Recently, catering circles are discussing the two "net red" Lanzhou ramen stores in Shanghai: Chen Xianggui, Ma Jiyong, have been valued at 1 billion level, especially Sequoia Capital have thrown an olive branch.
These two brands currently have only a dozen stores, and how did they manage to achieve such a high valuation without reaching the number of stores required by these big brands in the market?
Two new faces of Lanzhou ramen appeared in Shanghai, with sophisticated and trendy decorations, refreshing the perception of traditional ramen restaurants, and the unit price was instantly pulled up from ten dollars a bowl to 26 yuan.
According to Catering O2O observation, the core element for Lanzhou Ramen to gain capital attention and heavy investment is image upgrade + product portfolio, which improves profitability.
2020 Catering O2O organized by the Shanghai Catering Study Group, into the Chen Xianggui, when there were only three stores, the highest single-month performance of a million.
01
Street food is famous all over the world
Nearly 2,000 super first-tier cities
Starting from "a panel, two pots, two benches and a table" street food, Lanzhou beef noodle by the marketplace store, has developed into a large industry with more than 50,000 stores around the world
And revenue of more than 80 billion yuan. The market revenue of more than 80 billion yuan.
From a humble street-side workshop to a well-decorated food culture label, Lanzhou beef noodle has a history of over a hundred years and has spread to all major cities in mainland China, and enjoys the reputation of "China's First Noodle".
According to statistics, there are nearly 2,000 Lanzhou beef noodle stores in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other super first-tier cities***, including more than 520 stores in Shanghai, accounting for more than a quarter.
Why Shanghai has the most Lanzhou ramen, according to the Catering O2O Study Group: First, because the Shanghai people love noodles, especially good fine noodles; Second, in the early years of many Henan and Anhui people in Shanghai opened a lot of home gang noodles, fusion of the ground, especially the new style of Lanzhou ramen noodle shop.
Lanzhou beef noodles, founded in 1915, is world-renowned for its unique style of "clear soup mirror, rotten meat aroma, thin noodles long".
The authentic Lanzhou noodles are characterized by "one clear, three red, four green", one clear (soup), two white (radish white), three red (chili oil red), four green (cilantro, garlic green), five yellow (noodles yellow).
Lanzhou beef ramen has long been out of the local, and even said out of the country, according to official statistics, Lanzhou beef noodle more than a hundred "Lanzhou beef ramen" noodle shop to the world, distributed in Russia, Canada, Singapore, Japan, the United States, Brazil and more than 40 countries and regions.
Ordinary white dough is pulled out in a dozen seconds, the width and shape of the noodles, coupled with the pure Chinese flavor, by foreigners called the ramen master is an artist.
02
Playing a good point to find out the gene
Upgrade Lanzhou ramen category Chen Xianggui
Chen Xianggui brand was founded in 2020, from the beginning of the creation of a hot business opportunity popularity, entrepreneurial market is also very good, and get a lot of consumers consistent love and recognition.
The founder, Jiang Jun, has been floating in the catering industry in Shanghai for many years, and is good at drilling and loves to learn (participating in the Catering O2O Xijia De Study Group in 2019), plus he is a Gansu man, playing his own genes and specializing in the point of upgrading the Lanzhou ramen category.
According to the popular review, Chen Xianggui has opened 22 stores in Shanghai, and there are 30 more stores to open, the momentum is very fierce.
Insiders summarize the success of Chen Xianggui:
1, naming the strategy? Seize the high point of Lanzhou ramen
Brand name is the first point of contact between the consumer and the brand, the founder of the naming of a strong authenticity, such as Wang Laoji, Zhong Xuegao, Ye Maozhong, Ma Zhiyong, and so on; Chen Xianggui's name gives people an unknown sense of authenticity.
Then talk about the category name Lanzhou beef noodles, since ancient times Lanzhou is synonymous with authentic beef noodles, seize the Lanzhou beef noodles category name, directly seize the category high ground.
2, amplify the "free noodles" reason to enter the store
In the middle of the store, clearly see the "free noodles" this four words, which solves the problem of those who want to eat noodles but afraid of not eating enough to fill up the crowd's pain point.
It is worth noting that the words "free noodle refills" are not placed on the menu, but on the most prominent decoration of the store, the words and images of the enlargement, so that this reason to enter the store more authoritative.
3, poster main KV products? Trust clarity
The main KV in addition to showing the brand's core products, the core function is to allow consumers to quickly order.
Chen Xianggui's main poster, is to allow consumers to order a portion of beef ramen, and then order a lamb kebabs, but also in the product below also indicates the trust status, to dispel the doubts of consumers to buy.
4, the signboard product decorative presentation
The door of the three ceiling billboards to further strengthen the type of product, such as steel braided beef skewers, Lanzhou snacks, hand-held mutton, the three pieces of display, is to allow consumers to quickly make a choice.
A similar display, a long time ago lamb skewers, in the display of its signature products have also been used.
5, advertising slogan to strengthen the attributes of Lanzhou
Chen Xianggui advertising slogan is: "dream back to Lanzhou", which also emphasizes its authentic Lanzhou ramen attributes.
The descendant, Chen Xianggui, came out of Lanzhou and left the Yellow River water, which means that the founder, a northwestern man with a strong iron backbone, turned his thoughts about his "hometown stomach" into a bowl of beef noodles.
03
A bowl of ramen sells for $26
Accelerating the layout of shopping malls
Inside the visit to the Ma Jiyong Lanzhou Beef Noodle, unlike the store on the street, this location in the negative layer of the shopping mall next to the Lotus Road metro station in Shanghai food area.
First of all, the image of the store is refreshing
The style is created with saturated blue and wood colors, whether it's the store sign, decorations, or the uniforms of the staff, the bright blue color is placed on the whole food layer is very eye-catching.
Secondly, the overall dining space is clean, bright and sophisticated.
The ramen stalls are placed directly on the surface, and what you see is what you get as soon as you enter.
Shop tables and chairs and benches all big change, and the overall style with the overall style, and a bit of design, breaking the low-end impression of the Lanzhou ramen store, giving a feeling of a big chain restaurant stores.
Third, the tableware has been upgraded.
The tableware is made of large celadon bowls with a delicate wooden tray underneath.
The kebabs are placed in a reddish-brown wooden tray instead of the stainless steel tray commonly used in fast food restaurants, and the texture is very advanced. The restaurant also uses brass cups for the red date tea it serves to customers.
Fourth, customers order electronically, sitting on the location to scan the code to order.
After the meal is served, it is delivered directly to the front by the store attendant. Customers can directly check out online after eating, completely self-service ordering and checkout process.
The store's beef ramen is not cheap, beef ramen is about 26 dollars, there are hairy fine, leek leaves and other 8 types of noodles can choose.
There are also snacks such as kebabs, cold vegetables and meat buns, and a handful of desserts such as egg mash and sweet embryo, all focusing on Northwest cuisine.
Image
"Innovative" Lanzhou ramen, led by Ma Jiyong, Chen Xianggui and Zhang Lala, is "transforming" itself by opening stores in shopping malls. Ma Jiyong has opened 14 stores in Shanghai, with 17 more to come.
Personally, I think Ma Jiyong has put a lot of effort into the design of its products, combining modern elements with traditional culture. The combination of modern elements and traditional culture is good, but there is still room to strengthen the quality control of the signboard noodles, after all, the only way to do a good job is to make the noodles themselves, and everything else is just icing on the cake.
04
The same frequency as the market
Active change is better than passive adjustment
As the largest segment of the catering industry, snacks are deservedly "king of the money", many brands beach red sea, fierce competition.
What we can do is to think about the individual through the essence of the survey, adhere to the same frequency with the market, active change is better than passive adjustment.
1, brand chain
Marketing guru Philip Kotler believes that: "The brand is a name, a noun, a mark, a design or a combination of them. Its purpose is to identify the product of a seller or a group of sellers, and to distinguish it from competitors' products."
In this red sea market competition, the serious homogenization of the catering model so that practitioners began to think, whether it is an emerging brand or a traditional brand, to stand out, only the brand power is the most difficult to copy the moat.
The only way to make a brand is to stand out and lead the industry.
The snack market demand, high consumption frequency, easy to standardize the product, easy to copy the model, with the genes and potential to become a brand, which is not available in many other categories. At the same time, with the brand scale enterprises, most have strong bargaining power.
On the one hand, through the scale of the brand premium, to obtain more recognition of consumers; on the other hand, through the scale of procurement, forced the supply chain, to obtain the bargaining power of raw materials.
In addition, the brand scale of the snack brand, in the catering takeaway and other platforms, there is a certain bargaining power and resource support, more advantageous than the general business.
In the case of spicy hot, for example, spicy hot as a classic category of snacks, dishes of raw materials, cooking techniques and production processes have a fast replication of the gene, easy to standardize, so the first out of the Yang Guofu spicy hot, Zhang Liang spicy hot and other national big brands.
2, features niche win
It can be said that "seeking common ground while preserving differences" will become the mainstream pace of fast food snack development - standardized "seeking common ground" and "preserving differences" with special features. The standardization of "seeking common ground" and the characteristics of the "differences" synchronization, support the development of the brand. Can not be ignored is that the local characteristics of snacks as the focus of the snack industry type, is being tapped and constantly being enlarged.
Of course, in the face of the country's nearly 3,000 snacks, each city region on average no less than 10 well-known snacks, choose to differentiate themselves from the competition does not mean that a blind entry into a category can be. What is popular on what to choose, often can make you pay a high tuition.
A few years ago, Guizhou mutton powder is very hot, but in addition to Guizhou, many people went in and basically cried out. We can see through the Baidu index, the hot cycle of mutton powder is only in early 2016 to late 2017; and if you compare the hot and sour powder, you will be more able to find out how insignificant the mutton powder is.
In addition to choosing the right category, specialty snacks should also be in the product, service, decoration, taste, culture and other levels, to achieve differentiated competitive advantage.
In fact, the characteristics of food and beverage does not lie in the flavor, after all, the essence of food in the mouth is still the same. The reason why some of the characteristics of the rise of snack brands, they are more to amplify the competitiveness of these dimensions, thus bringing word of mouth effect.
It can be seen that the future of the snack field, will not only be a local snacks and so simple, more is the catering service "basic function + theme culture + consumer experience" of the platform-type industry, which is loaded on top of the product value-added is the achievement of the brand's necessary elements.
3, "big single product + explosive" to win
Many traditional catering people have a misunderstanding of the thinking that more products can attract more traffic, the conversion of more consumption.
But imagine, you just want to eat a simple and fast work meal, but lost in the hundreds of SKUs in the menu bar, you still have patience?
Therefore, the snack category must be streamlined in terms of products to ensure basic richness. However, it should be noted that, although the taste is the first element of concern for the consumption of snacks category, but "delicious" is too abstract, need to be supported by the pop-up to the concrete.
Especially for local specialty snacks, "big single product + explosive" strategy is more likely to occupy the customer's cognition, internal efficiency will be effectively enhanced.
On the one hand, the single product category compared to the multi-category, the procurement of ingredients will become much simpler, the product center of the individual dishes will be more frequent research and development and practice, so the quality of more controllable. At the same time, the single product focus is more conducive to brand communication, and has a better chance to seize the first category.
On the other hand, the hot single product to attract traffic, high-quality selection of materials to retain customers. The core of the explosive is a "single point of entry", that is, a single point of entry into the product, and even make it very deep, very strong degree.
This extreme single product, extreme single point of the model, it becomes the company's core business model. Currently, most of the companies with high market capitalization in the market are successful by the extreme single product model.
Summary:
Currently, there are 1083 beef noodle brands in Lanzhou City***, of which 242 are chain brands (with at least 2 stores), with 850 stores, and the average number of stores opened by the brand is 3.5; and there are 841 non-chain brand stores.
And the old category, redo, is becoming a new weathervane in the restaurant industry.
"Category redo" does not mean abandoning all the elements of the category, but on the basis of category genes, advancing with the times and upgrading the category with branding.
To be precise, it is to utilize the high recognition of the category in the minds of consumers to give something that can keep up with the trend of the times, whether it is from the restaurant environment to the dining experience, as well as marketing and interaction.
This may also be a point that capital is looking for.