Barbecuing has become one of the most widely used cooking methods in the world. Barbecuing stalls can be seen everywhere in the streets or in small shops, docks, tourist attractions, and stations.

Because of its taste and different ingredients, people's appetite is greatly increased. In addition, there are so many things that can be roasted, which are inexhaustible and inexhaustible, so that barbecue has an enduring market. A wide range of consumer groups and a deep market foundation make the entire barbecue market in a state of development.

ONE

Coming to summer

The barbecue industry returns strongly

In 2021, this summer that is about to usher in, we can finally come to the outdoor barbecue with peace of mind! As the temperature rises, people's enthusiasm for barbecue has become more restless, and the barbecue industry has risen in the wind and returned strongly.

From the beef and lamb to the brain and fat intestines, as soon as the summer wind blew, the dark red charcoal burned more vigorously, and even the beer began to bubble.

Regardless of the exquisite white-collar workers in the city or the masters of the village, the evening falls, a barbecue becomes a serenade at the end of the day. Unsurprisingly, lamb skewers, beef skewers, and pork belly are the TOP3 of the national barbecue meat dishes. The taste of meat collides with chili and cumin, which evokes the most primitive swallowing instinct of people. After a tiring day, the sympathy of carbohydrate and fat to the tired soul is better than any chicken soup. For the barbecue stall owner, the taste of good skewers is better than many shouts.

In the West, people use "Hey, have a cup of coffee" to socialize. In the East, "eating a barbecue" is the same as drinking a glass of wine and eating a hot pot. It has become a social choice for social communities and collective culture.

All regions are crazy "chasing" barbecue, and market competition has transformed from incremental competition to stock competition. The "barbecue economy" is entering a period of major reshuffle.

TWO

Fierce rally

But "there are no licenses"

According to relevant data, since 2010, the barbecue industry has grown rapidly at a rate of more than 20% per year and has become one of the fastest growing categories in recent years. At present, the country is in a period of blowout of skewers, but it is also in a category without a brand. The stage. In the past two years, the development of skewers has been blown out. After years of growth, the barbecue category has ushered in a big explosion. At present, there are more than 300,000 barbecue merchants nationwide.

As the most profitable and fastest-growing category in the catering industry in recent years, the barbecue industry has broad market prospects. However, the biggest problem currently facing The explosive growth that occurred in 2011 has made the barbecue category the second largest category in the catering industry.

Although there are broad market prospects, no one can occupy the dominant position in the barbecue industry market. It can be said that barbecue has a large market but lacks big winners.

Enter the "barbecue" keyword in the enterprise search, and the total number of barbecue companies in the eight provinces of Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Yunnan, and Liaoning has reached 27w+.

But on the other hand, there are very few stores for chain barbecue brands. In the homes of more than 300,000 barbecue dealers, it is still the single-store operation that dominates, and many of them are still operating in the form of late-night snacks in food stalls.

A large number of newly-added stores are also dominated by small brands, and the increase in the number of expanded stores for those large chain-operated brands is also limited.

Compared with the scale of many hot pot brands with hundreds of stores, the number of barbecue chain brand stores is really pitiful. There are only a handful of brands that can reach more than 100 such as wooden barbecue.

THREE

Standardization and supply chain are big problems

On the other hand, so far, the barbecue industry is still a trilemma of “difficult to industrialize, difficult to standardize, and difficult to scale”, which is also a major obstacle to the development and growth of barbecue chain brands.

The baking industry lacks industry standards, and the lack of industry standards means that there are no standards for service, hygiene, and product production. Then the level of mechanization and standardization will be relatively low, and the efficiency of operation will also be reduced. In addition, a large number of stragglers have led to the whole It is difficult for the industry to bring it up.

Although there are few barbecue procedures and low dependence on chefs, it is a category that is relatively easy to replicate, but many barbecue brands are stuck in one link, that is, skewers. This is an insurmountable obstacle in the current skewers industry. This heavily dependent on manpower directly reduces the gross profit of skewers.

Strictly speaking, the machine can completely replace artificial skewers, but this requires a lot of meat and is very lossy. In addition, machine stringing will also affect the customer experience, thereby reducing store revenue. Consumers don't like machine-worn skewers, and people are more able to accept dishes that incorporate chef’s craftsmanship, which are non-standard products; while machine-worn skewers each look the same and are standard products, making customers feel impersonal.

For chain restaurant brands, a strong supply chain means a strong store. The hot pot industry is a typical example. Judging from the current situation, the hot pot industry has been able to achieve a standardized, large-scale, and industrialized supply chain. Compared with the hot pot industry, the barbecue industry is slightly different in terms of supply chain.

According to industry sources, when the barbecue shop is small, it needs less ingredients, and the supplier simply looks down on it and is unwilling to produce it. However, when the store volume becomes larger, the third-party supply chain cannot meet the demand. Because the third-party supply chain and the store are not a community of interests, it is difficult for them to guarantee a stable supply of meat quality, which cannot satisfy a branded barbecue restaurant that focuses on quality.

As a result, some skewers shops have to constrain the ingredients and have to build their own supply chains. For example, wooden barbecues and Bingcheng skewers have opened their own food processing plants. However, the cost of investment in food processing plants is often tens of millions, which may force food companies to face various pressures in their operations, such as the inability to keep up with the speed of opening stores and the lack of talents, which makes the inherently fragile barbecue category more bearable pressure.

However, food processing plants that have been built with great difficulty often have overcapacity problems. They can produce 500,000 strings per day, but because there are not enough merchants to join them, only 100,000 strings per day are produced, which is also a big waste.

For the barbecue industry, the problem of development is that its supply chain cannot achieve large-scale standardization and large-scale production like the hot pot industry supply chain. Therefore, the first thing for those who want to build a first-class barbecue brand is how to do it well. From this point of view, the supply chain link of the store is the most fundamental thing to be achieved for brand development and expansion.

FOUR

The future trend of the barbecue industry

In recent years, almost all catering people have noticed a trend: consumption upgrade. These four words are especially obvious when they are placed in the barbecue industry. With the improvement of the consumption level of the Chinese people, the income scale of the catering industry continues to grow, and the Chinese barbecue industry has begun to continuously transform.

According to the data from the Meituan Dianping platform, before the epidemic, the per capita consumption of barbecue stores nationwide was 46 yuan. According to the per capita consumption, the proportion of consumers in barbecue stores in the range of 30-120 yuan per capita increased significantly, which indirectly spurred the entire category. The increase in customer orders.

With the development of the online food delivery industry, the Chinese barbecue industry uses food delivery to increase store sales and expand consumption scenarios. With consumption upgrades, brand re-engineering, and changes in consumption scenarios, barbecue is being redefined, and the era of higher-level quality consumption is coming.

No matter what kind of brand. All need to have a keen eye, be able to accurately understand the changes in the catering industry, changes in consumer demand, and then carry out brand update iterations.