I have talked with many professional chefs and restaurant owners, and what is the most important thing about catering?
Everyone can tell one, two, and three things, including location, taste, service, etc.
This is true for traditional dining, but what about non-traditional dining?
Take takeout as an example. The frozen dish packages that were exposed some time ago are kitchen-free products that can be sold after being heated. Some merchants sell 3 to 5 hundred portions a day. Consumers and traditional high-quality merchants are deeply disgusted by this, but what can they do?
Many takeaways with beautiful pictures are really pre-processed products that can be stored for a year or even several years.
When I studied some consumers, I found that taste is not an absolute factor. Most diners are not gourmets. Basic taste can satisfy them. If it can affect their minds, taste is not important.
For example, I once launched Northern Stewed Potatoes. The name made people think it was a northern dish. It seemed that no restaurant had this dish. So, the dish tasted whatever I made, and diners thought that Northern Stewed Potatoes had this taste.
This is authentic.
This is called mind occupation, preconception.
There are many similar dishes. Once a special label is added, it becomes a food with special taste, special emotion, and special experience. It seems to be "differentiated" from similar products on the market. This is the method.
The best taste of food is the taste in memory, the taste of mother.
As the scope of personal activities and experiences increase, we will taste delicacies from all over the world and find that restaurants taste better than what we cook personally. However, this does not affect our understanding of ordinary food - the essential attribute of food.
When you are really hungry, you still want to eat the simple food that you were most greedy for when you were a child. Only when it is easy to obtain or the economy allows, the social and enjoyable attributes of food will be stimulated.
Therefore, the innovation of catering taste is endless, but the basic taste is limited. If you grasp the basic taste, you will grasp the essence.
In this sense, there is basically not much difference in taste between the shredded potatoes fried personally and those fried in the restaurant.
Friends who are familiar with restaurant chefs know that what causes the difference in taste is not the basic ingredients, but the ingredients and heat. Restaurants have many additives and spices, high heat, fast speed, and no water.
Add more condiments to the same dishes, and the taste will be natural and delicious.
According to the experience of an experienced chef, one of the tricks to retain diners is to have a stronger taste. Once the taste is heavy, it will not taste right if you eat something lighter.
In this sense, any aunt or individual who knows how to cook home-cooked food can satisfy the needs of individuals, families, friends, and even more people.
It has nothing to do with professionalism or not, nor does it emphasize authenticity. It happens to be a private kitchen for hundreds of people, differentiated private kitchens, and customized mother's dishes with personal attributes. This is not a new selling point.
Therefore, the integration of various private kitchens or personal operation are all directions that can be explored in the kitchen-less catering model. There are even cooking packages, part-time chefs (home operations), or negotiations with restaurants to wholesale their special dishes. There are many ideas.
Solving taste and product issues and just having a place to operate does not mean that catering is feasible.
Traditionally, taste is fundamental and port is the key point. If you maintain the basic taste without a good port, how can you get customers?
Not having a store means that you cannot access various takeout platforms, and it is difficult for customers to come to the store to eat... Draining traffic or finding customer sources is the key.
In fact, family-style restaurants, exclusive kitchen models, fly restaurants in communities, carts at street stalls... various models have existed for many years, and the same is true for black workshops after the rise of take-out. Any model can be used
use.
Combined with the recent so-called community economy, after the dividends of food delivery platforms end, group shopping and community customers in communities, schools, and single-family commercial buildings have become a model to explore.
Many merchants have succeeded. We are engaged in the campus market. I know that some business buildings are also very successful. The community mainly sells fresh food, etc., which is also included in our discussion.
Recently, news broke out in India that local merchants are boycotting food delivery platforms. The same will be true in our country. Food delivery activities are still very active. It is foreseeable that thousands of merchants will continue to bid anxiously, platform deductions will steadily increase, and competition will become more and more intense.
It’s intense, the money you make is getting less and less, and the cost of black food delivery is low. If there is a good model, you will immediately counterattack the platform and become popular again.
Today's social economy, various social software, and platform tools have given possibilities, and this direction deserves attention.
Studying the model of business competition is nothing more than taking price war, service, and product features as the starting point. From a dismantling point of view, it is probably based on improving operational efficiency, saving time and labor costs, and introducing new products, which corresponds to reduced product costs, improved efficiency, and novel products (
or combination), plus customer involvement (personal customization).
But looking at a large scale, what is examined is management ability, organizational ability, innovation ability, integration ability, learning ability, vision, structure, and courage. It is not just as simple as designing a certain product and conquering a certain small market.
Taking us as an example, I only focus on simple product design, publicity and marketing plans, researching what products and how to sell them, and why should they buy them from me?
Price war?
quality?
Serve?
feature?
Tall, versatile or short, flat and fast?
It is necessary to study various competitors and channels, analyze students’ consumption habits, obtain channels, and even combine with other businesses to save the country through curves.
I even explored one-person catering, operating dozens of dishes by myself, using available methods such as borrowing, saving, and making to the extreme to operate at the lowest cost.
There are also bottlenecks now. Low-end business employees are difficult to maintain. If they are too popular, they will be too busy. If they are not popular, they will be boring. Therefore, we have begun to integrate resources on a larger scale and expand the market. This is a later story.
If so, what would you dream about?