text丨Xiaguang Society, author丨Maji, editor丨Beil
In the past two years, more and more companies have ushered in new growth by going overseas. But overseas winds and waves are strong, fish are heavy. What experiences and lessons do these companies have in their overseas trips worth learning from? What are the next opportunities to go overseas?
To this end, Xiaguang Society launched the overseas observation column "Xiaguang Overseas Plan". Together, we focus on overseas markets, understand the direction of overseas winds, and strive to discover and record the latest trends of overseas industries and enterprises from a multi-dimensional perspective, give inspiration to enterprises, learn from the industry, and give knowledge to venture capital.
This article is the fourth article in this series. As the vanguard of ByteDance's overseas trip, TikTok has exceeded 1 billion monthly active users so far. Recently, TikTok announced that it will launch an online takeaway restaurant in the United States, further promoting the platform's content to the food field by attracting offline consumers to taste and inspiring food content creators. The internet celebrity food on TikTok is changing the fate of many offline restaurants.
In more than two months, TikTok's online takeaway restaurant "TikTok Kitchen" in the United States will officially open.
Recently, TikTok announced that in order to turn "online short video food" into "offline food" that can reach consumers, it will cooperate with the virtual catering creator "Virtual Dining Concepts" (hereinafter referred to as VDC) and the delivery platform Grubhub. The former is responsible for assisting in the production of food, while the latter is responsible for delivering the food to the orderer.
TikTok Kitchen does not have any offline physical stores. Unlike the relatively fixed menu of physical restaurants, whether a dish can appear on the TikTok kitchen menu depends entirely on its popularity in TikTok food posts.
TikTok Kitchen plans to launch about 300 locations that provide takeaway services in March next year, and plans to expand takeaway stations to 1,000 by the end of next year. Offline restaurants can become TikTok's "partners" through VDC and produce food for its online orders.
1. What does TikTok restaurant sell?
On the first TikTok kitchen menu currently released, it includes grilled feta pasta, crushed burgers, corn ribs and pasta slices and several popular internet celebrity delicacies in North America this year. The hottest of these is undoubtedly the grilled feta pasta.
2019, this food recipe was first shared by Finnish food blogger Jenni Hayrinen on Instagram, and soon became a big hit on Finnish social platforms. Earlier this year, American chef Mackenzie Smith showed off his new interpretation of this dish on TikTok, which received nearly 3 million clicks, causing this dish to set off an unexpected trend in the United States. The method of making the pasta with roasted feta is very simple. Put tomato , garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper into the baking tray, and place a whole piece of Fida cheese in the middle. Bake the oven at a temperature of 400 degrees for 35 minutes. Finally, take out and mix the cooked pasta and fresh basil , and it is finished.
Although some TikTok food bloggers have made slight adjustments to the recipe when reinterpreting the dish, Fida cheese is always one of the most important ingredients for this dish.
As the American people's cooking enthusiasm was ignited by roasted feta pasta, Fida cheese in some regions also fell into supply tightening.
A Twitter user wrote that he went to three different stores to successfully buy Fida cheese. Some consumers have to temporarily replace cheese with cheese crumbs because they can't buy the whole piece of cheese. "We have sold out all the Fida cheese and basil. I hate TikTok!" An American netizen vented his dissatisfaction on social platforms. Boosted by the popularity of
TikTok, roasted feta pasta has become the recipe with the largest search volume of Google this year with the keyword "TikTok pasta".
Some offline restaurants that follow TikTok's food popularity have also launched "traffic food" in response to the situation. An American netizen posted on a social platform that he recently discovered that the internet celebrity food "corn ribs" on TikTok is gradually appearing on the menus of restaurants in various places. Although he couldn't understand why this "fake rib" made of corn was popular, "the TikTok platform seems to be able to shape a new food trend the next day."
TikTok Kitchen also hopes to reflect changing food trends in the menu. TikTok introduced that its takeaway menu will be updated quarterly in the future, allowing users to experience the most popular internet celebrity foods on TikTok this season, and some of the very popular classic dishes may also be retained forever.
2. What can virtual restaurants bring to TikTok?
TikTok is known as the overseas version of Douyin , and is also under the parent company ByteDance. Douyin, also owned by ByteDance, has launched a series of actions to enter offline catering since last year.
In March last year, Douyin launched the "group buying" function, providing online group buying, ordering and takeaway services. Users can place orders and pay while watching videos, and the products will be delivered directly to their homes.
at the end of last year, Douyin launched the "Xingdong Restaurant", becoming the first food list based on short video content in China.
In July this year, Douyin reported that it would develop its takeaway business again. At that time, "Xingdong Takeaway" had entered the internal testing stage.
Douyin is constantly trying to connect online and offline food businesses within its own ecosystem. With a combination of punches, the outside world interprets this as increasing the local life sector in order to further enhance Douyin's commercialization capabilities.
is different from TikTok's domestic layout, and TikTok is not ready to officially enter the overseas catering industry.
According to TikTok, the launch of the virtual restaurant takeaway business is more to bring internet celebrity food to fans to increase the popularity of brand and platform content creators, rather than "an adventure to enter the catering industry."
In order to encourage content creators, TikTok announced that the profit generated by "TikTok Kitchen" will be used to inspire creators of Internet celebrity dishes, and the creators' names will also appear on the menu together to meet TikTok's goal of "stimulating creativity and bringing joy to users." In terms of the specific operation of
takeaway restaurants, TikTok chose to cooperate with VDC and Grubhub.
Among them, Grubhub is the largest takeaway platform in the United States, and VDC, founded in 2018, is known as the world's largest virtual restaurant group, operating a number of "virtual restaurants" that only serve takeaway but no physical stores.
During the epidemic last year, virtual restaurants surged in popularity in the United States as food takeaway orders increased. Mr Beast Burger, a virtual restaurant operated by VDC, was also born during this period.
Mr Beast Burger was opened in cooperation with VDC by Mr Beast, a well-known Internet celebrity blogger at Youtube, and achieved a record of selling 1 million burgers in three months of opening, which left many offline restaurants dumbfounded. Currently, Mr Beast Burger has about 1,500 offline food supply kitchens in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
These food supply kitchens are recruited by VDC for offline physical restaurants. It is equivalent to virtual restaurants distributed in the back kitchens of various regions, mainly responsible for food production and supply.
VDC will provide unified cooking training and brand packaging. After receiving an order from a virtual restaurant, offline physical restaurants in various places will be completed and then the dishes will be delivered to consumers through the delivery platform.
VDC website introduction shows that VDC will pay 30% of the revenue every week to these offline restaurants responsible for the production of actual dishes. In addition to making food on behalf of
, VDC also provides virtual restaurant brands with relevant support including marketing strategy, brand building, public relations, logistics, etc.
For virtual restaurant brands, this business model can not only save rent, but also save a large amount of equipment and manpower investment; for offline restaurants, it can also maximize the use of existing manpower and material resources to maximize profits. Earl, co-founder of
VDC, said that under this business model, TikTok is expected to achieve the same success as Mr Beast.
3. Internet celebrity food: offline restaurant traffic password
Food is one of the most popular content on TikTok. Food gives people visual stimulation and can be reproduced in the kitchen at home, becoming one of the daily entertainment activities of many people during the epidemic.
TikTok's popularity surged during the epidemic. According to foreign media reports, the better creators on the platform often gain millions of fans within a few months.
Many recipes have produced a "viral" effect online.
text丨Xiaguang Society, author丨Maji, editor丨Beil
In the past two years, more and more companies have ushered in new growth by going overseas. But overseas winds and waves are strong, fish are heavy. What experiences and lessons do these companies have in their overseas trips worth learning from? What are the next opportunities to go overseas?
To this end, Xiaguang Society launched the overseas observation column "Xiaguang Overseas Plan". Together, we focus on overseas markets, understand the direction of overseas winds, and strive to discover and record the latest trends of overseas industries and enterprises from a multi-dimensional perspective, give inspiration to enterprises, learn from the industry, and give knowledge to venture capital.
This article is the fourth article in this series. As the vanguard of ByteDance's overseas trip, TikTok has exceeded 1 billion monthly active users so far. Recently, TikTok announced that it will launch an online takeaway restaurant in the United States, further promoting the platform's content to the food field by attracting offline consumers to taste and inspiring food content creators. The internet celebrity food on TikTok is changing the fate of many offline restaurants.
In more than two months, TikTok's online takeaway restaurant "TikTok Kitchen" in the United States will officially open.
Recently, TikTok announced that in order to turn "online short video food" into "offline food" that can reach consumers, it will cooperate with the virtual catering creator "Virtual Dining Concepts" (hereinafter referred to as VDC) and the delivery platform Grubhub. The former is responsible for assisting in the production of food, while the latter is responsible for delivering the food to the orderer.
TikTok Kitchen does not have any offline physical stores. Unlike the relatively fixed menu of physical restaurants, whether a dish can appear on the TikTok kitchen menu depends entirely on its popularity in TikTok food posts.
TikTok Kitchen plans to launch about 300 locations that provide takeaway services in March next year, and plans to expand takeaway stations to 1,000 by the end of next year. Offline restaurants can become TikTok's "partners" through VDC and produce food for its online orders.
1. What does TikTok restaurant sell?
On the first TikTok kitchen menu currently released, it includes grilled feta pasta, crushed burgers, corn ribs and pasta slices and several popular internet celebrity delicacies in North America this year. The hottest of these is undoubtedly the grilled feta pasta.
2019, this food recipe was first shared by Finnish food blogger Jenni Hayrinen on Instagram, and soon became a big hit on Finnish social platforms. Earlier this year, American chef Mackenzie Smith showed off his new interpretation of this dish on TikTok, which received nearly 3 million clicks, causing this dish to set off an unexpected trend in the United States. The method of making the pasta with roasted feta is very simple. Put tomato , garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper into the baking tray, and place a whole piece of Fida cheese in the middle. Bake the oven at a temperature of 400 degrees for 35 minutes. Finally, take out and mix the cooked pasta and fresh basil , and it is finished.
Although some TikTok food bloggers have made slight adjustments to the recipe when reinterpreting the dish, Fida cheese is always one of the most important ingredients for this dish.
As the American people's cooking enthusiasm was ignited by roasted feta pasta, Fida cheese in some regions also fell into supply tightening.
A Twitter user wrote that he went to three different stores to successfully buy Fida cheese. Some consumers have to temporarily replace cheese with cheese crumbs because they can't buy the whole piece of cheese. "We have sold out all the Fida cheese and basil. I hate TikTok!" An American netizen vented his dissatisfaction on social platforms. Boosted by the popularity of
TikTok, roasted feta pasta has become the recipe with the largest search volume of Google this year with the keyword "TikTok pasta".
Some offline restaurants that follow TikTok's food popularity have also launched "traffic food" in response to the situation. An American netizen posted on a social platform that he recently discovered that the internet celebrity food "corn ribs" on TikTok is gradually appearing on the menus of restaurants in various places. Although he couldn't understand why this "fake rib" made of corn was popular, "the TikTok platform seems to be able to shape a new food trend the next day."
TikTok Kitchen also hopes to reflect changing food trends in the menu. TikTok introduced that its takeaway menu will be updated quarterly in the future, allowing users to experience the most popular internet celebrity foods on TikTok this season, and some of the very popular classic dishes may also be retained forever.
2. What can virtual restaurants bring to TikTok?
TikTok is known as the overseas version of Douyin , and is also under the parent company ByteDance. Douyin, also owned by ByteDance, has launched a series of actions to enter offline catering since last year.
In March last year, Douyin launched the "group buying" function, providing online group buying, ordering and takeaway services. Users can place orders and pay while watching videos, and the products will be delivered directly to their homes.
at the end of last year, Douyin launched the "Xingdong Restaurant", becoming the first food list based on short video content in China.
In July this year, Douyin reported that it would develop its takeaway business again. At that time, "Xingdong Takeaway" had entered the internal testing stage.
Douyin is constantly trying to connect online and offline food businesses within its own ecosystem. With a combination of punches, the outside world interprets this as increasing the local life sector in order to further enhance Douyin's commercialization capabilities.
is different from TikTok's domestic layout, and TikTok is not ready to officially enter the overseas catering industry.
According to TikTok, the launch of the virtual restaurant takeaway business is more to bring internet celebrity food to fans to increase the popularity of brand and platform content creators, rather than "an adventure to enter the catering industry."
In order to encourage content creators, TikTok announced that the profit generated by "TikTok Kitchen" will be used to inspire creators of Internet celebrity dishes, and the creators' names will also appear on the menu together to meet TikTok's goal of "stimulating creativity and bringing joy to users." In terms of the specific operation of
takeaway restaurants, TikTok chose to cooperate with VDC and Grubhub.
Among them, Grubhub is the largest takeaway platform in the United States, and VDC, founded in 2018, is known as the world's largest virtual restaurant group, operating a number of "virtual restaurants" that only serve takeaway but no physical stores.
During the epidemic last year, virtual restaurants surged in popularity in the United States as food takeaway orders increased. Mr Beast Burger, a virtual restaurant operated by VDC, was also born during this period.
Mr Beast Burger was opened in cooperation with VDC by Mr Beast, a well-known Internet celebrity blogger at Youtube, and achieved a record of selling 1 million burgers in three months of opening, which left many offline restaurants dumbfounded. Currently, Mr Beast Burger has about 1,500 offline food supply kitchens in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
These food supply kitchens are recruited by VDC for offline physical restaurants. It is equivalent to virtual restaurants distributed in the back kitchens of various regions, mainly responsible for food production and supply.
VDC will provide unified cooking training and brand packaging. After receiving an order from a virtual restaurant, offline physical restaurants in various places will be completed and then the dishes will be delivered to consumers through the delivery platform.
VDC website introduction shows that VDC will pay 30% of the revenue every week to these offline restaurants responsible for the production of actual dishes. In addition to making food on behalf of
, VDC also provides virtual restaurant brands with relevant support including marketing strategy, brand building, public relations, logistics, etc.
For virtual restaurant brands, this business model can not only save rent, but also save a large amount of equipment and manpower investment; for offline restaurants, it can also maximize the use of existing manpower and material resources to maximize profits. Earl, co-founder of
VDC, said that under this business model, TikTok is expected to achieve the same success as Mr Beast.
3. Internet celebrity food: offline restaurant traffic password
Food is one of the most popular content on TikTok. Food gives people visual stimulation and can be reproduced in the kitchen at home, becoming one of the daily entertainment activities of many people during the epidemic.
TikTok's popularity surged during the epidemic. According to foreign media reports, the better creators on the platform often gain millions of fans within a few months.
Many recipes have produced a "viral" effect online.TikTok's #FoodTok tag includes various recipes and cooking skills short videos, from cheap street snacks to corn tortillas at $1.5 to luxury 24k gold steaks that cost more than $1,000, all have become popular content on the platform. As of December, the number of food-related videos on TikTok has exceeded 11.5 billion views.
Some offline restaurants have also been really popular by these short videos.
In a short video on TikTok, the camera was focused on a fried chicken larger than the chef's palm. After cutting it with one piece of hand, the pastry made a crunchy crisp sound. Finally, the chef drizzled a spoonful of homemade soul sauce, which was considered to be completed... This video received more than 13.5 million views on TikTok, and successfully made a fried chicken restaurant in Los Angeles "out of the circle". At present, this store has more than 1 million followers on TikTok, and it has become popular in the local area without even having to do any other publicity, with endless customers every day. The "food effect" triggered by
TikTok not only happens in the United States.
On an ordinary working afternoon in May this year, a cafe in Toronto was crowded with a huge contrast from the past. Customers lined up in a long line and meandered through the entire street just to buy a brunch set. The sudden hot business of
made the clerk at a loss until a customer revealed the reason - the brunch box in the store became popular on TikTok.
In a short video with only 10 seconds, a TikTok user showed netizens the hearty brunch box he purchased in the store, including scrambled eggs, salads, mashed potatoes, lobster croissants and a small stack of pancakes, which looked very attractive. The viral spread of short videos on TikTok has attracted a large number of customers to "check in" in offline stores. A survey by MGH, a marketing agency in August this year, found that TikTok food blogger videos will have a significant impact on audiences’ decisions when choosing restaurants. 36% of respondents will try to order food at the restaurant after seeing videos from a restaurant on TikTok, which is second only to friends' recommendations. Content creators on TikTok are more likely to be affected by the content, and 65% of them will try to eat in the store after watching the video.
In order to eat the delicious food that appears on this APP, some users are willing to travel thousands of miles. According to MGH survey data, 20% of TikTok users are willing to go to restaurants in another city to check in, and 16% of users even made a special trip to
"cross-state trip" to
food videos with huge traffic, even saving some offline restaurants from the fate of bankruptcy during the epidemic.
A small restaurant selling halal food in Birmingham, UK opened a year before the epidemic. Not only did it not make any money, it was in debt of 50,000 pounds.
After the UK adopted an epidemic lockdown in April last year, about 80% of catering companies stopped operating, and 1.4 million employees were forced to stop work and take leave. In order to promote the recovery of the UK economy and drive employment in the catering industry, the British Ministry of Finance launched the "Dining Out Plan" in August last year, providing customers with physical store dining discounts.
But the operating conditions of this halal restaurant have not improved. In order to make money, the owner Sajj tried every possible way, including extending the restaurant's business hours from 6 a.m. to midnight, but the business still did not improve.
One day, he sat in the store for 13 hours, but ended up earning only £6, which was not even enough to pay rent and employee salaries. As he was unable to make ends meet, Sajj's debts were getting more and more. He was so desperate that he wanted to close the store and leave.
In September this year, the fate of Sajj restaurant was rewritten by a video. A halal food blogger with more than 20,000 fans uploaded the restaurant’s video to TikTok, which quickly became a hot topic on the platform. The traffic not only brought a steady stream of customers from all over the country, but also brought Sajj's small restaurants to the attention of the media.
"We accepted an interview with Turkish TV station and introduced our Turkish fusion food. We are very busy now." Today, Sajj is full of confidence in the future of the restaurant. The strong traffic influence of the
social platform has prompted many restaurants to start researching online platform promotion, and some of them have benefited from it. At the end of last year, Arby, a chain fast food restaurant, gained 200,000 fans in one fell swoop during the first video marketing campaign on the TikTok platform.
Next year, TikTok Takeaway Kitchen will be launched in the United States. By attracting offline consumers to taste takeaways and inspiring food content creators, we will further promote the platform's content to the food field. The charm of
Internet celebrity food has made many overseas netizens curious and expectant about TikTok kitchen. An Italian netizen left a message under the news: "Who knows whether and when will TikTok Kitchen be online in Italy? It's really fun to taste these delicious dishes."
But at present, TikTok Kitchen is only regarded as a marketing method for fans and platform creators. It is still unknown whether it can continue to operate for a long time in the future.
Next year, TikTok Takeaway Kitchen will be launched in the United States. By attracting offline consumers to taste takeaways and inspiring food content creators, we will further promote the platform's content to the food field. The charm of
Internet celebrity food has made many overseas netizens curious and expectant about TikTok kitchen. An Italian netizen left a message under the news: "Who knows whether and when will TikTok Kitchen be online in Italy? It's really fun to taste these delicious dishes."
But at present, TikTok Kitchen is only regarded as a marketing method for fans and platform creators. It is still unknown whether it can continue to operate for a long time in the future.
