Economic Observer Reporter Ye Xinran There is a saying in marketing that business competition has entered the era of competition for the hearts and minds of consumers, and whoever takes the lead in becoming the preferred brand of a certain category in the hearts and minds of customers will have a better chance of winning. This is one of the points of view of the "positioning theory".

"Being the first" is also the goal that Chenyi Dai, the founder of Chenxi Stew, has set for his business. Only the track he chose is in the takeaway market, which has become a red sea.

Blue Ocean Opportunities in Takeout

Chenxi Stew is not a traditional catering brand, it does not have a dine-in store, supplied by the central kitchen, and only does online takeout business.

Right now, the competition in the takeaway field is fierce. Data from Trustdata, a mobile Internet big data monitoring platform, shows that the market turnover of China's takeaway industry reached 603.5 billion yuan in 2019, a year-on-year increase of 31%. Moreover, the transaction value of the takeaway industry accounted for the proportion of the national catering revenue year by year, and by the end of 2019, the market penetration rate of China's takeaway industry amounted to 13%, which was 2.2 percentage points higher than that of the end of 2018.

Dai Chenyi does not deny that the industry is facing fierce competition, but he pointed out that the volume of takeaway is so large, but the position of the "first brand of takeaway" is still vacant, "Western food you can think of KFC, Shanghai can think of a small south, Nanjing can think of the big stall, if you talk about takeaway alone, you can think of a big stall. If you talk about takeout alone, can a takeout brand pop up in your mind?" In Dai Chenyi's view, China has not yet a catering company to achieve a national brand.

These are all opportunities for Chenxi, Chenxi stew goal is to create "China's first brand of takeaway".

Become the first, Dai Chenyi summarized to achieve three "degrees": the speed of the meal, the temperature of the meal, and the beautiful degree of food packaging design. In fact, these three "degrees" are pointing to the Chinese practitioners of the most headache: standardization. As we all know, Chinese food is the most difficult category to standardize. But in Dai Chenyi's view, if the most difficult part of the foundation is laid at the beginning, standardization will not be a problem. The "foundation" in Dai Chenyi's eyes is to emphasize the backend and supply chain building.

Unlike previous catering enterprises that emphasize the front stage and light the backstage, Chenxi stew will spend a lot of effort on the backstage process and supply chain building. 2018, Chenxi stew invested 130 million to build a digital intelligent production workshop. According to reports, this plant involves 14 processes for producing soup, all of which rely on automated machines, with an annual output value of more than 20,000 tons. Dai Chenyi said, in general, the number of employees of this scale of the factory needs more than 200 people, while relying on the current automated machines, the factory only needs 60 people.

In fact, the hardest part for Chenyi Stew is not the investment in machines, but the integration of individual automated processes. Chinese food is difficult to standardize, in which the soup is even more difficult, such as the fire, the amount of water added, the proportion of raw materials, nutritional matching and other processes are more complex integration. Dai Chenyi pointed out that relying on research and development equipment and supply chain system, Chenxi stew can do fast meals, to ensure the speed and temperature, while working on the product design, the container is exquisite, to ensure the degree of beautiful.

To a certain extent, standardization determines the birth of leading enterprises. The in-depth report on the catering industry of China Merchants Securities pointed out that the domestic catering market is fragmented and the industry concentration is low. Data show that the total business of the top 100 catering companies in 2019 only accounted for 7% of the industry. And from the point of view of segmentation, the concentration of the western fast food and freshly ground coffee industry is relatively high, reaching 53.3 accounted for % and 74.9% respectively. Higher degree of standardization of the industry is more concentrated, more likely to produce leading enterprises.

This is similar to Dai Chenyi's point of view, he further pointed out that the first to go national and even international enterprises, must be automated, high degree of standardization of catering enterprises.

The takeaway is not the same as unhealthy

This year, affected by the epidemic, catering enterprises have shown different development characteristics: takeaway, pre-prepared dishes have become a hot spot. From the first half of the year, five-star hotels open takeaway as well as the popularity of self-heating hot pot and other news can be seen. And consumer demand for food and beverage has also shown new changes, Dai Chenyi saw three key words: pay more attention to safety, health and sense of ceremony.

Changes in market demand for catering companies have put forward new requirements. In fact, many dine-in enterprises have begun to take root in the takeaway market, China's takeaway market will become a red sea market that can no longer be red. In the past, takeout has more or less left an "unhealthy" impression on consumers, and the data speaks for itself.

Dai Chenyi said that some years ago, the takeaway unit price of about 10-15 yuan, but even now, the data show that the average unit price of 35-40 yuan is not the real level, because the platform's statistical caliber is the full reduction, as well as the use of red packets before the price.

From a more detailed point of view, the 35 yuan price per person is not the real level of per capita consumption of takeout. Dai Chenyi has been based on the Chenxi Stew's own big data analysis found that each single 100 yuan of takeout actually corresponds to about 2.5 diners, that is, per capita spending in about 40 yuan. The platform statistics of 35-40 yuan of customer unit price is reflected in the 2.5 people, per capita takeaway spending should actually be 14 yuan -16 yuan.

The low price is inevitably accompanied by a decline in quality. In fact, takeout prices are higher than dine-in prices in both Japan and the US, except in China, where the opposite is true. Here a large part of the reason lies in the platform's subsidies, giving customers the illusion that takeout should be cheaper than dine-in. In Dai Chenyi's view, to do a high unit price of takeout, is precisely the way to break the Chinese takeout.

This conclusion comes from the fact that during the epidemic, Chenxi Stew launched a new product - the small golden bowl. during the epidemic in March, the prefabricated dishes, convenient dishes are popular, the company combined with its own supply chain, it took less than a week to produce the Chenxi convenient dishes small golden bowl series, including Buddha jumped out of the wall, abalone, fish glue, flower glue and other categories, creating a 6-hour 1 million sales performance. performance of 1 million sales in 6 hours. From the opening of the first takeaway store in Shanghai in March 2018 to the current nationwide network of more than 500 stores, the average daily unit volume of Chenxi Stew stores is 103 units, and the average customer unit price is 105 yuan. Ai media data survey shows that the average customer unit price of takeaway in 2018 is about 40 yuan.

On the other hand, the small golden bowl of convenient dishes allows Chenxi to see the blue ocean market of the "eat at home" scene, in fact, Chenxi's standardized products can encompass the three major scenarios of "eating": at home, to the store and takeout. No matter what the scenario is, you can eat at a more reasonable price with better quality, which also echoes Dai Chenyi's understanding of "dining rituals". From another point of view, Chenxi stew also tries to transmit a new concept of life through this way - takeaway is not unhealthy.

Not only that, in addition to the C-end, Chenxi based on its own technology, is also the B-end to carry out standardized operations. It is reported that the restaurant brand Xiaonangguo table about abalone ginseng, shark's fin and maw products, will be provided by the Chenxi. In addition, in September this year, Phoenix's e-commerce brand "Phoenix Home Products", the launch of the self-heating rice series products, is also a cooperation with the Chenxi stew.

Dai Chenyi said that the current total consumption of food ingredients in China, pre-prepared products accounted for 10%, Japan up to 60%, because it can be a good solution to the high quality of eating at home demand, pre-prepared dishes 2C business will gradually grow. However, the 2C business of prepared dishes is very demanding for catering companies, mainly in the requirements of R&D and supply chain system, which to a certain extent has also led to the cooperation between Chenxi and related catering brands.

Dai Chenyi compared the takeaway to the "Air Force", that is, the takeaway supply chain in the early stages of the large-scale investment, in the capture of new markets, expanding the store map, the replication will also be easier to carry out. China Merchants Securities research report pointed out that the restaurant pattern is decentralized, and the degree of standardization of the segmented track determines the degree of concentration. Along with the supply side of the restaurant chain rate increase, operational efficiency and scale optimization, the industry is expected to give birth to large-scale catering enterprises.

Now, Babi food landing in the capital market, dumplings famous five Fangzhai also in the sprint IPO, Chinese food standardization, chain battle is also intensifying.