Events
On March 15, 2022, the National Bureau of statistics released the retail data of social consumer goods. From January to February in 2022, the total amount of social zero was 7442.6 billion yuan, an increase of 6.7%, and the catering income of social zero was 771.8 billion yuan, an increase of 8.9%, of which the catering income of units above the quota was 172 billion yuan, an increase of 10.1%.
Commentary
From January to February 2022, the overall margin of the catering industry has improved, but there is still a certain gap compared with the overall recovery of consumption. From January to February, the catering income of social zero increased by 8.9% at the same time, higher than the overall social zero by 2.2pct, an increase of 6.4% over the same period of 19 years, and lower than the overall social zero by 6.2pct. On a month on month basis, in December of the previous year (2021), the catering revenue of social zero decreased by 2.2% in the same month, 3.9pct lower than the overall social zero, an increase of 0.3% over the same period of 19 years and 6.1pct lower than the overall social zero. The margin of catering consumption improved from January to February, but there is still a certain gap between the recovery degree and the overall social zero from the year-on-year growth data of 19 years.
Catering Enterprises above the quota continue to perform better than the industry as a whole, and branding and chain operation are still the general trend. From January to February 2022, the catering revenue of units above the quota increased by 10.1% at the same time, which was 1.2pct and 3.4pct higher than that of catering and social zero respectively; Compared with the same period of 19 years, it increased by 13.4%, higher than 7.0pct and 0.7pct of catering and social zero respectively; Accounting for 22.3% of the catering industry as a whole, with a year-on-year increase of 1.7pct (the proportion of Enterprises above the quota in the society increased by 1.6pct year-on-year). In the case that the epidemic was still spreading in many places from January to February, catering enterprises above the quota showed higher anti risk ability (especially from the fact that the year-on-year growth index of catering income above the quota was slightly higher than the overall level of social zero in 19 years). We believe that the long-term trend of branding and chain operation of China’s catering industry remains unchanged, The repeated epidemic may lead to the further increase of the difficulty of clearing the edge of traditional husband and wife stores and the survival of start-up brands.
In March, the epidemic situation in many places intensified repeatedly, and the consumption from catering to stores is expected to be under pressure. According to the data such as delicious food, the daily average catering turnover since March (2022 / 3 / 1 ~ 2022 / 3 / 14) has still decreased by 69.9% compared with the base day, 7.3pct lower than the daily average in the 14 days after February (excluding the influence of the Spring Festival). From the moving average trend of 7 days, it shows a month on month downward trend; The number of stores in stores decreased month on month, and the number of takeout catering stores was relatively stable; The average consumption intensity of store arrival and takeout in operating stores decreased by 12.2% and increased by 11.5% compared with the benchmark day.
Investment advice
We maintain the rating of “overweight” in the industry. The social zero data from January to February reflect that there are still opportunities for marginal improvement and dilemma reversal in the catering industry in the future. Among them, the resilience of Catering Enterprises above the quota is sufficient and the recovery situation is expected to be better than that of the industry as a whole. In the context of the increase in the spread of the epidemic in March, it is suggested to pay attention to: 1) the demand for prefabricated vegetables in the home scene is increasing, such as Suzhou Weizhixiang Food Co.Ltd(605089) , Tongqinglou Catering Co.Ltd(605108) and so on; 2) Zhongyin Babi Food Co.Ltd(605338) , which focuses on the breakfast scene, the layout of community stores is relatively perfect, and the group meal business is launched; 3) The single store model is an efficient subdivided category leader, jiumaojiu and hailun.
Risk tips
Repeated epidemic risks, the recovery of terminal demand is less than expected, and the industry competition is intensified.
