Eat noodles while it’s hot. Are all kinds of noodles that used to suck gold crazy still “hot”?
Since the beginning of this year, the investment enthusiasm in the consumption field has plummeted, the offline operation of repeatedly pressing the pause key, the cost of rent, raw materials and labor that is difficult to compress, and the sharp decline in passenger flow have made the whole industry face a “life and death test”. For catering enterprises, it is even more difficult. The consumer investment and financing environment, including noodle shops, continues to cool. The chain catering companies concerned by investment institutions last year began to be cold this year, and are rarely replenished by capital again.
However, catering enterprises that have moved towards the process of capitalization have begun to speed up the pace of listing; From the performance of listed catering enterprises, the head enterprises have relatively strong impact resistance, but there is still obvious differentiation.
small noodle restaurant enters the mall
but few investment institutions are willing to “sell”
In the second half of 2021, the bullets of capital “flew wildly” on the rice flour track, and many Chinese flour chain enterprises gained the favor of capital, but the competition of flour track is still fierce. Despite the impact of the epidemic, the pace of small flour entering large shopping malls has not stopped.
Recently, the reporter of the securities times saw at the Baoneng global exchange mall newly opened in Sungang, Luohu, Shenzhen that some shops focusing on powdered noodles, such as Chen Xianggui, a new brand of Lanzhou ramen, have been stationed. Because the price is not high, the serving speed is fast, and the popularity is not low, they have won the favor of the surrounding working people. A person from the marketing department of a shopping mall told reporters that in terms of store location, offline formats also showed an interesting phenomenon: some categories that seem difficult to be elegant, such as small noodle shops, have been transformed into department stores, shopping centers and high-end office buildings.
Also in the Central District of Futian, Shenzhen, Hefu Laomian is also overcrowded during the peak dining period. Some netizens say they come specially to eat. Although the price is high, they just like “expensive and delicious sour and spicy bone breaking noodles”. In areas affected by the epidemic, offline food cannot be provided, and takeout has become a new growth point.
According to the data of Hefu Laomian Shanghai, 11 stores had resumed work as of May 7. According to the relevant person in charge of Hefu Laomian, the reopened store mainly serves residential areas, enterprises and institutions within five kilometers around the store. Since the resumption of the first store on April 16, the take out orders of the store have increased significantly, and the take out turnover has reached 10 times that before the epidemic. Meng Di, the store manager of Hefu Laomian Shanghai Fudi vitality City store, who recently resumed work, said that the average daily take out orders of his store remained at about 350 orders.
There is a fire side, naturally there is also a cold side. Last year’s quite high-profile fun noodles experienced financing difficulties and renaming in just six months, and the pace of expanding stores was relatively slow. The chain noodle restaurant founded by Lu Zhengyao, former chairman of Ruixing, also closed its first store in Beijing in fenghuanghui shopping center in January 2022. It didn’t even get to the stage of financing. After opening many stores, it encountered financing failure. Three months after its opening, it was hastily renamed “qubayu” and transformed into Sichuan Chongqing snack category. Since 2022, pasta players such as Xiaomian, Ma Jiyong, Chen Xianggui and Zhang Lala have slowed down their expansion.
This is in stark contrast to last year’s situation. In the first eight months of 2021, the new brands of Lanzhou ramen, Chen Xianggui, Zhang Lala, Ma Jiyong and so on, have received large amount of financing, and some brands have even completed financing twice within a month. Sequoia Capital, Hillhouse capital, IDG capital, GGV, Tencent investment, source capital and other well-known investment institutions have joined the war to seize the rice noodle track.
According to the data of iimedia research, the market scale of Chinese noodle restaurant in China was 312.09 billion yuan in 2021, and it is expected to exceed 340 billion yuan in 2022. From January to August 2021 alone, there were 18 financing transactions in the noodle category, and more than 2.6 billion funds were invested in this track. It has become an indisputable fact that capital loves “eating noodles”. Contrary to the crazy situation of being sought after by capital last year, investment institutions have made very few shots at the rice flour track this year.
In August 2021, the financing scale and quantity of the new consumption track reached the peak. After September and October, the financing situation of the new consumption track became worse. Wang Weiwei, the managing partner of Huaying capital, summarized two reasons: first, the valuation of new consumption enterprises in the secondary market decreased; Secondly, the performance of some new financing companies in the primary market did not meet expectations, which weakened the investment enthusiasm of the primary market; In addition, non consumer investors who entered because of the hot consumer market also withdrew more quickly.
The “small noodles” in the subdivision track are naturally doomed. AI media consulting analysts believe that in recent years, the noodle restaurant industry has turned to the medium and high-end direction, and emerging brands have won the favor of the market and capital. In addition, the threshold of Chinese noodle restaurant is low, the process replication rate is high, and the market competition is fierce. In order to increase market share, noodle enterprises should constantly innovate in brand image, marketing methods, derivative retail products and so on.
“We will pay attention to the track of rice flour for a long time, but the probability of selling this year will be relatively low. In addition to the impact of the epidemic on offline stores, we are also worried about the opportunity to exit in the future. In addition, at present, the bullets on hand are limited, so the investment will be more cautious.” “But we will pay attention to some new changes, such as the opportunities of new brands in integrating the supply chain, introducing new products and internal digital management,” a senior investor in Shenzhen who has long paid attention to the consumer industry told reporters
track or structural change
It is not only the small noodle restaurant that faces a difficult environment, but also the whole catering industry.
According to the data disclosed by the National Bureau of statistics, the total retail sales of social consumer goods reached 4271.6 billion yuan in 2018 and 4672.1 billion yuan in 2019. The catering revenue in 2020 was 3952.7 billion yuan, significantly lower than that in 2019. In 2021, the catering revenue was 4689.5 billion yuan, an increase of about 18.6%. The scale of catering revenue in 2021 exceeded that in 2019.
According to the latest data released by the National Bureau of statistics, the national catering revenue in April this year was 260.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 22.7%. According to the data of it orange, as of March 31, a quarter of 2022 has passed, but the total financing amount of the catering industry in this quarter was less than 10% of that of last year.
Wang Weiwei, the managing partner of Huaying capital, pointed out in a recent media interview that from the perspective of the investment logic of the industry, the scale of the catering industry is at least more than 5 trillion. Such a competition road is also a field of just need and high frequency. Why bet and government fishing noodles? It is mainly based on three factors:
First, the growth of head catering will far exceed that of the whole industry. With the improvement of infrastructure, such as the digitization of payment, the standardization of supply chain and the chain of supermarkets, it is a general trend that the concentration of leading brands in the industry becomes higher.
Compared with the large overseas catering companies, there are many large catering companies with hundreds of billions of dollars. In contrast, the leading brands of Chinese catering are still in a very small volume.
Secondly, the selected food category – pasta, the combination of standardization and universalization. If a catering brand only relies on the initial ability, it is difficult to standardize and quickly copy. The listed catering companies are excellent in chain and standardization. For example, hot pot, barbecue, sauerkraut fish; From the perspective of staple foods, rice noodles and noodles are the largest categories of staple foods of Chinese people, which are relatively easy to standardize. Secondly, as a dinner, they also belong to the rigid needs of the public. By covering soup topping, many single products can be changed and innovated. In China, eating noodles is a national thing. Although the tastes of noodles vary from place to place, its public acceptance is the highest in the country.
Third, the standardization ability, supply chain ability and digitization ability of Hefu Laomian are very strong, which can give its business model more room for imagination.
Song Qianqian, chairman of Jiahua capital, once said publicly that the structure of the track will change greatly in the future. The era opportunity of new consumption to grasp small functions, small pain points and small flow in the past has passed. Only those who understand people’s livelihood, rigid needs and high-frequency industries can obtain market competitiveness in the future. This is also a prediction. As Buffett said, structural competition opportunities and moat opportunities are actually very important, Grasp the Changpo thick snow competition Road, people’s livelihood and rigid needs, so as to win the opportunity of adjustment of the times.
He pointed out that the consumer service industry seems to have a low threshold for entry, but in fact, the threshold for competition is very high. The essence of business can be summarized into eight words: innovation, retention, transformation and repurchase. The consumer service industry seems good to invest, because everyone has scenes and experiences, but many investors regard their consumption experience as investment logic, which is completely wrong. Opening one store and 10 stores, 100 stores and 1000 stores are completely different logic. Brand operation, management, supply chain, human resources, institutional dividend, brand dividend and innovation. The challenges and pressures faced here are exponential changes. If we only look at the single store model to make investment and hope that the future growth can fill the gap of valuation logic, this is very challenging.
listed catering head enterprises are now divided
From the second half of last year to the first quarter of this year, more than 10 catering enterprises reported that they were about to be listed. Some enterprises have submitted prospectuses, while green tea restaurants have reportedly been heard by the Hong Kong stock exchange, or are expected to become the first catering enterprise to be listed in 2022. The commonness of catering enterprises seeking to be listed is that they have been established for a long time, have a high degree of chain, basically achieve profitability and pay attention to the ability of supply chain. By embracing capital, they can further improve their anti risk ability and realize large-scale.
For the listed enterprises, the epidemic has had a certain impact on the catering industry. The head enterprises listed in the capital market have a relatively strong anti impact ability, but there is still obvious differentiation.
The reporter of the Securities Times found that among the catering enterprises listed on A-Shares and Hong Kong shares, most of them still have a certain increase in operating revenue in recent years. However, in terms of profits, the head enterprises are also generally impacted.
For example, the revenue of Haidilao, a leading catering enterprise listed in Hong Kong, has increased year by year in recent years. The revenue in 2019 was 26.619 billion yuan, increased to 28.702 billion yuan in 2020, and further increased to 41.289 billion yuan in 2021; In terms of profit, Haidilao made a profit of 2.345 billion yuan in 2019, a sharp drop in profit to 309 million yuan in 2020, and a further loss of 4.163 billion yuan in 2021.
Similarly, the revenue and profit growth of jiumaojiu catering enterprises listed in Hong Kong are relatively more stable. According to the data, the revenue of jiumaojiu was 2.687 billion yuan in 2019, increased to 2.715 billion yuan in 2020, and increased significantly to 4.18 billion yuan in 2021; In terms of profit, the annual profit attributable to equity shareholders of the company in 2019 was 164 million yuan, decreased to 124 million yuan in 2020, and increased significantly to 340 million yuan in 2021. Jiumaojiu said that despite the continuous impact of the epidemic, compared with 2020, the Group recorded a revenue growth of 54.0% and a net profit growth of 169.7% respectively in 2021, mainly due to the continuous expansion of Taier restaurant network, and the number of restaurants increased from 233 as of December 31, 2020 to 350 as of December 31, 2021. In addition, the total restaurant business days in 2021 increased compared with 2020, which is due to the recovery of the group’s operation from the epidemic.
The operation of catering enterprises listed in A-Shares is relatively weak. For example, the revenue of Tongqinglou Catering Co.Ltd(605108) 2019 was 1.463 billion yuan, decreased to 1.296 billion yuan in 2020, and increased significantly to 1.608 billion yuan in 2021; In terms of profit, Tongqinglou Catering Co.Ltd(605108) 19’s net profit attributable to the parent company was 198 million yuan, decreased to 185 million yuan in 2020 and further decreased to 144 million yuan in 2021.
The revenue of China Quanjude(Group) Co.Ltd(002186) another A-share listed catering enterprise has declined significantly in recent years. The company’s revenue in 2017 was 1.861 billion yuan, that in 2018 and 2019 were 1.777 billion yuan and 1.566 billion yuan respectively. It further plummeted to 783 million yuan in 2020 and rebounded to 948 million yuan in 2021; In terms of profits, China Quanjude(Group) Co.Ltd(002186) 2019’s net profit attributable to the parent company was 45 million yuan. It began to fall into a loss in 2020, with a loss of 262 million yuan in 2020, 157 million yuan in 2021 and another loss of 47 million yuan in the first quarter of 2022p align=”center”>
