How did the former "invasive species" go from being rejected to being "only sold"? /Figureworm Creative
"Beijing cuisine is in Guijie Street, and Guijie cuisine is in Huda."
If Guijie Street is the business card of Beijing cuisine, then Hu Da Restaurant is the "traffic bearer" of Guijie.
Hu Da Restaurant is known as the "Imperial Queuing God Shop", which has been popular for more than 20 years, and it is common to queue for three or four hours to enter the restaurant for dinner. It is said that the melon seeds that are provided to customers in line for free can reach more than 600 pounds a day.
The dish that makes this restaurant famous is the familiar "hemp small" - spicy crayfish.
On the "only for sale" crayfish, have you ever eaten? /Dianping
It is worth mentioning that the crayfish in this store do not matter the pound, regardless of the portion, but "on the sale".
Each crayfish pricing ranges from 5-20 yuan, 15 starting points, the store will be based on the size, whether there is shrimp paste and other qualities to distinguish different prices, the better the quality, the more expensive naturally.
It can be said that the popularity of Guijie Street in Beijing is indispensable to the crayfish.
In twenty years, Guijie Street has changed from a mediocre "Dongzhimen Inner Street" to a network of Internet celebrities with many restaurants, and crayfish have also changed from an "invasive species" that everyone shouts and beats to a fragrant feast that "only sells".
Guijie has its own aesthetic: swaggering fonts, red lanterns, guys with chicken blood, and spicy crayfish. /Figureworm Creative
<b>Suddenly, a spring breeze came</b>
<b>Everyone eats crayfish</b>
A few years ago, there was a popular paragraph on the Internet: "88 yuan / 500 grams of crayfish = 88 yuan / 500 grams of Alpha Romeo, eat less than a pound of crayfish can be one step closer to your luxury car dream." ”
By comparing the price per kilogram of crayfish and various luxury cars, it was found that the crayfish won.
Start calculating how many pounds of crayfish I still have from the luxury car...
Friends who love to eat crayfish must have a more intuitive feeling, crayfish in recent years is more and more expensive, the price is about to rise to the point of unaffordable.
In fact, as early as around 2000, crayfish created a precedent of "on only selling" in Guijie Street. However, at that time, crayfish was still a "civilian food", selling for 2-4 yuan according to different sizes.
Hua Lei, chairman of Guijie Street "Huajia Yiyuan", recalled: "At that time (around 2000), crayfish were cheap, two pieces of five pounds, one pound of 10 pieces, aggravated spicy stir-frying, sold for 2 yuan a piece, and sold crayfish one day. ”
More than twenty years have passed, and the price of crayfish has not only been "sold" in Guijie Street, but also several times.
Changsha Wen and You's fried shrimp, 199 yuan a piece, about 20, converted down to an average of about 10 yuan per piece. Although each crayfish has the word "Changsha" printed on it, it is difficult to feel that it is worth the money.
Wen Heyou, 199 yuan / 20 fried shrimp. /B station @ Xiaobei is hungry
Hu Da Restaurant in Beijing is more direct - "on only selling", and crayfish are sold at a price of 5-20 yuan per piece. Such a frugal way of ordering food by people makes us realize that the original value of crayfish has long been "different from the past".
Crayfish at Hu Da Restaurant for 6-10 yuan. /B station @ Hungry Old Field
In fact, nowadays, casually go to a restaurant, a supper stall, a crayfish often seventy or eighty yuan upwards, the average price of each crayfish is about 7-10 yuan, not cheap.
There is a saying that the "on only selling" crayfish at least clearly marked the price, buy as many as many, and "on the sale" of crayfish, "moisture" is often more.
Not long ago, the Shanghai Municipal Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Commission did a survey, they bought several crayfish takeaways in different crayfish stores in Shanghai, and found that the actual weight of different brands was 1/4 of the same "one" crayfish.
Even in different stores of the same brand, the number of crayfish will vary, resulting in a weight difference of 13g-53g.
Want to complain? Merchants have long "reserved room for explanation", and will only indicate "one copy" on the menu, but will not indicate how many pounds there are, let alone how many.
The same one, the high one is 822 grams, the low one is only 658 grams, and the difference is 25%. /Shanghai Municipal Consumer Protection Commission WeChat public account
In addition to the fact that merchants may "mix water", the crayfish itself is not "real material".
Some netizens once spent 1 hour personally peeling off 10 kilograms of crayfish, putting all the shrimp meat together and weighing, and found that there were only 1.2 kilograms, which really responded to the saying "one pound of shrimp and two meats".
According to this "output ratio", crayfish are really expensive!
Spicy and fragrant crayfish, who can resist this taste?
<b>crayfish</b>
<b>From "civilian cuisine" to "late-night supper top stream"</b>
Although crayfish have become a "blockbuster food", don't forget that they were once just harmful "invasive species", and no one will ask for money.
The scientific name of the crayfish is "Ke's original shrimp", which is a well-known "imported product".
The origin of crayfish is northern Mexico and southern America, and in the 1920s, crayfish were first introduced to Hokkaido by the Japanese as bullfrog feed and ornamental shrimp, and soon came to China.
Crayfish have an amazing ability to survive, whether it is a river in the paddy field, a dirty ditch, or even in a body of water with heavy metals exceeding the standard.
Crayfish are "not picky eaters", and dead fish, rotten shrimp, aquatic plants, decaying wood, dead leaves, and mud are not rejected.
Raw crayfish.
Crayfish are highly reproducible, with a single litter able to produce up to 200 crayfish. As long as a few crayfish appear in a piece of water, the entire water area will soon be completely occupied by crayfish and crowd out the living space of other creatures.
Crayfish fit the definition of "invasive species" perfectly, and should have been exterminated and swept out of the house until Chinese found out that crayfish were still delicious.
As a result, the "invasion area" of crayfish has gradually evolved into a "food paradise" for crayfish. Changsha's flavored shrimp, Hubei Qianjiang's steamed shrimp and braised shrimp in oil, Hunan Yueyang's Tianbao shrimp tail, Jiangsu Xuyi's thirteen-spiced lobster, Beijing's Guijie spicy crayfish...
Unexpectedly, the strong adaptability of crayfish is also reflected in the "table".
In addition to steaming, oil stewing, thirteen spices, minced garlic and other methods, there are also hundreds of flavors such as salt and pepper, salted egg yolk, stinky tofu and even durian.
Crayfish: I regret invading China.
Soon, crayfish quickly swept all over China with its versatile taste and price.
According to the "Crayfish Consumption Big Data Report" released by Meituan-Dianping, in 2018, Chinese ate about 45,000 tons of crayfish through the Meituan platform. If these crayfish are connected end to end, the total length can be nearly 3 times around the equator.
However, to be fair, using the heavy oil of roasted crayfish, heavy spicy and heavy salt seasoning, and the way to make other shrimp, crabs and other seafood is actually equally delicious.
To use a popular phrase to describe, it is "these spices, fried slippers are delicious".
So, why is it that the mediocre crayfish with more shells and less meat have become the "top stream" of soaring value in the supper industry?
The famous foodie Chen Xiaoqing gave the crayfish a "title" - the best social food.
Looking back at the "road to fame" of crayfish, you will find that it has accurately stepped on the "wind outlet of the times".
Around 2000, when the Internet in China was booming, it played a role in fueling the popularity of crayfish.
When e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and Jingdong emerged, online sales of crayfish were in full swing, and origin resources such as Xuyi in Jiangsu and Qianjiang in Hubei were actively competed for.
In recent years, the rise of live e-commerce, crayfish has also quickly occupied this new position. Not only wenheyou, red kitchen and other supply chain enterprises have opened live broadcasts to sell crayfish, but even in the live broadcast room of head anchors such as Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya, crayfish often appear.
The famous "talk show actor" Luo Yonghao also sold crayfish in the live broadcast room.
Today's crayfish have long been large-scale aquaculture, and heavy metals and high pollution have become a thing of the past. Crayfish grown in healthy waters are not only delicious, but also rich in nutrients, high in protein, low in fat, low in cholesterol, and a high proportion of digestible amino acids.
It can be said that the current crayfish are delicious and nutritious, but they do not grow meat, and they are naturally favored by young people who are hungry and afraid of fat.
Lei Jun once said: "In the wind outlet, even pigs can fly." "The crayfish on the vent, as if it has its own "evolutionary" attribute, can always keep pace with the times and adapt to various needs.
No crayfish, no summer, crayfish has gradually become the standard for summer nights and suppers.
<b>The "wealth code" of crayfish</b>
While satisfying the mouth of the majority of foodies, crayfish has also become the "wealth code" of the catering industry.
The crayfish industry, which began in the early 1990s, gradually expanded from the initial "fishing + catering" to the integrated service of crayfish breeding, processing, circulation and tourism festivals, forming a complete industrial chain.
At present, China has become the world's largest producer of crayfish.
From 2007 to 2016, the national crayfish farming output increased from 265,500 tons to 852,300 tons, an increase of 221%, and the national aquaculture area exceeded 9 million mu.
According to the "China Crayfish Industry Development Report (2020)" released by the Chinese Fisheries Society, China's crayfish output value rose from 56.410 billion yuan in 2016 to 411 billion yuan in 2019. In just 4 years, the output value of crayfish has increased by 7 times.
The data shows that the output value of the crayfish industry chain is distributed in the shape of water droplets, and 74.49% of the output value comes from downstream catering consumption, which can be said to be a category supported by "foodies".
Proportion of provinces where crayfish are farmed. Crayfish farming is mainly concentrated in Hubei Province. /2019 China Crayfish Industry Development Report
According to the "Crayfish Consumption Big Data Report", as of May 2019, the number of crayfish stores continued to increase by nearly 50,000 compared with 2018, of which the number of crayfish stores in the five cities of North, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Rong exceeded 3,000.
Financial writer Wu Xiaobo once pointed out that as long as the restaurant owner studies a new way of eating crayfish, it is possible to break through from a single point and share a piece of the crayfish market.
The reason why crayfish can become the darling of merchants is because crayfish "give too much".
First of all, as a well-deserved "top stream" of late-night snacks, crayfish have a very wide audience among consumers, and merchants are not worried about selling at all.
When I don't know what to eat, I always want to come and order crayfish.
Secondly, crayfish are "easy to feed", mature farming technology, low cost, and simple management. The cost is low, the profit is naturally considerable, and people who want to enter the game to "share a piece of the pie" naturally flock to it.
Moreover, today's crayfish industry chain is becoming more mature, coupled with the development of quick-frozen lock fresh and cold chain transportation technology, which has greatly extended the "life" of crayfish, giving birth to live fresh, semi-frozen products, hot food suppers, beer and other types of markets, all year round can be the season to eat crayfish.
In recent years, the industrial value of crayfish is constantly being developed, in addition to being edible, crayfish containing astaxanthin, astaxanthin, chitin, etc. can also be used in food, beverages, medicine, industry and other aspects, the market added value is high.
It seems that crayfish are also very "versatile" in business, and they are "multi-habitat players".
Once upon a time, "freedom of cherry" was one of the criteria by which people judged whether their income was sufficient and their happiness. Today, this criterion can probably be one more "crayfish freedom".
How many layers of "crayfish freedom" did you achieve?
A crayfish brand lists the "freedom of crayfish", the most advanced of which is "freedom of location":
"Dine-in? Eat at home? Seems to be all shortcomings of the mood. Let's be romantic. Sandy beaches in the setting sun in the Maldives, or snow-capped peaks on Mount Everest at 8,844 metres above sea level? I believe that when you send the hand-peeled crayfish into her mouth, you will definitely feel the suffocation of happiness. ”
So, how many of your "crayfish free" are in the level?
Reference articles
[1] Hu Da Restaurant: The imperial capital queue god shop, interpreting the 20-year legend of Guijie Street 丨 Xiangcheng Network
[2] Before Crayfish debuted, Guijie only wrote its prequel 丨 NetEase World
[3] Why Chinese eat 400 billion yuan of crayfish a year? 丨 Universal Editorial Department
[4] How did crayfish become the top stream? 丨Burn Finance