Self-heating food is now ＂anxious＂ and wants to break the game with multiple categories.
Self-heating food, represented by self-heating hot pot and self-heating rice, has enjoyed the bonus of "house economy" and "lazy economy" in recent years, and caught a ride of development. Good market potential is also rewriting the pattern of self-heating food industry. In addition to emerging brands such as Mo Xiaoxian and Zi Hei Guo, traditional instant noodle enterprises such as Master Kong and Baixiang, and catering enterprises such as Haidilao and Xiaolongkan have also joined in.
However, with the entry of giants, self-heating food enterprises that once had a single product line began to be "anxious". Facing giants with strong advantages in brands and channels, self-heating food enterprises began to seek new increments. Recently, the condiment products have been introduced from the pot, which is developing towards multiple categories; Mo Xiaoxian introduced sesame sauce dough, ice powder and other foods that are more suitable for summer tasting. Multi-dimensional development seems to be the new trend of self-heating food industry.
The insiders believe that multi-brand operation can increase profit points, but it is not advisable for new enterprises to build new brands quickly. Multi-brand is a way for consumer goods industry to spread risks and highlight the value of different categories, but it is not a panacea. For new enterprises, the dispersion of enterprise resources may also make them fall into a disadvantage in the competition.
Expand product categories
Many consumers are familiar with self-heating food. Self-cooking pot, Mo Xiaoxian and other brands have become online celebrity in the eyes of young consumers, which can also be seen in some TV dramas. In fact, the products of these brands are not only self-heating foods, but also more kinds of products have begun to appear, forming a product matrix.
Ziguiguo recently announced the launch of a new brand "Xiaoqi Kitchen", laying out the field of compound condiments. The Beijing News reporter saw in the flagship store of Ziiguo Tmall that this new brand has been launched, mainly with composite condiments such as stir-fry sauce and bibimbap sauce. The stir-fry sauce includes more than 10 kinds of products such as Mapo tofu, osmanthus braised pork and spicy incense pot, and the ready-to-eat bibimbap sauce products also have a variety of flavors, aiming at the use scene of family kitchens.
Nowadays, the self-cooking pot is creating the strategy of "self-cooking pot production", and the sub-brand "screen" of cooking noodles series is also launched, and the sub-brand "smelly snail" is also under development.
What is the purpose of changing from "self-cooking pot" to "self-cooking pot production"? Cai Hongliang, the founder of the self-cooking pot, told the Beijing News reporter, "We are engaged in catering. The essence of catering is the forms of frying, cooking and steaming at home. Therefore, in terms of self-heating, the self-cooking pot has self-cooking related products, while in other cooking methods, it means that the self-cooking pot has to expand into other categories."
Mo Xiaoxian, another self-heating brand, is also exploring category expansion. At a forum held on June 30th, Wang Zhengqi, the founder of Mo Xiaoxian, said in his speech that if the brand can continue to create explosive products, making one more category will make more and more money, and high efficiency and low cost are the keys to continuously create explosive products. When a brand is very popular, you should immediately start thinking about how to build a second curve.
According to public information, in May this year, Wang Zhengqi mentioned that Mo Xiaoxian would introduce sesame sauce dough, ice powder and other foods more suitable for summer tasting. The Beijing News reporter saw in Mo Xiaoxian’s Tmall flagship store that Mo Xiaoxian’s Sichuan instant ice powder products have been put on the shelves, starting at 23.9 yuan, and the tastes include brown sugar and kumquat lemon. The total price of 8 bags of sesame sauce dough is 27.9 yuan.
It is not difficult to see that whether it is the "self-cooking pot" or Mo Xiaoxian’s consideration of building a second curve, self-heating food brands are seeking market growth other than self-heating food. According to Shen Meng, executive director of chansons Capital, the above actions are inevitable, because these enterprises have not done their own market well and have no ability to do it, so they will choose spillover to a certain extent.
Wu Xiaopeng, a senior investor in the consumer goods industry, believes that brands such as Ziguiguo and Moxiaoxian have developed rapidly with the help of market dividends. However, consumers’ pursuit of trendy products and the short-term demands of the current primary market fanatical capital have made many new consumer brands impetuous, and they feel good about themselves during the market dividend period, rapidly launching multiple categories and entering industries such as condiments, which has increased the risk of development.
The competition of giants entering the market is fierce.
Enterprises specializing in self-heating food are "anxious", and the entry of giants is an important reason.
The eight innovation trends of the convenience food industry in China in 2019-2020 released by Shen Qun, a professor at the College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering of China Agricultural University, and Tan Bin, the chief researcher of the Scientific Research Institute of the State Grain and Material Reserve Bureau, show that one of the innovation trends of the convenience food industry includes the blowout of self-heated food.
Due to the special demand during the epidemic in 2020, the self-heating food that can be heated and eaten only by soaking the heating bag in cold water is popular. In the convenience food industry, after Uni-President and other enterprises introduced self-heating food, Jinmailang, Master Kong, Baixiang, Zhengda and Keming joined the self-heating food market one after another. Self-heating foods such as self-heating rice, self-heating noodles, and self-heating hot pot are growing by spurt.
Not only that, Yang Guofu, who makes mala Tang, Haidilao and Xiaolongkan, who make hot pot, have all entered the field of self-heating food. In 2019, Yihai International, a hot pot bottom material supplier of Haidilao, achieved a revenue of 4.28 billion yuan and a net profit of 720 million yuan. In 2020, the revenue of Yihai International reached 5.36 billion yuan, of which the revenue of instant food products reached 1.54 billion yuan, up 54.15% year-on-year. From the perspective of revenue structure, the proportion of instant food products reached 28.7%.
According to the data from China Food Industry Association, the growth rate of self-heating chafing dish reached 99.6% in 2018. According to the China Convenience Food Industry Report released by the independent market research and consulting company Mintel, the market share of self-heating foods in convenience foods has increased from 4.4% in 2018 to 7.6% in 2019, with sales of 7.1 billion yuan in 2019. According to the calculation of CITIC Securities, under the pessimistic, neutral and optimistic conditions, the future self-heating hot pot market will grow to 12 billion yuan, 30 billion yuan and 60 billion yuan respectively.
Wang Zhengqi also said in his speech that the competition in the field of convenient and fast food is fierce, because many brands with hundreds of billions or billions compete with self-heating food enterprises on the same stage. "At this time, if you don’t have a clear understanding of yourself, you will definitely die quickly because your opponent is too strong. Although self-heating hot pot is a new industry, there are not many barriers to products. "
In Wu Xiaopeng’s view, the food industry is shallow and deep, and it is easier to come in than to be stable. Emerging self-heating food brands are facing the competition of giants such as Haidilao and Uni-President, and the cross-border of leisure and snack enterprises such as good shops, herbs and three squirrels. At present, the main homework is to pay attention to walking slowly instead of going fast. The only way to achieve long-term development is to be absolutely assured of product quality, food safety and self-heating package, and to concentrate on creating brand culture connotation according to the basic laws of consumer behavior.
Is condiment a good way out?
In the process of self-heating food brands seeking multi-category development, condiments seem to be the target. In addition to the pot, the Beijing News reporter saw in Mo Xiaoxian’s Tmall flagship store that the store had put on a tiger skin roasted pepper sauce at a price of 15.9 yuan. After entering the self-heating food industry, Yang Guofu also introduced chafing dish bottom products, including butter, clear oil, tomatoes and other different flavors.
Regarding the introduction of compound condiments, Cai Hongliang, the founder of Zigui Pot, told the Beijing News reporter that he is very optimistic about this sector, and the "Xiaoqi Kitchen" brand should be a seasoning for young people to facilitate cooking. You don’t need oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, ginger and pepper, just a packet of cooking sauce will get the authentic dishes.
According to Jost Sullivan’s data, in 2020, the market size of compound condiment in China will be about 150 billion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of about 15.83%, which is higher than that of the whole condiment industry. In fact, there are many new brands occupying positions in the compound condiment track.
Founded in September 2020, "Add a little taste" contains three product lines, which are for young people’s dining table scenes and kitchen scenes. Facing the table scene, there are a series of table sauces and Japanese bibimbap materials, including sour and refreshing tomato beef sauce, thick-cut beef sauce, charcoal-roasted tiger skin green pepper sauce, Sichuan-Guizhou assorted bad spicy sauce and so on. On June 3, 2021, Meixin Food, a compound condiment company, announced the completion of tens of millions of yuan financing in Round A.
Shen Meng believes that the problems of self-heating food are mainly safety and quality. For domestic capital, as long as there is an opportunity to make money and cash out, it is a good track. There are many listed companies in the A-share market for condiments, and the market is large enough for paper opportunities, but whether it can be made depends on the specific performance.
In 2021, the popularity of compound condiment industry continued, and the traditional condiment forces such as Haitian, Qianhe, Chubang and Lee Kum Kee increased. Following the launch of four hot pot bottom products in 2020, the Haitian hot pot bottom product line was expanded to nine products in 2021. On April 19th, 2021, Chubang, a brand of Zhongju Hi-tech, launched its first hot pot base in JD.COM, including five products: handmade butter hot pot base, spicy and fragrant butter hot pot base, spicy and fragrant butter hot pot base, tomato soup hot pot base and mushroom soup hot pot base.
Wu Xiaopeng said that night economy, one-person food, small indulgence and multiple scenes have brought opportunities for the development of the new convenience food industry. China’s new consumer brand, the momentum is holding high and hitting high, but the success or failure is slow and steady. The content of the fight is not to grab a multi-category comprehensive attack, nor is it just the traffic and supply chain under the Internet thinking, but also the brand culture, organizational ability, food safety and the productism spirit of capitalization. For the compound condiment industry, Wu Xiaopeng believes that "the industry is very good, and the future volume must be very large, but the threshold is low and scattered. How to grow up is a problem. The influx of capital now means that the primary market is impetuous, and at least half of the projects may be destroyed in the future. "
Beijing News reporter Wang Ziyang
Editor Li Yan proofreads Wei Zhuo.