It is reported that Anhui Laoxiang Chicken Catering Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Laoxiang Chicken") and Guoyuan Securities signed a listing counseling agreement at the end of September, and filed it with Anhui Securities Regulatory Bureau to prepare for listing on the main board of Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
As one of the representative catering enterprises in China, Laoxiang Chicken originated in Anhui, and now it has spread all over the country. What are the attractions of its IPO road and what thresholds need to be crossed?
Tracing back to the source, hometown chicken was first established in 2003. As a native Anhui brand, it not only won the first place in the Chinese fast food industry in Anhui, but also succeeded in "going out of the circle" and expanding its territory from the region to the whole country.
From June 5438 to October 2003 10, the first fast food restaurant of Feixi Laoxiang Chicken, the predecessor of Laoxiang Chicken, officially opened in Hefei, and then developed rapidly. 2012 March, Feixi old hen spent 50 million yuan to upgrade its brand and officially changed its name to "hometown chicken"; In 20 18, Laoxiang Chicken Restaurant received a series B financing of RMB 200 million, and the investor was Jiahua Capital; In 20 19, there were more than 800 direct-operated stores nationwide; In 2020, the hometown chicken announced its official entry into Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and other cities at the strategic conference.
At present, Hometown Chicken has more than 1000 stores in China.
In addition, in cities without hometown chickens, netizens lined up to call out the chairman, enough to get a glimpse of its popularity.
A brand has spread all over the country, and it has also spread to hundreds of millions of netizens. Why?
From 0 to 1000, the success of Laoxiang Chicken stems from its continuous strategic innovation and change.
Who would have thought that a chain restaurant brand actually came out of a chicken farm?
The predecessor of Laoxiang Chicken is "Feixi old hen", and its founder Shu Congxuan is from Feixi, Anhui. He joined the army when he grew up. 1982, Shu Congxuan returned to his hometown Feixi County, took out 1800 yuan given by his parents when he got married, bought 1000 chickens, and devoted himself to starting a business. Since then, he has started a career dealing with "chickens".
He is young and willing to study hard, and even lived in a chicken shed for seven years. 10 years later, Shu Congxuan became the largest chicken farmer in Anhui, selling hundreds of thousands of chickens every month.
With more and more farmers, oversupply in the market and long-term stagnant prices, Shu Congxuan realized that it was time to change.
During this period, foreign fast food brands entered the China market. An unexpected opportunity, Shu Congxuan got the training information of catering joining. He studied with the team for three days and learned about the fast food industry and chain operation industry for the first time.
Seeing the huge growth space of the fast food industry, Shu Congxuan decided to open a restaurant, combine catering with his old line of aquaculture, and take the road of chain fast food, with chicken soup as the core product.
No one's road to entrepreneurship is smooth sailing, and so is the hometown chicken. In 2003, Shu Congxuan opened the first fast food restaurant, which led to high food and operating costs. At the end of the year, they all lost money. Shu Congxuan hired a professional manager and trained and improved his employees. This is the first major change; Then, due to the brand expansion, the local color of "Feixi" in the name is too strong, and it is difficult to expand to the whole country. Shu Congxuan reluctantly started the positioning strategy in 20 1 12, and officially changed the brand name to "hometown chicken" in 20 12, which was the second major change. The third change was in 200 16. Hometown chickens successively settled in Nanjing, Wuhan and other cities, and acquired Wuhan Yonghe in 2065 48+08, which officially accelerated the pace of national expansion.
By 2020, under the influence of the epidemic, Shu Congxuan made an online national strategy conference, announcing that hometown chickens had officially entered Beijing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and other cities. This year, this fast food chain stood in front of the IPO.
As we all know, Chinese food is much more difficult to chain than western food.
Western food recipes pay attention to accuracy, and the standardization of fast food chain stores naturally comes, but Chinese food pays attention to the chef's "feeling", which depends entirely on the temperature and technology. So, how can hometown chickens have the confidence to impact IPO?
As the saying goes, small opportunities depend on luck, and big trends compete for time. Looking at the industry benchmarks, we will find that they are all patient hikers without exception. KFC and McDonald's, which have more than 1 10,000 stores, have been deployed all over the world since 1980s, while Laoxiang Chicken, which incited the whole catering market in China, has always insisted on long-term returns. Old country chicken has two big killers.
1. Product level: Make products that make users scream.
Shu Congxuan said: "To be an enterprise, you must have good products. The product is 1, and the rest are 0. "
The quality of products is related to the brand of enterprises.
Quality, quality first, quality second, as long as you do a good job of quality, your brand and reputation will naturally be good.
If your product is not good enough, the brand may be negative and no one will buy it.
The old country chicken was founded in 2003, and there are countless opportunities for large-scale expansion. But all along, the hometown chicken has only done one thing, focusing on products. It was not until the whole regiment found a way out that the hometown chickens made a regional attack on 20 16.
In the choice of raw materials, the same as Shu Congxuan's original chicken raising principle, the hometown chicken "refused to use instant chicken" and insisted on using green healthy chicken raised for more than half a year, which is different from the instant white feather chicken commonly used in foreign fast food.
This product makes the hometown chicken stand firm in the market.
In terms of distribution, Laoxiang Chicken has a central kitchen in Hefei, covering an area of 60,000 square meters, and the production capacity can supply 1.200 restaurants, ensuring that all dishes of Laoxiang Chicken are standardized raw and clean and delivered to the transparent kitchen for on-site cooking;
In addition, Laoxiang Chicken has built its own 4,000-ton cold storage and supporting constant temperature cold chain logistics fleet. All restaurants deliver food once a day to ensure the freshness of ingredients to the greatest extent.
Laoxiang Chicken is a rare enterprise integrating production, supply and marketing in China. It has established a nearly complete supply chain system of breeding, slaughtering, processing, distribution and refrigeration.
This fully proves that supply chain management is a breakthrough to enhance the competitiveness of enterprises, and it is also a gold mine that catering enterprises urgently need to tap.
2. Strategic level: Brand power is a booster.
20 1 1 year, the profit of Feixi old hen is 6 million yuan. Shu Congxuan decided to spend 4 million yuan as consulting fee, and asked trout Company to assist her in strategic positioning.
However, the first plan given by trout is to change its name.
At that time, "Feixi old hen" was well known in Anhui, so it was renamed. Isn't this "fatal"?
"Feixi old hen" is actually a good name in Anhui, but it is difficult to be effectively perceived in other places, so it is greatly restricted to go to the whole country.
New customers make decisions through simple information such as names.
Therefore, Shu Congxuan reluctantly changed "Feixi old hen" into "hometown chicken" and changed "special old hen fast food" into "the largest chain fast food in Anhui", which made the brand image immediately perceptible.
Woodruff, former president of Coca-Cola Company, once said: Even if the whole Coca-Cola Company was reduced to ashes overnight, he could immediately make a comeback with the brand of Coca-Cola. Why? Because the brand is an amplifier of value. The old country chicken also insisted on doing it.
After the strategic upgrade, the hometown chickens did not rush, but continued to deepen the Anhui market for four years.
It was not until 20 16 that hometown chickens began to expand outward and enter Wuhan, Nanjing, Shanghai and other cities. The total number of stores exceeds 400, and now it has exceeded 800, with annual sales exceeding 3 billion!
On 20 18, Laoxiang Chicken received RMB 200 million in financing from Jiahua Yewei. Suddenly, hometown chicken became a star company in the fast food market.
From Anhui to the whole country, the profit of hometown chicken has increased 30 times in five years. Laoxiang Chicken has always been committed to providing more value to users. In addition to working hard on products and brands, Laoxiang Chicken also pays great attention to the consumer experience.
1. Stay open 24 hours a day.
Most branches of Laoxiang Chicken are open 24 hours a day, which is a condition to compete with foreign fast food brands, and provide all-weather take-away food delivery service. In addition, the stores of Laoxiang Chicken are mainly located in the business district not far from people's residential areas, and are located in the "community canteen" which is open 24 hours a day.
This position allows customers to eat for 24 hours as soon as they turn the corner.
2. Insist on not sacrificing the user experience.
Behind catering entrepreneurship is not only the exploration of mature business models, but also the challenge of consumption upgrading.
In the past, the standardization of fast food was to meet the sudden increase in the demand for eating out, improve the efficiency of eating out and facilitate the scale of brands, which was bound to sacrifice some tastes.
However, under the wave of consumption upgrading, consumers' requirements for catering enterprises not only stay at the level of food and clothing, but become more diversified. For example, the taste of food, decoration design style and restaurant service experience are all reference standards.
In order to increase the consumption experience, unlike the traditional Chinese fast food package, Laoxiang Chicken does not sell the package, but insists on asking customers to order food and let them take their favorite dishes as needed.
Considering the continuous upgrading of consumers' consumption habits and experiences, new stores are based on the "green" image, and occupy the minds of consumers of all ages with the images of "nutrition", "health", "intimacy" and "warmth".
In the change of consumption pattern, leisure catering represented by hometown chicken is easier to catch young consumers.
3. Insist on building a family kitchen
In addition to the extreme environment and food, Shu Congxuan also hopes that the new generation of stores will make customers feel at home.
In order to make customers feel at home, most family kitchens are home-cooked dishes.
Hometown Chicken also specially designed a self-help area in the new generation stores. Provide free hot water, barley tea, clean tableware, and children's spoons specially prepared for children.
These humanized services and the dining atmosphere that is infinitely close to family rituals give customers unexpected consumption experiences.
And these unexpected user experiences have also become the deepest moat in my hometown. Behind the change of hometown chicken, it seems that it is because of consumption upgrading, but in fact it stems from the insight into user needs.
The catering market in China has great potential at present, with 9.4 million catering stores and 30 million employees nationwide, with a compound market growth rate of nearly 10%.
Chinese fast food is undoubtedly the biggest track in the catering industry.
Nowadays, whether it is an old brand or a young brand that has been deeply cultivated for many years, what is the way out?
From 16, it can be seen that in order to remain competitive, we must find the superior category, patiently do it again and re-price.
At present, the epidemic seems to be making a comeback. In an uncertain environment, this is not difficult for anyone, but the fact is that the strong can finally sneak back.
From small shops in Hefei to Chinese fast foodNo. 1, hometown chicken is popular all over the country, with 978 direct stores selling 20 million freshly cooked chicken soup every year. This is never an overnight success story. This is the attachment to the lighthouse and the solar arch.
Not everyone can get full marks, but everyone can do it from 60 to 80. Think deeply, take it seriously and pay attention to every detail, and you will enjoy the dividend of the times.
Always remember: if you do things sincerely, you will have a future.