When returning home from get off work every day, reporters from Red Meal Network can see that at the entrance of the Zhengxin Chicken Steak Shop, 50 meters away from Exit D of the Guangzhou Metro, many young people are holding milk tea or drinks in their hands, quietly waiting fo

Source: Red Meal Network

Author: Zhou Hongchu

As early as 2017, chicken poop jumped to the top of the "Chinese Snack Yearbook". Now three years have passed, the chicken steak market is getting more and more popular, and many players are vying to join.

When returning home from get off work every day, reporters from Hongcan18 can see that at the entrance of the Zhengxin Chicken Steak Shop, 50 meters away from Exit D of the Guangzhou Metro, many young people are holding milk tea or drinks in their hands, quietly Waiting for the freshly baked chicken steak.

Chicken steak and milk tea can be said to be an excellent golden pair. The streets are full of young people holding a piece of chicken steak in their left hand and a cup of milk tea in their right hand.

△Picture taken from Red Food Network

Nowadays, the market size of milk tea has reached hundreds of billions, what about the development of chicken steak?

50,000+ stores were created in 5 years, and the chicken steak market is still developing rapidly!

A survey by Red Meal Network found that as early as 6 years ago, the chicken steak market began to rise rapidly.

Qichacha data shows that since 2014, the number of registrations for chicken steak-related stores has begun to increase exponentially.

Among them, the number of new registrations exceeded 1,000 in 2014; in 2015, this number doubled on the basis of 2014; by 2016, it increased by nearly three times.

In 2017, the growth of chicken steak restaurants reached its peak. During this year, there were approximately 9,282 new chicken steak restaurants in the industry, and major chicken steak brands were expanding at a rate of one new store per hour across the country.

Between 2018 and 2019, the number of registrations for chicken chop stores declined, but the total number of registrations still exceeds 14,000! The market potential of chicken steaks is still being unleashed, and even the epidemic has not been able to stop the rise of the brand.

△The number of new chicken chop stores from 2013 to 2020

Data source: Qichacha

In 2020, under the epidemic, the chicken chop market ushered in another wave of store openings:

• Zhengxin Chicken Chop signed new stores in the first half of the year More than 2,000;
• Jili Chicken Steak, the sister brand of Asiang Rice Noodles, has launched Jili Chicken Steak in more than 150 stores across the country in less than half a year, and launched the "Thousand Store Plan";
• Saliva Chicken Steak has added 300 There are many new stores, and the store expansion rate is 150% of the same period last year...

Little chicken steak, what can create such a huge market?

According to the inventory of Hongmen.com, as of now, there are more than 50,000 chicken chop stores still operating normally on the market, and there are nearly 10 chicken chop brands with a scale of more than 500.

△Chicken Steak Brand Inventory Chart, the data comes from Zhaimen meal eye and the brand's official website

Among them, "Big Brother" Zhengxin Chicken Steak is far ahead in size, and the total number of stores nationwide has exceeded 22,000; Bi Zheng New Chicken Chops, which entered the market 8 or 9 years later, have more than 1,000 stores each, such as Saliva Chicken Chops and No. 1 Big Chicken Chops; Big Face Chicken Chops and Hao Big Chicken Chops both have more than 800 stores; The newly established brands Rock Chicken Steak and Powerful Chicken Steak have also opened hundreds of stores...

Why did a small piece of chicken steak create such a huge market?

Red Meal Network believes that there are two main reasons:

First, the promotion of the leading brand Zhengxin Chicken Steak, and the temptation of dividends in the chicken steak market.

In the early days, the history of Zhengxin Chicken Steak undoubtedly drove a wave of caterers to enter the chicken steak market.

With just a small chicken steak, you can open thousands of stores and feed countless families. At this point, I don’t know how many entrepreneurs have been attracted.

△Picture taken from Red Meal Network

According to Red Meal Network, a large number of brands currently on the market, such as Qufan Colorful Chicken Steak, Rock and Roll Chicken Steak, etc., were all established after Zhengxin Chicken Steak accelerated store expansion.

In addition to the leadership and influence of leading brands, the development of the chicken steak market to today's size is also related to its own strong category genes.

First, a chicken chop shop has a small investment, a quick payback cycle, and a low operating threshold. Everyone can open a shop.

A chicken chop shop has a small investment, a short payback cycle, is easy to standardize, and is easy to copy. This is the reason why many catering brands and entrepreneurs The main reason for the length of time to enter the game.

Someone has calculated such an account. To open a dinner or hot pot restaurant, the investment in a single store is between 1 million and 3 million. Such high investment discourages a large number of entrepreneurs who want to enter the field of dinner or hot pot. This is one of the reasons why industry giants like Haidilao, even though they have been deeply involved in hot pot for decades, are still unable to compete with asset-light snack and fast food brands in chain scale.

On the contrary, the threshold for opening a fast food snack shop is much lower. The investment for single store franchises such as Braised Chicken with Rice and Malatang is RMB 100,000-300,000. The investment in a chicken steak restaurant in is even less.

Zhengxin Chicken Steak official information shows that joining a Zhengxin Chicken Steak restaurant includes franchise fees, deposits, management fees, store design fees, equipment fees, and the first batch of ingredients distribution. The total investment is about 110,000 yuan.

Compared with those chain brands that often charge hundreds of thousands or even millions in franchise fees, the chicken chop brand is extremely competitive in chain development.

In addition, the product lines of most chicken chop shops are very simple, basically no more than 10 categories. And almost all products are semi-finished products. For example, the marinated chicken cutlet is coated in fried flour and can be cooked in a few minutes. It is very easy to operate and even a novice will not make any big mistakes.

△Picture from Rock Chicken Steak public account

From the perspective of investment cost or technical threshold, most entrepreneurs almost have the conditions and capabilities to open a chicken steak shop.

Second, in terms of ingredients, chicken is highly stable and has a broad mass base.

The reason why major chicken steak brands have been able to open thousands of stores in just a few years is largely because they have grown in the "chicken category" "On this fertile soil.

As the second largest category of meat consumption in China, chicken ingredients are fertile ground for the birth of big brands. There are three main reasons:

• First, the supply chain of chicken ingredients is mature and stable, and the supporting resources are complete;
• Second, chicken ingredients are widely applicable and have a wide range of consumers in China;
• Third, chicken is easy to process and standardize, and has Very rich and successful product cases, and based on the successful chain experience of fast food giants such as McDonald's and KFC, which facilitates rapid large-scale replication and promotion.

Wang Hai, vice president of Zhengxin Chicken Steak, once said bluntly that the reason why Zhengxin Chicken Steak cut off 90% of the restaurant's products in 2012 and focused on the single product of chicken steak was because it was optimistic about the development of the chicken category.

Third, the price per customer is low, covering a wide range of scenarios and people, and the consumer market is large.

Most chicken chop shops adopt a low-price strategy, and chicken chop products are generally priced between 5 yuan and 15 yuan. For example, McDonald's "Big Chicken Steak" only costs 12 yuan; Zhengxin's chicken steak costs 13 yuan each, and you get a free drink when you buy a chicken steak. The unit price is low, and with the snack attribute of chicken steak, it can cover a wide range of scenarios. And the consumer group is even wider. The consumer market for is very large whether it is in first- or second-tier cities or third- or fourth-tier cities. The market is big, stores can make money, and more and more talents will join the game.

Behind the rapid development, the chicken chop market is causing a series of chaos

As mentioned above, the size of the chicken chop market is indeed huge. However, it is worth noting that as the number of entrants increases, the market has become increasingly mixed, and more and more problems and hidden dangers have been exposed.

. Brand wars, copycats are everywhere

Most chicken chop brands have made their mark by relying on the chain franchise model. However, in recent years, the development of chain franchises has become increasingly disordered.

When a brand becomes popular, a large number of professional copycat companies will immediately follow up and copy a large number of brands from products to brand names. In order to earn franchise fees, they will expand wildly, resulting in a brand war on the market and a large number of copycat companies.

This phenomenon is most obvious in some popular brands.Take "Zhenghao Big Chicken Steak" from Taiwan as an example. In 2012, Zhenghao Big Chicken Steak entered the mainland market and was deeply loved by consumers. In the following years, a large number of products such as "Haozheng Big Fragrant Chicken" appeared on the market. "Hao Big Chicken Steak", "Zhenghao Big Chicken Steak", "Hao Big Chicken Steak", "Hao Big Chicken Steak" and "Hao Big Chicken Steak" are all copycat brands that pop up when searching for "Zhenghao Big Chicken Steak". It is a franchise advertisement for a copycat brand, and it is difficult to tell whether it is genuine or not.

When red meal website was sorting through the brand information, it also discovered an even weirder phenomenon. Many chicken steak brands claimed to have sold hundreds or even thousands of dollars in promotional materials and promotional articles. There are thousands of stores, but apart from the "official website" and franchise information that can't be distinguished on search engines, there is almost no official information available.

. In order to survive, a group of chicken steak restaurants are using all kinds of tricks to disrupt the market. Order

In the past, many chicken steak restaurants made a lot of money with their simple business model. In recent years, with the intensification of market competition and the impact of certain low-price strategies, the number of truly profitable chicken steak restaurants has increased. There are fewer and fewer.

Therefore, in order to survive, many chicken steak restaurants have begun to use tricks to disrupt the market order. For example, they use mixed raw materials and finished products to reduce costs, leading to food safety incidents. Frequent occurrences have damaged the image of chicken steaks in the minds of consumers.

Some franchisees have joined two XX chicken steak stores. One store imports raw materials from the headquarters, and the other uses low-quality meat with seasonings from the headquarters to improve the quality. Profit.

In order to make money, many small mom-and-pop shops often purchase raw materials such as chicken directly from the market or go to Taobao.

A few years ago, there were media reports across the country. There are many large chicken steaks sold by unscrupulous merchants. They remove the poor meat parts from the chicken, mix it with some chicken breasts, chop it into a meat paste, add starch to increase the stickiness of the meat paste, and stir it. Form into meat balls, add seasonings to make meat patties, and fry them in a pan to form a large chicken steak. The ingredients of the chicken steak are almost indistinguishable from the appearance, and some meat glue and meat essence may be added to it. Consumers' long-term consumption of chicken steaks fried from synthetic meat will increase the burden on the human liver and kidneys.

. Product homogeneity is serious, and innovation capabilities are seriously insufficient.

Like most popular categories, the chicken steak market is also facing product homogeneity.

Most common chicken steak restaurants have a mixed product line. In addition to chicken steaks, they also have street snacks such as beef skewers and grilled squid. However, in general, the product mix in most stores is highly similar and the taste is similar. The price range is also not much different.

△The picture is taken from the red meal website

. For example, in the promotion and selling point of the main product chicken steak, chicken steak restaurants all use large pieces of meat to attract consumers, and the cooking method is also fried. Mainly; in terms of product mix, it is also the structure of "chicken steak + snacks + drinks", and the per customer unit price is between 13-17 yuan.

Conclusion

Overall, there are many single stores in the chicken chop market, and the volume is also very large. Among them, there are also brands that win based on the size of their stores. However, in the overall impression of the public, there are few chicken chop brands that are highly individual or extremely popular.

It can be seen that there is still a lot of market space to be tapped in the chicken chop market. Whoever can strengthen brand management strength, upgrade the brand, and be more innovative in product design in the future may be able to reap the first wave of dividends from the upgrade of the chicken chop market.