In June 2021, Hot Braised Food received angel round financing. This cutting-edge braised food brand established less than 3 years ago has won the favor of Sequoia China. Two months later, I learned that Spring Capital had increased its investment.

In the eyes of Zhichun Capital investors, “hot brine” is one of the new consumer categories that they have been looking for that is in line with human nature. In the field of braised food, compared to cold braised food, hot braised food, which is the main product of hot braised food, has been upgraded in both taste and health, and is more "light food" and more in line with the eating habits of modern young people.

Sun Nianpeng, the founder of Relu Shiguang, has more than ten years of experience in catering management. He has continued to conduct in-depth research on the upstream supply chain. He has a very fast iteration speed and has achieved standardization of the supply chain and stores. Today, with the national trend taking over, Hot Braised Food is expected to create a catering chain model belonging to the Chinese.

Being recognized by front-line institutions is undoubtedly a great benefit for the brand building of Hot Braised Food. But in the braised products industry, where investors are flocking to the market, competition is also intensifying.

In 2020, the overall market size of my country's braised products will reach 303.3 billion yuan. Over the past ten years, the compound growth rate of the market size of braised products has been 10.9. Hot Braised Food has followed the trend and entered the popular track from the perspective of "hot braised food is now available", trying to leverage this industry that has become stable.

For a long time, the braised products industry has maintained a pattern of "three companies competing for hegemony": Huang Shanghuang, Zhou Hei Ya, and Juewei Ya Neck. In the past, braised food has always been a non-standard product category. Now, driven by the standardization and scale of Chinese food, braised food brands have begun to continuously improve from the supply chain to store standardization.

While the industry is advancing rapidly, it is also accompanied by increasingly fierce market competition. According to data from Qichacha, there are currently more than 123,000 registered braised food-related companies across the country.

How to go beyond innovation? How to create a unique braised food recipe? Hot braised food already has a clue.

Sun Nianpeng: The growth of an enterprise can be divided into four stages: survival, growth, maturity and success.

For Hot Braised Food Light, the initial period under the epidemic in 2020 is the survival stage; with the development of the hot braised food category, it is gradually accepted and well-known by consumers, and Hot Braised Food Light is targeting Now is the time to release resources and open stores quickly, so at the beginning of 2021, the company began to enter the second stage of "growth".

If we want to segment it, Hot Braised Food is in the second stage of "growth".

1. Opportunity growth stage

Through the whirlpool of the start-up stage, Hot Braised Food has accumulated a certain degree of consumption base. Under the favorable external market environment, including consumers With awareness, category development and the alleviation of the epidemic, the company has solved basic issues such as brand positioning and single store models, and has begun to develop rapidly.

Taking advantage of this stage, Hot Lu Shiguang carried out its first management integration, changing from opportunism to introducing and building a systematic management system, and building a professional team.

2. System growth stage

In June and August 2021, Hot Braised Food received support from Sequoia China and Zhichun Capital respectively.

"System growth" means that the main motivation for the evolution of Hot Braised Food is no longer external market opportunities and dividends, but the corporate organization itself, or the overall corporate system. Including clear strategic intentions and vision, R&D, development, and operations are relatively balanced, and management is becoming more standardized and process-based.

Sun Nianpeng: Chinese people love to eat braised food. According to the "China Catering Category and Brand Development Report 2021", the retail scale of my country's casual braised food market reached 91.1 billion yuan in 2018, a year-on-year increase of 18.8%; in 2019, the scale reached 110 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20%; even in 2020, which was severely affected by the epidemic, China's retail sales of leisure braised products also reached 123.5 billion yuan.

It can be seen that the braised food market is stable and the consumer groups are broad and solid.

However, from the perspective of the subcategory of braised products - hot brine, it is in the blue ocean of the market.

In 2020, the market share of the top five brands on the braised food circuit is only about 20%. Among them, Juewei Duck Neck accounts for 8.6, Zhou Hei Ya accounts for 4.6, Ziyan Baiwei Chicken accounts for 3, Huang Shang Huang accounts for 2.8, and Jiujiu Ya accounts for 1.3. The remaining approximately 80% of the market is scattered among some regional brands and independent private stores. , as well as smaller local chain brands.

This also means that in the hot brine industry where the leader is vacant, everyone has the opportunity to become the number one brand.

Therefore, Hot Braised Food is determined to jump out of the Red Sea and engage in subversive innovation by dislocating competition. The unique and novel way of eating not only set off a new braised food trend among young people, but also gained recognition from capital, further boosting Hot braised food has achieved "standardization, normalization and branding" in the process of its rise.

Sun Nianpeng: First of all, we must clarify a concept: innovation is not about following market changes. Innovation is the vitality of an enterprise. It must always be fresh and surging. It must always be the light we actively pursue. We firmly believe that "it is better to be different than better."

Innovation, efficiency, integrity and responsibility are the corporate values ??of Hot Lu Shiguang, which shows how much we attach importance to "innovation". If you want permanent success, you need to constantly innovate, and there is no standard answer to "innovation". I think the root of corporate innovation is the management of corporate culture, which can be roughly divided into four aspects.

1. Allow failure

To encourage innovation, mistakes must be forgiven as long as lessons can be learned from them. Hot Braised Food went through thousands of rounds of sample tests to determine the taste of the marinade. After countless failures, it gradually found the right set of products with the right taste.

In the Silicon Valley of the United States, which is known as the "Global Innovation Highland", there is a golden saying from Robert Johnson, Jr., the former president of Johnson & Johnson: "Failure is our most important product." Companies must admit that failure Experimentation is also an integral part of development. In fact, Johnson & Johnson has had failures, but these failures are the basic price for the development of the company's core ideological norms. Despite its setbacks, Johnson & Johnson has never lost money in its more than 100-year history.

2. Risk-taking and innovation

An important way to encourage employees to be creative and take risks is to promote a positive attitude towards change. Risk is an inherent characteristic of a business and cannot be escaped. A successful company must be an excellent innovator and must know how to take bold risks and retain effective measures.

3. Passion for competition

An attitude of never being satisfied and constantly improving is the key to consistent innovation. Only by continuously stimulating employees' passion for competition can an enterprise maintain its lasting innovation power.

4. Always stay one step ahead

In order to always stay one step ahead of the competition, we must constantly seek new market directions and consumer preferences. This is not just about expanding the existing consumer base by adding SKUs, but also taking the initiative to explore and discover consumer demands that do not yet exist or even more. As an enterprise, our goal is always to be number one. If we don’t occupy the number one position, someone else will.

Sun Nianpeng: Hot-braised food has only been developed since the epidemic in 2020. We have already made great efforts in the food safety management section, and food safety issues have been exposed in some tea brands and dinner brands. Before and after, we always implement the product benchmark of "high standards, high requirements, high quality". From accounting, daily, weekly and monthly clearance, QA inspection to quality control department, audit department, mystery shopper, etc., including pre-job food safety training and practical operation assessment, these are all manifestations of our emphasis on food safety, the lifeline of the enterprise.

Sun Nianpeng: The indestructible brand barrier of Hot Braised Food is not independently supported by a single outstanding section, but is the result of the interaction and mutual achievement of multiple powerful sections.

The passionate and continuous innovation of the professional R&D team; the continuous improvement of store standardization, especially the "beverage-oriented" catering standards; the in-depth refinement of operational execution standards... No sector can be underestimated of. In short, a benign endogenous system is our brand moat.

Sun Nianpeng: Strong systemic risk resistance and certainty of endogenous growth are two major characteristics of leading companies. This is also important knowledge that the epidemic has taught us.

The sudden COVID-19 epidemic and its lasting impact are not only a crisis, but also an opportunity and test for all enterprises.

Facts have proved that Hot Braised Food has seized the opportunity and withstood the test.

In the wave of business, enterprises must achieve steady and long-term development, which is closely related to core competitiveness such as scale efficiency, brand efficiency, channel penetration, product innovation, supply chain collaboration and corporate culture.

Sun Nianpeng: In the early stages of development, we encountered a serious shortage of staff, which caused store delays. What impressed me deeply was that in December 2020, when many stores were opened at the same time, the epidemic situation was not optimistic and the Chinese New Year was approaching, the recruitment work was at a deadlock.

Therefore, at this stage, the company attaches great importance to team building and talent reserves, and resolutely avoids limiting the development progress of the company due to manpower shortage. At present, our team is equipped in advance and is very complete, ready to welcome explosive growth at any time.

Sun Nianpeng: Relu Shiguang received US dollar funding support from Sequoia China in June 2021, and learned about Spring Capital’s RMB funding support 2 months later. Thanks to the escort of front-line institutions, the brand continues to Accumulating explosive potential energy has turned into a steady stream of endurance power in the process of future advancement.

In the future, Hot Braised Food will focus on 4 aspects of the company to once again consolidate the brand barriers:

1. Front-end model upgrade and iteration

2 .Build a super supply chain at the backend to ensure overall supply and internal virtuous cycle

3. Strengthen digital management and control, and continuously granulate data in the middle office

4. Standardize stores and strive to achieve catering "Beverage-based" operation

In essence, it is based on Internet technology as the core, applying CRM, POS, EKP, ERP and information middle-end systems to achieve digital management, intelligent and visual enterprise management systems.