No matter whether it is a "second venture", three "11 billion" will be realized by 2123; Digging the corner of Jinmailang; Still holding hands with single food again. The white elephant after the listing has been seeking "transformation", but every step is "trembling".

11

The white elephant that has suffered many defeats and battles

Nowadays, it seems that it is the main theme of the white elephant to want to be red and high-end.

at the end of August, online celebrity brand "Single Grain" completed tens of millions of yuan in Series B financing, with the focus on the exclusive strategic investment by Baixiang Food Group (hereinafter referred to as Baixiang). According to public information, after this round of financing, the two companies will set up a joint venture company to jointly develop new products of instant food, and Baixiang will also open up supply chains, channels and other resources to singles.

The red line between the white elephant and the single grain is fixed, but the fate of the two dates back to last year.

Last year, White Elephant and Singles Food only did a little thing together-they launched hot and sour noodles, noodles and rock giant scarlet powder. Exaggerated packaging design, so that this product has a strong Internet online celebrity gene, White Elephant's expectation for it is to become the next 1 billion single product. The online price of noodles is not low, 6 boxes are about 119 yuan, and the unit price of each box is close to that of 21 yuan, which has properly entered the ranks of high-end instant noodles.

The white elephant wants to change so much that it wants to bid farewell to the rural market and embrace the Z era (people born between 1995 and 2119), but ...

"The upgrade of the white elephant is equivalent to a farmer who has changed his clothes." Song Futao, the marketing research and training center and chief market expert of Zhengzhou Institute of Light Industry, who once consulted Baixiang, commented on Kuaixiaojun, saying that at the beginning of the upgrade of Baixiang, it was wrong.

the white elephant, which started with instant noodles, has established an unshakable position in the rural market. And with the concept of bone soup, when the mainstream instant noodles in rural areas were still in 1.8 yuan, the price was raised to one yuan, and a wave of bonus for rural consumption upgrading was enjoyed. A set of data shows that by the end of 2117, the fixed assets of "White Elephant" had reached 1.6 billion yuan, and the comprehensive sales income was 4 billion yuan.

The local boss has been working for a long time, and the white elephant also wants to cross the class and be promoted to the high end.

in 2111, the company moved its headquarters to Beijing for seeking IPO. Since then, an upgraded version of the big bone face of the white elephant has been launched, raising the price from 1 yuan to 2.5 yuan; With the various operations of IPO, the IPO failed, and the headquarters moved back to Zhengzhou.

unfortunately, two relocations have resulted in a large number of brain drain; The upgrade and price increase of the big bones also failed, and a good part of the rural market became the bag of Jinmailang during this period. To a certain extent, it was considered as "handing over".

Like the three online celebrity foods mentioned above, White Elephant has made many attempts in recent years. For example, the ultra-high-end new product "bone soup boiled noodles" with a price of 35.8 yuan was launched; Based on the innovation of soybean milk, we launched "soybean milk noodles" and invited Yun-peng Yue to open a strong endorsement ...

At present, "boiled noodles with bone soup" and soybean milk noodles have disappeared. The hot and sour rock giant scarlet powder that can be found online is RMB 11 per box, but the sales volume is not ideal. The monthly sales volume of the official flagship store of Baixiang is only 17 pieces. It is not a little different from the 1 billion yuan big single product that White Elephant expects.

But the white elephant seems to disagree. "The cooperation with single food is our small business, which should be less than 1 billion yuan. Our annual business is 4-5 billion, which is a very small sector. " The white elephant staff told Kuaixiaojun.

The "gorgeous transformation" of the white elephant has not been realized, and it is still an old tradition that people want to wear new clothes.

Song Futao said, "The most taboo for a farmer who goes to wash his feet is that others say he is a farmer, and he will definitely have a new name. The most taboo for upgrading is to use the original brands and products. " The white elephant belongs to the rural market, and this DNA cannot be erased.

So, when the White Elephant announced its entry into the online celebrity market with great prosperity and wanted to be close to the post-91s and post-11s, it chose "Yun-peng Yue" as its spokesperson, which was quite different from the positioning in the Z era. On the one hand, it wanted to stabilize the original rural areas and sink the market, and on the other hand, it wanted to please the young people's market.

this point is "understood" by Mailang today.

The predecessor of Jinmailang is Hualong. In the early years, Hualong, like the white elephant, was a low-end product that occupied the rural market. Later, Hualong also wanted to transform, so he changed his name to a slightly foreign style-Jinmailang.

However, after failing to break into the high-end market dominated by Master Kong, Jin Mailang killed a comeback and seized the rural market of Baixiang. Since then, Jin Mailang has made several diversified explorations and upgrades, and all of them have decisively cut their old selves. For example, Laofanjia noodle restaurant, a non-fried instant noodle that entered the Japanese and Korean markets, is operated with a brand-new brand and completely bid farewell to the brand image of "Jinmailang".

12

Diversity failure gene

"The diversity of white elephants is basically a failure," Song Futao said.

Around 2111, White Elephant tried to enter the staple food industry. At the beginning, it was said that it planned to open 5,111 Fuxi pasta workshops in 15 provinces in three years by chain. However, public reports show that three years later, there are only a dozen such stores on Zhengzhou Street.

After the IPO failed in 2114, the path of Baixiang became a bit wild. In July 2118, Baixiang put forward a second venture. By 2123, Baixiang plans to achieve three "11 billion", namely, traditional businesses such as instant noodles and dried noodles will reach 11 billion yuan, new track business will reach 11 billion yuan, and F2P business will reach 11 billion yuan.

Among them, the new track refers to the new white elephant business group with the strategy of "White Elephant Plus", including new formats, new models and new industries with big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence as genes. "F2P" is a new white elephant platform food format built around the future urban life, including the incubation platform, entrepreneurial platform and business platform of food enterprises.

this slogan is very loud, and it is very similar to the tone of Bai Xiang when he entered the staple food industry. During this period, the white elephant also made fruity water, iced black tea and functional drinks, but they were not well known in the market. This year, it entered the quick-frozen industry again.

"It's only a hindsight for the white elephant to enter the quick-freezing industry. The quick-freezing industry has already had a very big barrier, and even Miss San wants to enter the catering industry, leaving very little room for the latecomers. Moreover, the subdivision track has also been done. " A person in the quick-frozen industry told Kuaixiaojun.

People in the industry close to Baixiang Company believe that the most important reason for the failure of Baixiang's diversification is unprofessional and not free.

Song Futao has a deep understanding. When the white elephant making instant noodles first entered the staple food track, it was still the thinking of instant noodles.

The predecessor of White Elephant Group was Grain, Oil and Food Company of Grain Department. Later, although it underwent a difficult restructuring, the old system and management problems remained, which made it difficult for managers of White Elephant to display their diversity. This can be seen from the brain drain of White Elephant for many years.

13

1+1 must be greater than 2?

The single food with white elephants holding hands was first known to the public as potato chips with the image of "dog". Later, around more than 211 million "single people", a series of products such as leisure snacks, fast food and drinks were developed.

most online celebrity products have a characteristic, that is, they can market. Single grain is no exception. Strictly speaking, behind single grain is not a food company, but a marketing company, which is operated by Shanghai Quanfu Brand Management Co., Ltd. It doesn't have its own factory, and all single food products are produced in a cooperative way.

"As a start-up brand, it's risky to build our own factory and independent brand. Why don't we just do what we are good at, export singles culture, IP, content operation and so on?" Ceng Rui Lu, co-founder of Singles Food, once publicly stated that he did not produce snacks, but only used content as a carrier.

Zou Wenxiang, an expert in East Pole positioning, believes that the single grain OEM mode is only a mode of production, which is essentially two parallel lines with consumer purchase. However, the OEM model needs to pay attention to quality control, food safety and food quality, because consumers will have higher requirements for food safety in the post-epidemic era. It is easy to think of three squirrels in online celebrity food. In the second quarter of this year, three squirrels made almost no profit, and food safety problems broke out many times. It was also pointed out that there were hidden dangers in the OEM mode.

Another characteristic of "online celebrity" is that it burns quickly and goes out quickly. Single food depends on the "single dog" culture, and whether this culture will be lost with the change of mainstream values is unknown.

Zou Wenxiang believes that it is precisely because language and culture will change, so the rapidly rising online celebrity brand needs to find a point to enter the minds of consumers. online celebrity and IP are more of a tactic than a long-term strategy.

however, regardless of tactics or strategies, one trait should always be "being able to fight". After all, the market has to be seized. Moreover, the big market is not very good.

the data shows that the instant noodle market has been declining in recent years. According to the statistics of Forward-looking Industry Research Institute, in 2119, the output of instant noodles once again showed a double-digit decline to 5.733 million tons, down by 18% year-on-year. Although the epidemic in 2121 caused the instant noodle industry as a whole to turn over against the wind, all instant noodle enterprises are seizing this opportunity.

for single grain, it needs the promotion of supply chain, product research and development and channel accumulation of established enterprises in the industry; As far as the white elephant is concerned, the way of creating IP and online celebrity explosions is undoubtedly one of the fastest ways to create new products. The white elephant wants to seize the "shortcut" of online celebrity, but judging from the monthly sales of only 17 pieces of rock giant scarlet hot and sour powder, it may just be another "stunt".

No matter the geometry of the "result", the white elephant's heart for change is always right. It is still young, so what are you afraid of?