "lighter", in the face of unexpected risks, have a stronger ability to resist.

To do less labor, loss, in addition to intelligent technology, more important is the standardization of catering. In fact, the catering industry can develop into a chain of giants, standardization has been done to a certain extent. Because any restaurant that strongly relies on the individual level of the chef is difficult to develop and grow.

Haidilao chose hot pot, a catering category that is easier to standardize, so it has come to the forefront in the takeaway field, and its takeaway revenue in 2018 has exceeded 300 million, an increase of more than 50% over 2017.

But as Xibei and Jiumaojiu, which have more stringent requirements for taste, how can they balance the convenience and taste of takeout. From the software part, you can open more intensive takeaway stores, establish your own delivery team, and improve the delivery time. From the hardware part, you can develop intelligent cooking equipment, more accurate simulation of manual operation.

After SARS in 2003, ushered in the rapid development of e-commerce, reducing the cost of standardized products, and indirectly improve the risk resistance of standardized products. 2020 this new pneumonia, finally let the catering industry aware of the crisis and risk.

But the good thing is that our level of the Internet and the level of intelligence has reached a high level, so that the catering industry's unmanned and standardized will come more easily.

The restaurant of the future, there may not be a waiter to receive your order, there will not be a large number of cutting vegetables, washing vegetables workers, and even the chef will become a kitchen manager.

You may think this is pie in the sky, but the trend has actually been advancing, you just haven't noticed. Imagine how many small restaurants are now adopting small programs and public ordering, and how many large restaurants are adopting smart terminals for ordering. Waiters have been reduced by more than 70% in many restaurants.

In the back of the kitchen, the previous traditional sense of "chef" is no longer available, more in accordance with the standardized process of adding food called material chef, with how much oil, how much salt, how much pepper, are mixed into a standard bag. An electronic meter also appears in front of the frying pan. Even if you do not have professional culinary training, you will be able to follow the uniform standards to make the taste of the meal. In the future, it may be that a robotic arm, or a machine, replaces all this labor.