"This month, we will close all takeaways and only do dine-in."

In a recent interview with the media, Sui Zhengjun, the founder of Wooden House BBQ, made this statement. He also revealed that since October last year, the wooden house barbecue has successively shut down the take-out services of stores in various places.

Established in 2003, the wooden house barbecue now has about 170 stores (all of which are directly operated), which is the leading brand in the barbecue category. Its founder, Zhengjun Sui, has many fans in the catering industry because of his sharp and straightforward views. Some people refer to him as "Chinese Catering F4" along with Shu Congxuan (a fellow chicken), Jia Guolong (Xibei), and Wu Guoping (grandmother's house).

Public information shows that since last year, despite repeated condemnation and condemnation of food delivery platforms from catering people everywhere, Sui Zhengjun was the first to speak out by the founder of the head company.

And just a year ago, the wooden house barbecue was fully committed to take-out.

Last February, during the worst period of the epidemic, the income from dine-in at the wooden barbecue was almost zero. Facing the difficult situation of losing nearly 50 million per month, on the one hand, Sui Zhengjun accepted the employees' salary reduction request; On the one hand, the wooden house barbecue began to focus on taking out.

After a month of hard work, the share of food delivery in the overall revenue of log cabin barbecue increased from 5% before the epidemic to 50%. They also achieved a seemingly impossible goal as scheduled: through 28 days of hard work ( Until March 28), the single-day turnover exceeded 5 million.

At 5:04 a.m. on March 29, the excited Sui Zhengjun also posted a circle of friends for this, saying "History will remember this moment."

It can be said that in the "darkest moment" of last year, the takeaway saved the wooden barbecue to a certain extent.

Now only a year later, the wooden house barbecue decided to stop the take-out, a 180° change in attitude. Some people say that what Sui Zhengjun did was a bit "unauthentic", "It used to be called Xiao Tiantian, now it is called Mrs. Niu."

This statement is of course not worthwhile. The business world does not require much moral judgment, and the cooperation between catering merchants and food delivery platforms does not mean that the platform suffers. In fact, not only did the platform not suffer, but it also caused many catering businesses to complain. The open letter sent to Meituan by many food associations since February last year is proof.

When it comes to barbecues in wooden houses, Sui Zhengjun believes that their marketing activities on the take-out platform last year were all about buying platform traffic, and then using discounts to convert them into cash. It was like drug use, "If you smoke it, you can’t quit, the last There is no doubt that the ending will die!" So, he "determined to give up drugs" and "break free from these shackles."

In all fairness, as food delivery has become an increasingly important pole of the catering industry, it takes a lot of courage for a leading company such as wooden house barbecue to dare to say "no" to delivery. Many catering people also praise Sui Zhengjun's courage. .

But at the same time, some people did not approve of Sui's statement. One of the views is that “barbecue is not suitable for take-out” and the log cabin barbecue chose to close the take-out. It just conforms to its own development needs and does not have much reference value. Others think that takeaway is the general trend, if you don't do it, people will do it naturally.

There is a certain truth to such views, but unfortunately they are not obvious.

Judging from Sui Zhengjun’s statement, in the past year, the take-out business of hut barbecue has actually not made much money and is unhealthy. And this kind of "unhealthy" is exactly the status quo of the takeaway ecology of the entire catering industry.

The four parties involved in takeaway, apart from platforms, are merchants, riders, and consumers. For merchants, facing the squeeze of the platform, they are "ridden on the neck by the platform", but they are humiliated but helpless; for the riders, they are a group of people "trapped in the algorithm", and most of them do not have social security; for consumers, they seem to be After enjoying the convenience of dining, I actually don't know how much food I ate from the horns.

Obviously, this ecology is unhealthy and naturally unsustainable.

Regulators have also noticed this. The first is the antitrust investigations on major platforms since December last year. On January 11, the Market Supervision and Administration Bureau of Meizhou City, Guangdong Province issued a "Response to Government Information Disclosure Application", giving a public reply to "Meituan Meituan’s Mandatory Choice of Case Resolution". Meituan Outsourcing Company Was fined 130,000.

Furthermore, on February 22 this year, the State Administration of Market Supervision proposed to "strictly observe the bottom line of takeaway catering safety", and has repeatedly interviewed platforms such as Meituan and Ele.me. The main responsibility of the online catering service platform is to be implemented as the focus of work.

For takeaway riders, a similar incident happened in Italy recently. On February 24, local time, the Milan Prosecutor's Office of Italy and the country’s labor regulatory agency jointly decided to require the four major food delivery platforms to officially hire riders instead of treating them as independent workers. At the same time, the platform must pay the total amount due to violations of labor safety regulations. A fine of 733 million euros.

After seeing this news, many people asked for "convergence." In fact, the relevant departments of our country are not idle with regard to the problem of inadequate social insurance for riders. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security has stated a few days ago that it will establish an occupational injury protection model to guide Internet platform companies to explore commercial insurance to protect employees.

Wooden house barbecue Sui Zhengjun resolutely said "goodbye" to the takeaway, and it is not clear whether other catering companies will follow up. But in any case, the food delivery industry has become standardized and the food delivery ecology has become healthy. We look forward to this day soon!