In a short period of one and a half months, the number of potential franchisees has doubled to 6000, with a total financing of 1.6 billion yuan. This deja vu “speed” has been staged by Ruixing coffee, and now it has caused waves on the tuyere track of prefabricated dishes. The driving force behind the scenes is the same person – Lu Zhengyao.
Making Ruixing coffee when the coffee is very hot and fun noodles when the noodles are very hot. Now Lu Zhengyao has entered the hot prefabricated vegetable track with his familiar “formula” and “taste”.
Lu Zhengyao established tongue tip technology in August 2020, first launched “fun noodles” (later renamed “fun Bayu”) in 2021, and then launched tongue tip workshop (later renamed “tongue tip hero”), mainly engaged in prefabricated ingredients and quick cooking dishes. Adopt the mode of “only joining, not direct marketing” and expand rapidly.
Lu Zhengyao regards the hero at the tip of his tongue as the last battle before retirement. Can he change another track this time?
expands faster than Ruixing coffee, with 6000 signed franchisees
The reporter came to an offline store of “tip of the tongue hero” in Bao’an District, Shenzhen and saw that this is a “semi-finished food supermarket”. There are multiple freezers in the store, which store packaged dishes. In addition to the goods cooperated with manufacturers, some goods are processed by store employees in the store.
Zhuo Yong, an offline store of “tip of the tongue hero” in Bao’an District, Shenzhen / photo
“During the epidemic, there are few dishes in the freezer. You can place an order on the app.” Store staff told reporters. The reporter saw that the staff is making orders for users who place orders online, and there are still many documents. When the reporter opened the “tip of the tongue hero” app, we can see that the product forms currently on the shelves are divided into several categories, such as hot dishes, prefabricated dishes, hot dishes, staple snacks, hot pot ingredients and so on, including hundreds of SKUs. In addition to complete dishes, there are also separate retail meat materials, dumplings, fast food and so on. From the price point of view, at present, the price of hot dishes after discount is mostly within 30 yuan, the price of prefabricated ingredients after discount is mostly about 20-30 yuan, and there are dishes less than 10 yuan.
It is reported that the tip of the tongue Hero Brand adopts the mode of “only joining, not directly selling”. At present, about 6000 intended franchisees have been signed, with a total financing of 1.6 billion yuan. Prior to this, Li Yingbo, the rotating CEO of tongue tip technology, revealed in an interview with a number of media that by the end of January this year, the number of intention contracts of tongue tip hero stores had reached 25 Jinzai Food Group Co.Ltd(003000) . In other words, in just one and a half months, the number of franchisees signed by the tip of the tongue hero has doubled.
This speed even surpassed that of Ruixing in that year, when Ruixing coffee opened 3000 stores, which took 20 months. According to the original plan, the tip of the tongue hero will land 3000 stores in five months. Now it seems that it has greatly exceeded the expected goal. It is reported that at present, the investment amount of joining the tip of the tongue hero starts at 30000, the store is 8 square meters, and the signing needs to pay 10000 yuan of intention money.
“Shenzhou Department + Ruixing Department” the original team ended up with small business also blocked
Zhijian Technology Co., Ltd. was established in May of last year, and Zhijian Technology Co., Ltd. has been registered in Beijing since May of 2020. From the industrial and commercial information of tongue tip technology, it seems that it has little to do with Lu Zhengyao, but from the list of legal representatives and executives of its branches, we can find that tongue tip technology has Lu Zhengyao’s “brand”.
The reporter found from the enterprise check app that the relevant principals of the branches and affiliated companies of tongue tip technology have appeared the “old people” of the former Shenzhou department and Ruixing coffee, such as Zhang Ying, Li Jun and Zhou Bin. Zhou Bin and Li Jun are former vice presidents of Ruixing and are highly appreciated by Lu Zhengyao.
Zhou Bin served as the legal representative, executive director and (general) manager of the three companies of tongue tip technology in Shenyang, Hangzhou and Jinan, and Li Jun served as the legal person of the branches of tongue tip technology in Changsha, Guangzhou and Chengdu.
In August 2021, tongue tip Technology launched its brand “Qu Xiaomian” (later renamed “Qu Bayu”). That month, the company also completed a round of financing of 550 million yuan led by PCCW capital, and then successively obtained a total of 1.6 billion yuan of financing. However, the expansion speed of quxiaomian is very slow. According to incomplete statistics, at present, there are only 34 stores in 15 cities across the country, while Lu Zhengyao originally planned to “have 106 stores in the first batch and exceed 500 stores in the second batch”, and the overall development is less than 1 / 10 of the target.
It is understood that the subsequent financing plan of quxiaomian is not smooth, so it is difficult to achieve the expected expansion goal. According to the analysis of insiders, the financing and expansion of fun facets are unfavorable, which is inseparable from Lu Zhengyao’s lack of personal reputation. Last November, quxiaomian was renamed qubayu, but public comments showed that at present, there are only two qubayu stores in Shenzhen, and one is suspended, with a score of less than 4 points. There are three qubayu stores in Beijing.
According to the current tuyere, Xiaomian is also popular with capital. Just as the competing products meet Xiaomian, Ma Jiyong and Chen Xianggui all got the financing early, among which more than 150 chain stores meet Xiaomian, and the current valuation has been as high as 3 billion yuan. Chen Xianggui sought 1 billion yuan of financing when there are only 22 stores, and Ma Jiyong also got the valuation of 1 billion yuan of Sequoia Capital when there are only 15 stores.
there are many giant players with sharp tongue heroes and obvious financial advantages
Driven by the epidemic situation and the “lazy economy” and many other factors, prefabricated vegetables have become increasingly popular in recent years and have been more and more accepted by consumers, so they have also been paid attention to and favored by capital.
Everbright Securities Company Limited(601788) data show that from 2019, the prefabricated vegetable industry will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 26%, and the scale of the prefabricated vegetable industry will exceed trillion by 2025. According to the data of tianyancha, the number of enterprises engaged in the business related to prefabricated vegetables was 1796 in 2011, exceeded 4000 for the first time in 2015, exceeded 8000 in 2018, and a total of 12500 new enterprises were registered in 2020.
Behind the rise of prefabricated dishes is the extreme demand that the b-end catering industry must improve efficiency and the realistic demand that the C-end users become busier and lazier. According to the data of HEMA fresh, 54% of post-95 HEMA consumers often buy ingredients to cook by themselves, and semi-finished dishes are one of their favorite commodities, with the purchase proportion twice that of post-65.
However, the current situation in China is that most enterprises operating prefabricated vegetables prefer the “workshop mode”, and the registered capital of most relevant enterprises is mainly less than 1 million. From this perspective, tongue tip technology undoubtedly has great financial advantages. Tianyancha information shows that the three related companies of tongue tip technology are tongue tip workshop (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd., tongue tip workshop food (Hefei) Co., Ltd. and tongue tip workshop technology (Chengdu) Co., Ltd., with a registered capital of 5 million yuan. All three companies are 100% owned by tongue tip technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd.
In addition, the strength of several other giant players on the prefabricated food track is also very strong. Not only the overweight of catering enterprises such as Xibei, Haidilao, Wangxiang garden, xiangeqing and Meizhou Dongpo, but also supermarkets such as HEMA Xiansheng, Yonghui Superstores Co.Ltd(601933) , Carrefour and aunt Qian have begun to enter the market one after another. The field of prefabricated food seems to be a broad “blue ocean”, but there is already a trend of undercurrent.
