article｜AI Finance and Economics Agency Yu Hong
editor｜Yang Jie
The “self-heating hot pot” that became popular last year has another financing trend. A few days ago, zihi pot announced the completion of the C++ round of financing. The investor is Taikang Investment, and the financing amount exceeds 100 million yuan. This is also the fifth round of financing that Hi Pot has received since its establishment three years ago.
Behind the self-heating hot pot like Zihai Hotpot is the rapid break of the "self-heating food" brand. Including self-heating hot pot brand Mo Xiaoxian, and new brands such as Cannibals who entered the market from self-heating hot and sour noodles, they have also raised financing in the past two years.
"Self-heating food" comes in good time. After eating the dividends of the times of otaku culture, lazy culture and single economy, it is becoming more and more popular. They continue to refresh their presence among young consumer groups through Internet celebrity KOLs planting grass and celebrity recommendations. On the shelves of offline supermarkets and convenience stores, self-heating food is also placed alongside the "King of Instant Food" instant noodles, occupying the market of instant food.
Self-heating food The track also welcomed the entry of large players. From convenience food brands such as Uni-President and Jinmailang, to catering companies such as Haidilao, Xiaolongkan, and even snack brands such as BESTORE, as well as internet celebrities such as Li Ziqi, All joined.
Behind the rapid growth of the industry, self-heating food is still just an out-and-out "net celebrity", mainly relying on internet celebrity anchors and celebrities to bring goods and sell them online. At present, although there are many offline channels for brands, they have hardly caused any splashes. At the same time, the self-heating food that attracts young people relying on the concept of "self-heating" and heavy-taste food cannot retain them and become their loyal users due to reasons such as health, safety and homogenized competition.
Self-heating food, how long can it be heated?
The 4 billion market is emerging from the "lazy economy"
The "self-heating small hot pot" that can be heated by itself has suddenly become popular in recent years.Several new brands, including Zihai Pot, Mo Xiaoxian, and Cannibals, were established in 2017. In just one week in mid-May 2020, three projects including Mo Xiaoxian and Cannibals received financing one after another. In September last year, Cannibals once again received investment from Fengshang Capital.
Self-heating food is a kind of food that does not depend on electricity, fire and other energy sources, and can be boiled anytime and anywhere with only moderate cold water. Most self-heating food brands come with their own heating packs, which contain quicklime, sodium carbonate and water, etc., relying on their rapid reaction to release heat, high-temperature steamed food can be produced in a short period of time.
The top-selling products of these emerging brands are no longer limited to hot pot, but also include self-heating rice, claypot rice, hot and sour noodles, clay pot soup, Nanchang mixed noodles_ span6span et al. This type of food production process is convenient and time-saving, and is suitable for outdoor, travel and other scenarios. According to Mintel research data, the market size of self-heating food in 2019 was 3.5 billion yuan and is expected to reach 4 billion yuan in 2020.
In addition to emerging brands, big players in the catering industry have also begun to cut into this track. Chain restaurant brands represented by Haidilao and Xiaolongkan have launched self-heating single-person hotpot. At the same time, snack food brands such as and BESTORE have also launched self-heating instant hot pots. The consumers of these snack brands are mainly young people. Therefore, self-heating hot pot has become an important supplement to its main category. In addition, convenience food brands such as Uni-President and Jinmailang have also started from self-heating rice. At present, Uni-President's "Kai Xiaozao" has sold more than 10,000 pieces on the e-commerce platform.
On the Taobao platform, the monthly sales of some self-heating hot pots have reached more than 100,000, which is basically the same as the sales of instant noodles. The cumulative number of short videos about self-heating food evaluation on the B station platform is close to 5 million times, which is enough to see young people. Love and concern for self-heating food.
In KKV, convenience stores and other stores that young people like to visit,Self-heating foods have made their way to the corner of the shelf. A clerk of a food specialty store told AI Finance that the sales of self-heating food in the store are better than instant noodles, and self-heating hot pot is the most popular category. In the store, self-heating food occupies three shelves, and instant noodles and other instant noodles occupy two shelves.
An investor said that the consumption track has been hot in the past two years, and all products related to the "new generation" crowd have their own popularity. "Generation Z" likes toned, differentiated and fresh products. Their work pressure is high, and they rarely cook by themselves. After the launch of self-heating food as a brand-new product, they are attracted to pay for it.
"Self-heating food" comes at just the right time. With the continuous increase of the single population, a new consumer culture represented by "one-person food" is emerging, which further promotes the sales growth of self-heating food.
data shows that in 2018, the single adult population in my country was about 240 million, of which more than 77 million adults lived alone. It is expected that this figure will be close to 100 million in 2021. Among the followers of self-heating food, more than 80 are people under the age of 30, which is highly overlapping with the single group. It is not difficult to understand why self-heating food customized for individual food intake and tastes of young people is popular in the market.
Last year's epidemic also boosted the sales of self-heating food. At the beginning of 2020, when more than 90% of catering companies chose to close their stores, various convenience foods that can be eaten at home, from instant noodles to self-heating food, were looted by consumers. At that time, convenience food e-commerce platforms such as Haidilao self-heating hot pot, unified self-healing pot, snail noodles and other convenience food e-commerce platforms were out of stock for a long time. It will take several months to receive the goods.
According to Taobao data, from January 20 to February 2, 2020, self-heating food ranked second among the hot-selling products, second only to snail noodles, and the sales of self-heating rice increased by 257.09% year-on-year, far exceeding In the same period, the growth rate of instant noodles was 133.34%.
Although the epidemic was gradually brought under control,But self-heating foods still gained a lot of consumers during this period, increasing exposure.
China's food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng said that at present, the demand for self-heating food is relatively strong, superimposed on the demographic dividend of the new generation, as well as the background of the times such as home culture, lazy culture, single economy, as well as support from the consumer and capital ends. There is still a lot of room for development as a whole, and there is still the possibility of new players joining. It is expected that before 2025, the overall growth rate of the industry will not be lower than 20%. At that time, self-heating food will enter a stage of relative brand solidification.
"Internet celebrity" self-heating food, online and offline encounters resistance
The first domestic convenience self-heating food was born in 2007, but it has not received widespread attention in the market. With the addition of road merchants, self-heating food is becoming more and more "explosive". However, from the current point of view, this type of food is still an out-and-out "Internet celebrity".
On Xiaohongshu , there are more than 10,000 notes about Zihaiguo and Mo Xiaoxian. " Ouyang Nana Same Style Zihai Pot", the most liked food blogger "Strawberry Flavored Fish", has already received 7,440 likes and 101 comments. A large number of KOLs, including Weibo original video bloggers, food bloggers, etc., have published countless recommended blog posts on Weibo , the main promotion site of self-heating food.
Celebrities and Internet celebrity anchors bring goods online, which is the main way to attract traffic to Zihai Pot. As early as 2018, the star Lin Gengxin posted a blog post on Weibo about eating "Zihai Pot". In 2019, self-heating small hot pots from brands such as Cooking Time and Xiaolongkan entered the live broadcast rooms of top anchors such as Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya; the live broadcasts of Zihai Pot came from Kuaishou Simba. The anchor "Big Stomach King" Mi Zijun launched Mo Xiaoxian's food broadcast,Other videos of celebrities and internet celebrities such as " Du Haitao teach you how to eat Zihai pot" and "late night eating broadcast from Xinxinzi" can be seen everywhere on various platforms.
At a glance on social media, it seems that half of the entertainment industry is eating self-heating food. At the same time, in popular Korean dramas such as "Goddess Arrives" and "Vincenzo", there have been many appearances of self-healing pot. The promotion of these emerging brands of self-heating food can be seen in almost all channels where young people are emerging. E-commerce platforms and live streaming have also become the main channels for their sales.
Self-heating food brands are also deploying offline channels. In June 2020, Zihaiguo opened its first offline restaurant on Wensan West Side Road, Hangzhou, and then opened more than a dozen "Zihaiguo Hotpot Claypot Rice" in Shanghai, Hangzhou and other places, with dishes including charging Pot, delicious hot pot pot, side dishes, etc., about 30 yuan per person.
However, compared with the booming online promotion, most of these offline stores are "big thunder and little rain", and their living conditions are also worrying.
Judging from the merchant ratings of Meituan and , the offline stores of Zihaiguo have a moderately low score, ranging from 3.9 points to 4.3 points, and their popularity is not very strong. Among the 6 stores searched by Meituan, one has been suspended, and two of them have not been evaluated at all. In the evaluation, there are also many consumers who commented that "the rice is not delicious" and "the taste is just like that", and some consumers admitted that they chose to buy because of the cheapness.
It is understood that the franchise fee for Zihaiguo's offline stores is 60,000 yuan.
Can't keep young people
Relying on young people who like food and taste, pursue "one-person food" and "lazy economy", the concept of self-heating food is hot, but to retain young consumers, Actually it is not easy.
Self-heating foods are mostly heavy in taste, high in salt, oil and calories. Some experts have pointed out that the varieties of self-heating hot pot dishes are very similar, the nutrition is not balanced, and the fat and salt content is seriously exceeding the standard.Taking a brand of spicy tender beef self-heating hot pot as an example, the fat content of this product per 100 grams is 86.3 grams, the nutrient reference value is 144%, the sodium content is 5.9 grams, and the nutrient reference value is 295%. These two values have exceeded Chinese Nutrition Society recommended intake.
Heavy taste can attract young people to try new things, but today's young people, despite working overtime and staying up late, they also like "punk health care". , light food" health concept.
The inherent "danger" of self-heating food is also a problem that it cannot get rid of. According to Mintel data, the negative public opinion of self-heating food mainly focuses on food safety-related issues such as spontaneous combustion and explosion, accounting for about 4.75%. Previously, there have been many explosions of self-heating food caused by improper user operation.
The introduction of relevant regulations can solve the safety and nutrition problems of self-heating food to a certain extent. On March 15, 2020, the China Quality Miles Promotion Association issued the group labeling of "Standards for Self-Heating Instant Foods", but a unified industry safety standard has not yet been formed. This also means that the standardization and unification of self-heating food still have to go through a certain period of edification.
"Self-heating products" are different from convenience foods in that their products have a high degree of homogeneity, and almost all of them focus on claypot rice, self-heating hot pot and other products. The market is fragmented, the product differentiation is small, and users have little brand loyalty at all. According to 2020 consumer data, self-heating food consumers have consumed an average of 3 to 4 brands of products each, and they have not developed loyalty to a particular product.
In fact, in addition to convenience, time saving, health and other needs, consumers also place multiple expectations on self-heating food, such as rich taste, satisfaction, variety of ingredients, and reasonable price, hoping that self-heating food will taste more and more like Ready-made food, which will also place higher requirements on the products and operational capabilities of self-heating food players.
As a sub-category of the instant food industry, the consumption frequency and penetration rate of self-heating food are still lower than those of brewed instant noodles and instant noodles. According to data from Mintel research, self-heating food accounted for only 7.6% of the convenience food market in 2019, and the market prospects and space are still limited.
Zhu Danpeng said that the competition of self-heating products in the future will be multi-dimensional, including six aspects: supply chain perfection, product quality, brand tonality, scene application, service system, and customer stickiness. These six points determine which Brands can be the first legion. "It is expected that the self-heating food industry will continue to strengthen the integration of online and offline channels and complement each other's shortcomings. The synchronization of online and offline will also be the best development model for this industry."
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