dumplings are a very traditional food on the Chinese dining table. Because of tradition, dumplings have more cultural connotations than other catering categories, and at the same time, they also lead to limited imagination space. Especially in the environment of double innovation, technological innovation and model innovation projects with higher thresholds are more favored by capital.
As we all know, the entry threshold for the catering industry is low and competition is fierce. But in the view of Li Heng, the founder of Xiaoheng Dumplings, this industry contains great opportunities: "I think China's dumpling industry may have a company with a market value of 10 billion US dollars."
Whether you have eaten Xiaoheng Dumplings or not, you cannot ignore the existence of this emerging Chinese catering brand. In just four years, the dumpling shop has expanded its direct-operated stores in Beijing to nearly 70 and owned two central factories, with a total of more than 50 million yuan in venture capital.
dumplings are gradually branding and chaining from scattered street shops. In the rapidly changing catering market, dumpling categories and business methods are also constantly developing and changing.
Putting aside the fancy marketing gimmicks of the Chinese catering industry, this Internet catering company now pays more attention to the product itself and tries to tell a bigger story.
focuses on the Beijing market
html sold 10 tons of dumplings on the 4th
4 years ago, Xiaoheng dumplings were established.
From the perspective of business model, there is no essential difference between Xiaoheng dumplings and other dumpling brands. They are sold through dine-in or take-out, and are paired with cold dishes and beverages. All dishes are self-operated. Its dumplings with classic flavors such as pork, cabbage, leeks and eggs have been added this year, and new flavors such as spicy crayfish and the Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea.
Xiaoheng Dumplings focuses on first-tier cities. Most of the 70 directly operated stores are located in Beijing. Occupying the Beijing Dumpling Market is its strategic focus in the first phase. Against the backdrop of
consumption upgrade, users have put forward higher requirements for product quality and dining experience. Xiaoheng’s target audience is young white-collar workers who pursue a good dining experience. Therefore, Xiaoheng focused on shopping malls (shopping centers, squares) and office buildings in store selection to solve the lunch and dinner problems for white-collar workers.
"We can sell 10 tons of dumplings a day, and the number is about 450,000." Li Heng said that takeaway contributed 40% of the sales, and the sales ratio of dine-in and takeaway accounted for 6:4. Li Heng further introduced that Xiaoheng accounts for more than half of the market share in the dumpling category in the Beijing takeaway market. Li Heng, the founder of
, is a serial entrepreneur. Before founding Xiaoheng Dumplings, he also started a record business. The team received financing in 2015. The investors include Zhen Fund, Xianfeng Huaxing, Qingsong Capital, etc. In February 2016, it announced the completion of a RMB 50 million financing led by Competitive Venture Capital. At present, Xiaoheng Dumplings has opened the franchise channel.
The traditional catering industry contains great opportunities
Reshape the cultural connotation of dumplings
Dumplings This traditional diet, today when the catering industry has extremely diversified categories, still has strong vitality.
"Dumplings themselves combine the dietary wisdom and production methods of ancient Chinese people, and they are also in line with the rationality of Western healthy matching. Therefore, they are a must for modern people's healthy lifestyles."
In Li Heng's eyes, "World-class catering brands basically have four characteristics: urgent needs, high frequency, standardization, and cultural heritage. Chinese dumplings also meet these four characteristics. Chinese food chains should appear with KFC , McDonald's world-class catering company. "
Specifically, dumplings are a food with a high acceptance level in China, especially in the north, with a large market share; the average customer price is not high, which can meet the needs of wage earners for simple meals; its production process is not complicated, and it is not highly dependent on chefs, and most processes can be industrialized and standardized; in addition, Chinese people basically eat dumplings during festivals, and have a deep cultural heritage.
In the world catering market, the most representative of the catering categories that meet the above four characteristics are hamburgers and coffee. The hamburger category was born McDonald's and KFC, and coffee was born Starbucks . These brands have labeled the category. The dumpling category that can represent China is still waiting for a brand.
In the domestic market, dumpling shops are mostly street shops in low-end formats. Most of them are independently operated and not large in scale, without unified standards, and the quality of products and services is uneven. In recent years, with the emergence of emerging dumpling brands, the industry has begun to integrate, and quality, standardization and chainization have become industry trends.
"Why can't dumplings be eaten like Western hamburgers every day or every meal?" This is an opportunity for the existence of traditional industries that Li Heng has identified, and it is also the ambition of Xiaoheng.
So Xiaoheng Dumplings paid great attention to building a brand from the beginning. From the slogan change of "eating dumplings is a fashionable thing" to "youth is like dumplings, eat while it is hot", it can also be seen that Xiaoheng intends to reshape the cultural connotation of dumplings - dumplings are not just the taste of home, eating dumplings can still be very fashionable.
self-developed technology to achieve standardized production
The biggest difference between Chinese and Western food is that Western food is very high in standardization, while Chinese food is very personalized. Therefore, Western restaurants are easy to replicate, but Chinese restaurants are highly dependent on chefs and are relatively difficult to expand.
Whether it is KFC or Starbucks, these brands have established a complete and standardized production process to ensure the unified and quantifiable product quality, thereby achieving controllable quality, predictable and improving efficiency. The production of
dumplings includes both manual and machine. Manual production has a good taste and good taste, but it has the disadvantages of low production efficiency and high labor costs; the industrialized machine production efficiency is high, and the process is standardized, but it has the disadvantages of not being as good as manual; in addition, quick-frozen dumplings have been standardized to a certain extent, but there is a taste gap compared with freshly made dumplings.
"Xiaoheng Dumplings have developed dumpling skin production technology and frozen preservation technology by themselves, which can realize the industrialized production of machines, but they look and taste all the taste of hand-wrapped. Handmade quality and industrialized production are our biggest technical barriers." Li Heng said.
The current dumpling brands on the market include Xijiade, Oriental Dumpling King , Auntie Dumplings, etc. Xijiade and Oriental Dumpling King are mainly handmade by . After Auntie Dumpling was acquired by private equity fund CVC in 2013, it achieved industrial production, but the management turmoil caused by disputes with investors.
Xiaoheng Dumplings has a direct central factory in Hebei and Shandong, which exclusively supplies dumpling products in all Xiaoheng Dumpling stores, but has not yet built a self-built supply chain, and all raw materials are purchased from external third-party brand owners. Although
has achieved standardization of the production process, because dumplings are too important and too daily for Chinese people, it is impossible to find a dumpling flavor that can be recognized by everyone. How to determine the flavor has become a problem.
"The key to making products is to grasp human nature." The best food is the dumplings made at home, because the ingredients are fresh, handmade, and not greasy. This flavor of dumplings best represents "Chinese dumplings", so the taste of Xiaoheng dumplings must be made according to this standard. "Based on the taste of home, it is higher than the taste of home."
Xiaoheng has developed to this day, and Li Heng described it as "a very stuck size". He needs to consider how to make it soar. It's like a person climbing a staircase. After going up to 20 floors, you have to start thinking about how to keep your energy and continue climbing up, and you can't look back, because going down stairs is often more difficult than climbing up.
This article is to find the original
reporter for Chinese makers (ID:xjbmaker) / Liming
editor / Su Qi
