Up to now, there are more than 24 kinds of Shaxian snacks, and there are more than 6 kinds that can be eaten in the market. By the end of 219, there were 88, Shaxian snacks in the country, attracting more than 6, local people in Shaxian to go out to operate restaurants, and at the same time driving more than 6, people in the surrounding areas to start businesses, with revenues exceeding 1 billion yuan.
However, why is Shaxian a snack? Why is the snack Shaxian? Where are the challenges and future roads of Shaxian snacks? We went to Shaxian twice and interviewed local government officials, snack owners and industry experts. In their narratives, the answers gradually emerged.
why is shaxian a snack?
in the late 198s and early 199s, the experience of the development of township enterprises in southern Jiangsu became the object of national imitation. In order to solve the employment problem of a large number of surplus agricultural labor, Shaxian also learned from the experience of advanced areas and implemented the policy of "industrialization on the spot".
However, the problems of management and market make the newly established township enterprises in Shaxian lack competitiveness and struggle. Around 1997, state-owned enterprises suffered large losses, and the number of jobs available in non-agricultural fields decreased rapidly. Employment, poverty alleviation and stability became important challenges for the government.
The lack of resources and the pressure of employment forced some Shaxian people to seek a living in other places from the late 198s to the early 199s. Some people who are good at making snacks, such as farmers in Xiamao and Langkou, began to make snacks in some cities around Shaxian County to make money. The entry threshold for the snack industry is not high, and a family can start setting up a stall with a few hundred yuan. If you invest more, you can rent a decent storefront for thousands of dollars. This small-scale operation, one store at a time, has become the main operation mode of Shaxian snacks in the future because of its small investment and low risk.
Shaxian snacks, which are growing spontaneously, are still very limited in scale and radiation range. The financial crisis caused by the collapse of Shaxian folk standard meeting in 1992 became the direct cause of the first expansion of Shaxian snacks.
At that time, the bidding meeting similar to usury was very popular. About 6% of families in the county participated in various folk bidding meetings, and the participation rate of rural bidding meetings was as high as 85%. In the middle of the same year, the capital chain of non-governmental usury in Shaxian County, which had accumulated risks for a long time, was broken, and a large number of leaders and congregations who were in debt due to the collapse of the bidding meeting fled to the outside to find a way out. Most of these runners, who were heavily in debt and survived in the Jedi, had no skills and began to make and operate snacks in various places with the support of their fellow villagers.
Shaxian snack owners who went out early coincided with the rapid urbanization and industrialization in the southeast coast. The continuous influx of labor into big cities not only injects vitality into cities, but also creates a huge consumer market. Shaxian snacks with low prices and various varieties just meet the love of low-and middle-income people with fast pace of life and work. The positioning of "one yuan into the store, two yuan to eat well, five yuan to eat well" fills the gap of low consumption, quickly starts the brand and rushes out a rich road.
Shaxian people saw the great potential of snack industry and snack market, and after gaining a firm foothold, many small business owners began to teach others in the ethnic group the skills and experience of managing snacks. The relationship network driven by mutual support between relatives and friends and neighbors has become an important platform for snack owners to exchange information, share experiences and complement resources.
why is the snack Shaxian?
The rapidly expanding Shaxian snacks were not well-known in the catering market in the mid-199s. Chengdu snacks, Yangzhou snacks and even Fuzhou snacks and Minnan snacks were far more well-known than Shaxian snacks. The reason why Shaxian snacks can come from behind and stand out from the crowd, and transform the traditional technological and cultural advantages into industrial advantages, and then become a well-known brand in snack categories is closely related to the long-term implementation of the industrial policy of Shaxian government to support the development of snack industry.
The snack industry entered the sight of the main leaders of Shaxian government in the mid-199s.
At this time, the Shaxian government is looking for a solution to the "three rural issues". Agricultural production in Shaxian county can solve the problem of food and clothing, but it can't "run towards a well-off society". At the same time, most young people are not well educated, lack skills and are unwilling to farm, but they can't find a way to get rich. In this case, the development of snack industry with low investment, low skill requirements, external market and broad demand seems to be a correct option.
However, the development of Shaxian snack industry, which is rooted abroad, is not smooth sailing. The sanitary conditions of the storefront are not ideal; Operators do not master the technology of Shaxian snacks in place, and the varieties are relatively single; Going out to operate in a strange place, unable to successfully apply for various licenses, often becoming the focus of rectification, etc., have caused difficulties in the development of snack bars. Moreover, counterfeit Shaxian snacks have begun to appear in the market, and foreigners have followed suit when they watch Shaxian snacks to make money. Some snack bars are not up to standard in quality and technology, which will affect the reputation of Shaxian snacks.
In other words, if the problems of low technical level, low competitiveness and lax management are not solved, Shaxian snacks may be squeezed out by other brands and gradually marginalized in the competition of catering industry.
according to the situation at that time, if you want to change the face of the industry and promote snacks as an industry, you can't finish it quickly by the snack owners themselves, and the orderly development of the industry can't be achieved by the self-organization and self-discipline of the people. The government needs to intervene as a manager and a service provider and introduce new governance mechanisms and industry norms.
1997 became a watershed in the development history of Shaxian snacks. After the reform, Shaxian snack is no longer a spontaneous entrepreneurial phenomenon composed of random incidents of going out to operate snacks, but has become an industry led by the government and attended by all employees.
On May 13th, 1997, Shaxian held a special conference on snack industry development, positioning snacks as a pillar tertiary industry, which is the main way to help rural surplus labor force and laid-off workers in cities and towns transfer their jobs and increase their income. Since 1998, Shaxian snacks have been included in the ninth to thirteenth five-year plans for national economic development in Shaxian. Every year, the government will issue opinions on the development of Shaxian snacks, indicating the annual goals and specific promotion measures for industrial development.
At the same time of system reform, institutional reform is also in full swing. In 1997, the Shaxian snack industry development leading group was established, and the county party committee, county government, various commissions and bureaus, and major towns and villages all sent key leaders to participate in the work of the group.
In order to improve the production and service level and standardize the order of the industry, Shaxian Snack Trade Association was established in July, 1997 as a community organization for the management of Shaxian snack industry. Two years later, Shaxian Snack Industry Development Center was established, which was responsible for personnel training, technical consultation, guidance service and skill competition, and going out for exhibition.
in order to strengthen the implementation of policies, all towns and villages have appointed full-time personnel to take charge of snack development, and the development of snack industry has been included in the assessment objectives of county and township civilization construction, and it has been implemented through various inspection, appraisal and reward and punishment measures.
the focus of the initial industrial policy is to concentrate on opening up the market in an orderly manner. To this end, Shaxian has implemented the development strategy of "one township, one city and one team". A township is responsible for developing a team of Shaxian snacks, locking in a destination city and improving the market share of Shaxian snacks.
In order to expand and manage the team that goes out to operate, the county party committee and county government allows government officials to keep their salaries and posts and go out to operate Shaxian snacks for two years without their posts. These cadres need to take the responsibility of coordinating and managing the owners of Shaxian snacks in their cities.
with the encouragement of this policy, the number of people who go out to operate snacks in towns and villages has more than doubled in two years. Later, some towns and villages launched a more vigorous "One Belt, Three Areas" policy, and arranged for each member of the Party Committee to contact three branches. Each branch contacted three party member, and party member, who had business experience, led three people out to develop snacks.
Efficient mobilization and strong incentives became the important driving force for industrial scale in this period. In addition, the Shaxian government has also solved the problems such as the lack of uniform standards for the production technology of Shaxian snacks and the difficulty in obtaining loans from snack owners through financial subsidies.
challenges faced by Shaxian snacks
By the end of 219, there were more than 88, Shaxian snack bars in China, but no more than 3, of them were run by Shaxian people, and less than 1, were certified by Shaxian snack trade association as famous and standard shops. A large number of informal snack bars pose an important challenge to the promotion of Shaxian snack brand reputation. Restaurants that fake Shaxian snacks are widely distributed and mainly run on a small scale, which also increases the cost and difficulty of judicial rights protection.
Shaxian Snacks Association has spared no effort to promote the standardization of Shaxian snacks in the past twenty years, and strengthened the constraints on snack bars through a series of ways, such as logo design, personnel training, product specification and raw material supply. However, a large number of small business owners do not have a strong demand to promote the upgrading of stores. The traditional mom-and-pop shop model is still the main mode of operation of most Shaxian snacks. These small business owners are very sensitive to the cost increase brought by standardization, and many small business owners are unwilling to take risks in this seemingly significant undertaking if the corresponding investment can not achieve immediate economic benefits.
In contrast, a bigger worry is that with the succession of a large number of second-generation owners, the cultural identity and nostalgia for hometown have gradually faded with the intergenerational replacement of Shaxian snack business owners. This makes the relationship between the scattered snack bars in Shaxian and Shaxian, the mother of Shaxian snack culture, more loose, which will greatly reduce the industrial competitiveness of Shaxian snacks, a collective brand.
Compared with other collective brands or regional brands, Shaxian snack is very different in that the industry actually does not depend on Shaxian in terms of material. Different from regional brands such as wine and tea, Shaxian is not the only origin of raw materials for Shaxian snacks. Shaxian snack, a brand, can't control the whole industry by monopolizing some scarce natural resources or important raw materials, and it is difficult to gain an overwhelming advantage in the process of playing games with many links in the industrial chain.
in addition, compared with brands in these regions, Shaxian snacks are produced and consumed in other places, and they are widely distributed and scattered. It is difficult to supervise and guide a large number of scattered small stores at a low cost, and it is also difficult to closely integrate such scattered snack bars with developed production systems and supporting systems. It is very difficult to integrate and manage industries.
In view of these difficulties faced by industrial upgrading, Shaxian County is constantly trying to explore new development models. Because a large number of small business owners are not aware of the urgency of industrial upgrading, and they are cautious about the standardization measures launched by Shaxian Trade Association, Shaxian Snack Group has changed its strategy, hoping to show small business owners the huge dividends that can be released by industrial upgrading by building Shaxian Snack Chain Standard Store.
Shaxian Snack Group has introduced a trinity management system of head office, subsidiaries and terminal stores. In the past three years, 23 catering subsidiaries of Shaxian snack group have been established nationwide, and nearly 3, standard chain stores of Shaxian snack have been developed.
among them, as the intermediate force of this system, the catering subsidiary of Shaxian Snack Group has achieved remarkable results. Snack owners with certain economic strength hold shares with their subsidiaries, and provide standardized services including unified storefront signs, unified tables, chairs and tableware, unified food procurement, unified distribution, and unified service specifications to the franchised chain stores.
In addition, in order to support the construction of standard snack shops in Shaxian, and promote the overall operating efficiency and product quality of the industry, Shaxian has built a snack industrial park, attracting dozens of enterprises that provide major raw materials or semi-finished products for Shaxian snack bars. Standardized production ensures the quality of some large items, and also makes these industries related to snack industry become an important force to promote the GDP growth of Shaxian County.
In order to further enrich the cultural connotation of the collective brand of Shaxian snacks and stimulate the growth of the local tertiary industry. Shaxian will further upgrade the Shaxian Snack Tourism and Culture Festival, which started in 1997. Shaxian will be further turned into a "paradise for eating goods" through setting up a stage for snacks, promoting culture and singing opera in economy and trade.
Whether the new development strategy can make a series of related industries form a chain and a closed loop to achieve synergy still depends to a great extent on whether the operating level and economic benefits of a large number of Shaxian snack bars can reach a higher level. The construction of standardization and the promotion of chain operation are just catching up with the catering industry to continuously improve the overall level, and the cultivation of new competitive advantages lies in whether the operating pain points and sales situation of each store can be effectively grasped.
We can see that the leaders in charge of Shaxian Snacks have realized the importance of business data to industrial development. The analysis and mining of these business information can effectively help single stores sort out their business strategies, understand the preferences of regional consumers, and help single stores reduce procurement costs and improve profit margins. At the same time, microscopic data can help Shaxian snack industry optimize the layout of core facilities such as central kitchen and logistics center at a higher level.
However, the real difficulty in the enjoyment and integration of business data lies in whether scattered snack owners have the motivation to join this new system. Therefore, the design of effective governance structure, new investment and the introduction of benefit sharing mechanism will be the key to whether Shaxian snacks can create miracles again in the new market and technical environment.