Eyeball check data show that in 2020, hot pot ingredients supermarket registered nearly 3400 new related enterprises in one year, an increase of 216%.

Pot circle food sink, lazy bear hot pot and other "entrepreneurial masters", Haijilao, Sanquan and other "professional players", Mengniu, Gome and other "cross-border big brother" gathered on the track, not good! The first time I've seen this, I've seen a lot of it!

Why is the cake of hot pot ingredients supermarket so attractive, attracting capital and big brothers compete?

Photo credit: Lazy Bear Hot Pot official website

What triggered the hot pot ingredients retail market?

The author's hometown is in a county directly under the jurisdiction of the province, with a total population of 1.22 million +. The US group positioning county, search hot pot ingredients, *** appear 45 results. Among them, the pot circle food hui in the county *** have 3 stores, and the author's home in the street, less than 1000 meters away, opened the pot circle food hui, quick match Qi, lazy bear hot pot three hot pot ingredients supermarket.

Screenshot of Meituan's county search results

In addition to Meituan's brands such as Pot Circle, Shabu Shabu Convenience, and Sichuan Shushi Food Exchange, the small county also has a collection of hot-pot ingredient retailers such as Lazy Bear Hot Pot, Quick Match, Nine Pieces of Pots, Chuan Dinghui, and Prairie Xingfa. So counting, this county has no less than 10 hot pot ingredients retail brands, **** opened dozens of stores.

To the county as a microcosm, hot pot ingredients retail hot spot. So, in the end, what kind of "wind" blowing up the hot pot ingredients retail boom?

1, family hot pot demand

Before the hot pot ingredients supermarket fire, hot pot family consumption demand has always been. Every winter season, almost every large supermarket will special frozen hot pot ingredients area to meet the demand for family hot pot. The demand is extensive, and the consumption habits have been fully developed, so the success rate of digging a niche track in such a field is extremely high. Facts have proved that this track has not only been successfully opened, and huge space. According to Ai Media Consulting data, the overall market size of hot pot ingredients in 2020 has reached 9 billion yuan.

Do not have to travel with great fanfare, buy some ingredients on the way home from work, you can get home in time to eat a steaming hot pot with the elderly, children, convenient, and cost-effective. Aiming at family consumption, "one-stop" shopping as an advantage, hot pot ingredients supermarkets quickly occupy the location of the major communities around.

2, capital

A few days ago, Lazy Bear Hot Pot completed a new round of financing of nearly 100 million yuan, the investor for the Star Capital, Guo Sheng Capital, and byte jump. This is already the 4th round of financing that Lazy Bear Hotpot has completed since December 2019, which started.

Screenshot of Lazy Bear Hotpot Financing Eyeball Search

Eyeball data shows that Lazy Bear Hotpot was founded on October 8, 2019, which means that, only 2 months after its establishment, Lazy Bear Hotpot got its first round of financing.

The brand that is also favored by capital is also Pot Circle Food Hub, and in the year from August 2019 to July 2020, Pot Circle Food Hub*** completed 4 financing rounds, with a total of nearly 1 billion RMB.

The entry of capital provides important support for the brand expansion, supply chain construction, and digital management of the hotpot ingredients supermarket. Lazy Bear Hot Pot said that the new round of financing will be mainly used for digital system research and development and market expansion. Capital fancy hot pot ingredients supermarket has hot pot large category of broad audience, there are subcategories of innovation space, and easy to copy the operation model, such a field is very easy to nourish the scale of the chain brand.

It has been proven that the capital boost, the pot circle food sink and lazy bear hot pot all the way to run horse enclosure. Pot circle food sink national stores in October 2020 exceeded 5,000, lazy bear hot pot currently has 1100 + stores. Pot Circle Food Exchange opened its first store in January 2017, and the average number of stores opened per month is more than one hundred.

3, the market

The rise of the hot pot ingredients supermarket is rooted in the market is good, the market is good from two major directions: the prevalence of the lazy economy and the prevalence of the traditional hot pot industry.

If family consumption is the main scene of hot pot ingredients retail, the family hot pot consumption is mainly from the lazy economy. Without going out of the house, and do not have to go to great lengths to prepare the ingredients can eat a delicious hot pot, "lazy" group of hot pot ingredients supermarkets to deliver a steady stream of customers. Hot pot ingredients supermarket is also as much as possible to attract "lazy", "house" two groups, compared to the supermarket's large portion of meat rolls and the whole dish, hot pot ingredients supermarket dishes are generally used in small packages, a lamb roll price is generally more than ten yuan to more than thirty dollars ranging from the seemingly Very cheap, in fact, most of the portions are only half of the hot pot restaurant or even less than half. But such a small portion is just right to meet the needs of small groups of dining. By reducing the amount of price, in further highlighting the advantages of cost-effective at the same time, but also allows small groups as much as possible to enrich the ingredients, and thus go to attract a wide range of family of three, or even one person food group.

In 2020, with the hot pot ingredients supermarket all the way up in stark contrast to the traditional hot pot restaurant business is increasingly difficult. After increasing takeout, price increases and other reforms, Haidilao in 2020 revenue is still down 90% year-on-year. Behind this certainly has the impact of the epidemic, but the deeper reason is that the traditional hot pot industry has "hit the top". In the blossoming of the traditional hot pot field, innovation space has been extremely narrowed. The overall industry situation has forced hot pot people to dig hot pot business through other angles, such as hot pot ingredients retail, takeaway. This point, from the head of the brand Haidilao is also reflected in the most, 2020, Haidilao not only continue to promote the takeaway business, but also opened the first hot pot ingredients supermarket in Beijing, called "Haidilao delivery ingredients self-pickup station".

4, the epidemic under the new retail

2020, the epidemic catalyzed the rapid progress of new retail. As a hot pot track and retail track "superimposed" into a new track, hot pot ingredients supermarket just hit the wind mouth of the new retail, hot pot ingredients supermarket is called the new retail "one of the hottest track".

Gao Fei, founder of Lazy Bear Hot Pot, said that Lazy Bear Hot Pot has completed the expansion of 1,000 stores in 2020, and in 2021, the main effort will be put on the operation of the stores to realize the online e-commerce and offline stores through.

With the new retail as a model, connecting online and offline can help hot pot ingredients supermarkets break the data barriers in the industry chain and build a digital system for operational iteration and accurate marketing.

The hot pot ingredients supermarket is competing against itself

Nowadays, on the track of hot pot ingredients, the pot circle food sink and lazy bear hot pot lead the way with the power of capital. But as a new track, the brand echelon in the field of hot pot ingredients there is still unlimited space for imagination. Haidilao, Shu warrior, box horse fresh, three whole, Mengniu, Gome, Haixin, Wanglaoji and other business leaders, but also the market pattern is unpredictable.

Under the support of capital and business tycoons, the future of hot pot ingredients is destined to be filled with cannon fodder. But for the contestants, the biggest competition is not other players, but themselves. Hot pot ingredients supermarkets need to be polished and self-transcendence there are too many places.

1, mode

Every hot pot ingredients supermarket is facing siege from all sides, affecting the performance of the cold arrows may be launched in the newly opened a cheap hot pot store, on the new supermarket, and increasingly perfect hot pot takeaway and so on. This means that, as far as the model is concerned, the hot pot ingredients supermarket has not formed a solid barrier.

Lazy bear hot pot is actively going online, Mengniu's "cold ice" to "ice cream + hot pot" "strange" combination to earn enough attention, there are brands to take the "fresh + chilled". "Fresh + chilled" model, the introduction of fresh fruits and vegetables in the hot pot ingredients supermarket ...... Almost all brands want to explore, polished a more competitive barriers, revenue structure more stable model.

2, supply chain

At present, it seems that the competitive advantage of the hot pot ingredients supermarket still lies in the "one-stop" to meet the needs of the family hot pot, and the quality of its products as a sub-category of the advantage is not obvious. However, today's consumers not only pay attention to the convenience of dining, but also more and more the pursuit of dining quality. How to ensure the quality and freshness of ingredients from the source of the supply chain, as well as cost-effective, from the product level to obtain the brand and even the category's competitive barriers, is the key to the hot pot ingredients supermarket to obtain the ability to build blood. This means that the hot pot ingredients retail in the supply chain there are many "hard battle" to fight.

． Meat from frozen to chilled

At present, the main products of the hot pot ingredients supermarket are all kinds of frozen meat, including frozen beef and mutton, pill products. Compared to fresh-cut and ready-made, these frozen products not only have a greatly reduced taste, but also mean that hot pot ingredients supermarkets have not achieved much of a differentiation advantage compared to comprehensive supermarkets.

Hot pot ingredients supermarkets to get product advantage to frozen for fresh cut is not realistic, which will launch a new challenge to the chain of standardized models and supply chain system. However, the evolution from frozen to chilled has a certain implementation space, if the central kitchen output, standardized specifications based on as much as possible, "lock fresh" supply, hot pot ingredients retail will be further closer to the distance of the hot pot stores.

The Seasonal vegetables from there to fine

Seasonal vegetables, mushrooms and other vegetarian food is not the main hot pot ingredients supermarket, but the hot pot is a necessary "embellishment". In fact, the lack of seasonal vegetables hot pot ingredients supermarket, can not really "one-stop" to solve the family hot pot dining needs. But for most of the hot pot ingredients supermarket, not on seasonal vegetables products, but seasonal vegetables do not make money, or even lose money.

Restricted by the type of store, hot pot ingredients supermarkets, the mobility of vegetables and products is not high, not sold in the fresh means to smash in the hands of the higher discount rate. Vegetables "fresh food" problem, but also across the hot pot ingredients supermarket to enhance the service before a problem.

3, management

As a very easy to copy the category, in terms of mode and product, hot pot ingredients supermarkets between the major brands almost did not form too big a difference, then, what do they rely on to seize the market opportunity? Rely on speed! When the rise of the category, the major brands have begun to run.

Monthly average of one hundred, not capped, with the capital supported by the hot pot ingredients supermarket in 2021 will usher in a more rapid opening speed. Crazy expansion to the management launched a challenge, the management team can match the speed of expansion, determines the hot pot ingredients brand chain empire development direction. In the catering industry, there are a large number of cases to prove that once the franchise management lag, it is possible to make the brand into the development of the faster, the faster the death of the spell.

The author's street, the first hot pot ingredients supermarket opened overcrowded, recharge are required to queue. But with the successive opening of several brand stores, the first brand stores in front of the door has long been sparse, other brand stores outside the holidays is usually cold.

Capital, large brands play a hot, but really leave the small and medium-sized entrepreneurs how much space, it is worth thinking about! The more obvious branding and chaining, the less opportunity for small and medium-sized entrepreneurs. At the same time, as when the hot pot takeout, tea brands, hot track, investment entrepreneurs flocked to the cool period, look back, smoke and ash. In the future, on the hot pot ingredients track, there will be a dark horse dust, there will also be a large number of brands for others to do the graft.