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In the eyes of some entrepreneurs preparing to start their own business, food on expiration date has become a "new business opportunity" under the wave of consumption.

Especially in the first half of this year, many food brands that are about to receive financing have received financing.

In April 2021, Little Elephant Life completed tens of millions of yuan in angel round financing; in March of the same year, two upcoming food brands, iDiscount (Yuanshi Huibang) and Boom Boom Mart ) respectively completed tens of millions of yuan in angel round financing and Pre-A round financing.

In addition, old players in the industry are so good at deals that they even received 4 rounds of investment within a year.

Offline food stores represented by Good Deals, Little Elephant Life, and Prosperous Market are accelerating their expansion through franchises and joint ventures; while online shopping platforms, such as Good Food, Sale Sale, etc. The monthly sales volume of temporary food stores can reach tens of thousands. For a time, the temporary food business became popular, and behind this was the gradually expanding market demand.

Data from a research report show that the scale of the temporary food market will reach 19.4 billion yuan in 2020, and is expected to exceed 20 billion yuan in 2021.

However, some temporary food store owners said, "Many people think that temporary food has a high gross profit margin and is an industry where you can make money while lying down. But the real situation is not that ideal."

< p> At present, Linqi Food is still in the early stage of entrepreneurial explosion. It still faces many problems such as imperfect supply chain and unstable supply.

The only people who can get goods from manufacturers are some large dealers and wholesalers. They all measure goods by tons of trucks. Wang Hao purchases goods from these wholesalers, but he does not Fixed wholesalers, "usually this wholesaler gets some, and that wholesaler gets some, and they create a temporary food bank."

Every time you go to the wholesaler's warehouse, you will find that the goods are different, because these large dealers also piece together goods from different wholesalers.

However, this process of "piecing things together" also creates price differences in the supply of goods, so the prices of each middleman are also different. "It depends on your bargaining power."

Of course, compared with these, what attracts more attention is this "new business format" that appeared four or five years ago. Why is it so popular now?

This is also closely related to the epidemic.

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Food on expiry date has gradually become an industry, especially in the past two years, food on expiry date has heated up very quickly.

In 2020, due to the impact of the epidemic, the upstream supply of the expired food industry has surged, and the entire food industry has entered an outbreak period. In addition, China is currently advocating "supply-side reform" and "elimination of waste"

Therefore, food that is about to expire will suddenly become popular in 2020. The market size of the food industry has expanded rapidly.

In addition, some consumers identify with expired food, which has also accelerated the development of the industry to a certain extent.

Currently, the popular food brands that are attracting attention in offline physical stores include Good Deals, Little Elephant Life, and Prosperous Market.

It is mainly deployed in first- and second-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. According to its latest project cooperation letter, Haoteaibao *** has 170 stores, ranking first in the industry.

Little Elephant Life, which is also a competitor, was founded in 2020 and opened its angel round of financing in April 2021. It has since entered Nanjing, Yangzhou, Hefei, as well as Huangmei, Liyang, Donghai and other counties. Target the sinking market.

It is reported that more than 80 importers have signed strategic inventory distribution cooperation agreements.

Prosperity Market was established in August 2020. In March this year, it received Challenger Capital in the Pre-A round. It also focuses on first- and second-tier cities, with college students and white-collar workers as its main consumers.

At this stage, expired food is still in the stage of competition for expansion speed and scale effect, and differentiation is not obvious.

In terms of products, whether it is milk, beverages, bread, biscuits, snacks, or nuts such as melon seeds and peanuts, the most commonly eaten varieties are almost not available in every store. big difference.

In terms of price, it is sold at 10-50% off the original price of the brand. For example, the original price of Wangzai Bear Biscuits is 3.8 yuan after discount, the current price in the store is 3.8 yuan after discount, the imported red wine for 120 yuan only costs 31.5 yuan, and the imported oatmeal biscuits for 120 yuan only cost 6.8 yuan after discount.

In the presentation form of product price tags, without exception, the original price of the product is crossed out by a horizontal line, and is replaced by a selling price that is far lower than the original price.

The more well-known online food platforms that are on sale during the period are Good Food Period and Sale. The products of the two platforms are similar, but the operation methods are different. Both Haoshiqi and Sale have their own APPs, WeChat mini-programs and Alipay mini-programs. In terms of operation model, Haoshiqi mainly adopts the "merchant settlement + self-operation" model, and the sales are mainly self-operated products.

On Pinduoduo, one temporary food store has more than 90,000 fans and orders over 100,000 items. The Douban group called "I Love Linqi Food", which was established in September last year, has now expanded to 70,000 members.

From the perspective of consumer groups, young people in China mainly buy food on expiration date, including those born in the 1990s, college students, and young people working and living in some second- and third-tier cities.

Because the price is cheap and the product is within the shelf life.

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According to relevant data, the total output value of the snack industry in 2020 will be close to 3 trillion yuan.

The industry scale of expiring goods in 2020 is about 30 billion yuan. Therefore, there is a large "supply" of food that is due to expire.

The "supply" of a large amount of food that is about to expire mainly comes from three aspects:

First, due to fierce competition among food companies, production capacity exceeds demand due to "involution"; second, Yes, in order to seize the market, various consumer brands have continuously launched new products with niche flavors, but they have not achieved expected market performance, resulting in huge inventory squeezes and slow sales; third, imported food is a major consumer of food with deadlines. During the epidemic, From the distributor to the retail terminal, it takes too long, accelerating the transition of food to its final stage.

In addition, domestic snack brands such as Three Squirrels, Bestore, Laiyifen, etc. each have hundreds of SKUs, and their unsatisfactory sales of single products are also the main reason for the expiry date of food. supply.

Since last year, the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic has had a huge impact on physical retailers.

Good deals that originally existed in the market in 2014 quickly expanded the market in 2020 and attracted the attention of consumers.

From a consumption perspective, iiMedia Consulting Zhang Yi said that the main driving force for Chinese consumers to buy food that is due to expire is low price.

In the context of the rising food industry, traditional supermarkets, fresh food supermarkets, and convenience stores are also laying out shelves for food that has expired.

For example, Carrefour and Wal-Mart have rearranged their shelves for food that is due to expire; fresh food platforms such as JD.com and Hema have also set up special areas for products that are due to expire; convenience store chain brands such as Bianlifeng Bee have arranged their shelves for food that is due to expire. Food discount counter.

Some industry insiders said that the current low prices of food products attracting many consumers. However, considering that improper storage of expired food can easily cause spoilage and odor, if you want to ensure a stable customer base, you must also work hard on product quality.

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At present, the policies for food on expiration date mainly focus on defining conditions and quality and safety standards, and the extensive business model of expiration date food retailers has more opportunities. Big profit margins.

The heating up of the temporary food market has attracted many people to test the waters.

In Beijing, stores with good sales basically occupy prominent locations with huge traffic flow, such as Xidan Joy City, Changyingtian Street, Jinyuan Yansha, Han's Plaza, Sanlitun Soho and many other popular shopping malls and core shopping malls. There are good deals everywhere in the shopping district.

Sale. In addition, some locations near the subway entrances and exits also introduce good sale shops.

Haoteemai uses a partnership system to expand stores. The stores are managed by operating partners, and Haoteimai is responsible for rent, supply, and logistics. The operating partner needs to pay a deposit of 340,000 yuan and a training fee of 19,800 yuan. The operating partner's income is 12% of the store's sales, and he is also responsible for the store's personnel costs and electricity expenses. Stores usually have an area of ??80 to 120 square meters, and the average monthly sales turnover in the past quarter was 250,000 to 300,000 yuan.

People who pay attention to the temporary food industry said that if the above-mentioned standards are used to calculate the good sales stores in Beijing, the labor, water and electricity requirements for a 100-square-meter store are fixed at around 20,000 yuan per month, and 300,000 yuan per month. Sales, partners’ monthly dividend of 36,000 yuan, after excluding personnel, water and electricity expenses, there is not much left.

Some industry insiders said that temporary food products may appear to be hot, but they hide the secret of brand store expansion and profitability.

In addition, there are also great disadvantages in the temporary food industry chain. Suppliers have a greater say. Industry pain points include unstable product supply and high requirements for refined store operations. These pain points will become more apparent after the supply side gradually returns to normal in the post-epidemic era. The situation of more people and less food will make the industry competition increasingly fierce.

Independent economist Wang Chikun also said, "In the long term, food on expiration date is a short-demand industry and is unsustainable. The market is prone to rapid saturation, leading to fierce competition."

Otherwise, it will be difficult to get the goods or the cost of getting the goods will be too high, eventually leading to losses.

The redundancy caused by precision, the product of the "involution" of the industry, and the inventory backlog caused by the extremely special period of the epidemic were transmitted to the downstream and promoted the popularity of temporary food stores.