The surface of the catering market is rich in water and plants, but the hidden reefs are lurking inside. Cross-border people have joined in, Mercedes-Benz opened ramen, Ikea opened restaurants, MUJI opened cafes, but more are restaurant closures, closures and declining performance.

Hong Kong fast food giant Guele (00341) announced that its stores in eastern China will close later this month, reminding members to refund by the end of this month. At present, the mainland accounts for 12.4% of the total income of Guele. After the closure of stores in eastern China, there are 88 stores left in the mainland.

There are many voices in the market who think that this is good news. Everyone Le has reduced a total of 26 stores since last year, which is also dragged down by its weak area, East China. Now that it withdraws from East China, it can focus on the South China market in the future. In this year's annual results, same-store sales in southern China grew by 6% to 7%, outperforming even Hong Kong stores.

From the perspective of the industry, the news is slightly pessimistic. Hong Kong-style fast food, represented by everyone Le, is struggling to attack the mainland, and its survival scope has never been out of South China.

14 trillion of the business and battlefield

Calculated on the basis of 10 yuan per person for a meal, the annual consumption on food and beverage is at least 10, 000 yuan, and 1.4 billion people is 14 trillion. As an import business, people may eat more than 14 trillion.

Among them, public catering consumption has become the most important part of the income of the catering industry, accounting for about 70%, while Chinese fast food is the main battlefield. Everyone's music, which was defeated by the rapid growth of fast food in the mainland, also reflects the catering market in the mainland-behind this 14 trillion market is business, but also a battlefield.

According to the general situation of the distribution of food and beverage categories across the country, snacks are the largest track in the catering industry, accounting for nearly 1 / 3 of the total number of restaurants; the number of bread and dessert shops ranks second, with an increase of nearly 38% compared with the same period last year; by contrast, the scale of hot pot and Sichuan food is standing still, while Chinese food as a whole has declined more than increased.

With the characteristics of low technical threshold and high gross profit margin, hot pot has become the first choice for many entrepreneurs to enter the catering industry, but the high profit absorption of brand enterprises has caused obvious "Matthew effect". In terms of the increase in the number of stores, only Hangzhou and Xi'an among the 15 hot cities maintained positive growth, and the whole hot pot industry experienced a war as hard as Shangganling.

Another "suffering" is Sichuan cuisine. In the past, 6 of the 10 Chinese restaurants overseas were Cantonese cuisine, but now 6 of the 10 Chinese restaurants are Sichuan cuisine, but now the spicy food that consumers like to eat has encountered a bottleneck. In 12 of the 16 popular cities, store growth was negative throughout the year, and the impression of "delicious Sichuan food but high oil and salt" began to curb the popularity of Sichuan food.

At present, the catering industry is still growing at a double-digit percentage every year, but more than 70% of the cards are being reshuffled at the same time, which means that more than 20% of the people will survive.

What is the correct expansion posture?

From the top 5 food and beverage categories, most of them have two characteristics: standardization, high consumption frequency, "fast" to the extreme.

McDonald's Corp and KFC have sprung up all over the world with replicable standardization, expanding the number of stores in China to about 5300 and 2400 in just over 20 years. While Chinese fast food is limited to complex cooking techniques and complex ingredients, it is temporarily unable to meet the degree of standardization of western fast food, but this does not affect its rapid growth.

The extremely high consumption frequency and the characteristics of north-south eating determine that snacks and snacks are the largest race track in the catering category. Judging from the growth rate for the whole year of 2016, all 15 hot cities showed positive growth, with 7 cities growing by more than 30%.

At present, snacks simple fast food has also become the biggest brand opportunity in the current catering industry, and many fast foods have begun to be branded. For example, U Dingmao, owned by Haidilao International Holding, has applied to list the new third board; met Xiaomian to get financing four times in two years; and dumpling brand Xijiade, the business scale has reached about 2 billion.

And the dinner of snacks has also begun to become a trend. The category with high daily consumption frequency but not in the hall of elegance has become a rich mine for the development and increment of dinner enterprises, which began to let folk snacks and traditional dishes appear at the same table.

Branding and dinnerization will also accelerate fast leisure meals in the market segment of fast food. Compared with ordinary fast food, fast leisure meals have higher food quality and dining environment. At present, typical restaurants include Weiqian ramen, Master Kang's private beef noodles and breast-feeding. As the fast-paced people have higher and higher requirements for the quality of fast food, fast leisure food has developed rapidly.

A successful practitioner of Jane fast food

The more successful application of the word "fast" is quack feeding (00520).

As the first and largest bar hot pot brand in China, at the beginning of its establishment, it did not follow the usual practice of first store and then factory, but first set up a head office, create a central kitchen and develop a standardized factory system. Quack feeding CFO Zhao Yi once said, "consumers no longer regard breast-feeding as a hot pot, but a simple meal by their side. If you are hungry, you can go in for a simple meal for 30-40 minutes."

The positioning of simple fast food is always the standard of compound expansion. As of the first half of this year, there were 650 stores in 67 cities, 33 new stores opened in the first half of this year, and plans to add more than 60 in the second half of this year. Its expansion is infiltrating from first-and second-tier cities to the mainland.

The growth of quack-feeding performance is also fast and stable, thanks to its high turnaround rate. The turnover rate is the utilization rate of the dining table of each unit, and the overturning rate is the indicator of "fast". Although the turn-over rate of quack-feeding has declined in the early stage, it has begun to stabilize. The turning-over rate in Beijing can be as high as 4%, and the turning rate of many restaurants may be at the level of 1%.

At present, quack-feeding begins to wade into the main meal, and begins to adopt the compound mode of "hot pot + tea", that is, to realize many functions such as dining, business, leisure and so on in the same space. It is not clear how far the new model can go, but it is true that it has built a chain of hot pot empires through "fast".