Zhongxin Jingwei, April 29 (Yan Shuxin, Lei Zongrun) Prefabricated dishes are called the first outlet in 2022 by the market.
With the heat of community group buying and the explosion of capital market speculation, the prefabricated vegetable track is turning purple. Therefore, the prefabricated dish brand Tongue Hero, which has received 1.6 billion yuan in financing within 2 months of its establishment, has attracted much attention. There is also a reason why the tip of the tongue hero makes the market look sideways, that is, behind it stands Lu Zhengyao, the founder of Luckin Coffee.
Tip of the tongue hero offline store Zhongxin Jingwei Lei Zongrun photo
New projects, old play
After being out of Luckin Coffee, Lu Zhengyao, who still carries 2.298 billion yuan of "debts", is still constantly switching entrepreneurial tracks. This time, it was a pre-made dish.
The company to which Tip Hero belongs is Tongue Tip Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Tip Technology), which was established in August 2020. On January 10, 2022, Tip Technology announced the launch of the "Tip of the Tongue Workshop" (later renamed The Tip of the Tongue) to enter the prefabricated dish industry. On the same day, the first store was officially opened in Beijing.
Li Yingbo, rotating CEO of Tip Technology, revealed in an interview that many of the team structures of Tip Technion are former members of Shenzhou and Luckin Coffee, and Lu Zhengyao is the chairman of the company's strategy committee, mainly responsible for business strategic decision-making, governance processes and resource assistance.
However, unlike luckin coffee in the early stage of entrepreneurship, the tip of the tongue hero is an asset-light model, mainly in the form of joining to expand the market. However, on the website of the Ministry of Commerce, Zhongxin Jingwei failed to find the franchise filing information related to the tip of the tongue hero.
Li Yingbo once revealed to the media that as of the end of January 2022, the number of intentions to sign signed by The Tip Hero franchise stores has reached 2500 to 3000. According to other data, as of March 2022, the number of intended signed stores of Tongue Hero has reached 6,000.
Such an expansion rate, directly catching up with the 1300 Luckin Coffee that opened stores in the first 10 months.
In fact, the current development path of the tip of the tongue hero is still "land-based play": looking for tracks, huge financing, and burning money to expand.
Tip Of the Tongue Hero provides partial support to franchisees. Source: Screenshot of the official WeChat public account of the tip of the tongue hero
In terms of subsidies, based on the minimum standard, if 6,000 stores that intend to sign contracts can eventually become franchisees, and can find 2,000 new customers within two months, each franchisee can get at least 14,000 yuan of subsidies, 6,000 is 84 million yuan.
Online and offline marketing is even more expensive, such as elevator advertising. Zhongxin Jingwei learned that recently, in the elevators of many communities in Beijing and other places, there has been a new advertisement for liu Yiwei, the host of the food program, telling you that "cooking without worry" and "the first order of the newcomer is 50% off", and the APP he recommended is the hero of the tip of the tongue.
How much money does elevator advertising burn? Focus Media has disclosed that in the first quarter of 2020 alone, Focus Media received 68.5345 million yuan of building media sales revenue from Luckin Coffee, while in 2018 and 2019, this part of the sales revenue reached 167 million yuan and 204 million yuan respectively.
In addition, Tongue Hero also announced a strategic cooperation with ByteDance's huge engine, which will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in marketing and promotion costs on the latter's entire series of products, especially Douyin.
Exploring the store: How are the offline outlets operating?
In fact, there are not 6,000 stores where the tip of the tongue hero really landed. On April 26, Zhongxin Jingwei learned from the Tip of the Tongue Technology Dealer Cooperation Office that at present, there are about 300 stores that have been opened nationwide.
Zhongxin Jingwei recently visited the XinjingJiayuan store of The Tip Hero in Dongcheng District, Beijing. The store is a standard store of about 20 square meters, only open for more than a month, there are many residential areas nearby, and there is more traffic.
A lady who is placing an order to buy said to Zhongxin Jingwei that she is buying prefabricated dishes for the second time in the tip of the tongue hero, "Usually lazy, prefabricated dishes are quite convenient to do, this time it is a special trip to bring friends to fight together." ”
However, some consumers have reported that the purchase experience of the tip hero is not good. In addition to the general convenience, its products do not have a clear advantage in price. Mr. Lei of Beijing, who has placed an order to buy several "quick cooking dishes" at a store in Beijing, a hero of the tongue, told Zhongxin Jingwei that the whole cooking process is not particularly convenient, compared with self-prepared dishes cooking, the time advantage is not large, nor is it as cheap as advertised.
Zhongxin Jingwei noted that the tip of the tongue hero once claimed that the price of prefabricated ingredients was similar to the price of raw materials purchased directly by consumers from supermarkets, and the price of quick cooking dishes was 50%-60% of that of restaurants.
Zhongxin Jingwei learned from a staff member responsible for joining Tianjin that there are currently more than 20 stores opened in Tianjin, and the average daily turnover of each store can reach at least 2,000 yuan, which is 60,000 yuan a month.
Has the current recurrence of the epidemic affected the store operation and expansion plan of The Tip hero? In response to the financing situation and franchise plan of the tip hero, Zhongxin Jingwei has repeatedly called the tip of the tongue technology and sent it an interview letter, and its staff said that it will convey the interview needs to the relevant person in charge, and then there will be a special person to contact and reply. However, as of press time, Zhongxin Jingwei has not received relevant responses.
Who is still investing in Lu Zhengyao?
As mentioned earlier, the tongue hero's play style is similar to That of Luckin, with a large number of cash subsidies in the early stage, and if the project wants to become bigger, it is bound to need more financial support.
It should be noted that after the financial fraud storm of Luckin Coffee, Lu Zhengyao has "credit bankruptcy", and he himself has changed from a former Forbes billionaire to an "old Lai". According to the China Enforcement Information Disclosure Network, as of April 26, 2022, Lu Zhengyao had a total of 6 pieces of information that had been executed, and the total amount of unfulfilled objects involved in different cases was 4.588 billion yuan, and the total amount of unfulfilled was 2.298 billion yuan.
So, who is still investing in Lu Zhengyao?
According to media reports, even if there is a counterfeiting scandal, Lu Zhengyao is still regarded as a "tyrant" in the eyes of many people. When he started his business again to do the "Fun Noodles" project, "a lot of people came to visit, and the early venture capital was very smooth."
According to the Tianyancha APP, Tongue Tip Technology has completed series A and B rounds of financing in August 2021 and March 2022 respectively, of which the investor of the A round of financing is Yingke Capital, with an investment amount of 550 million yuan; the B round of financing has not disclosed the specific investor, and the financing amount has reached 1.6 billion yuan.
According to the information on the official website, Yingke Capital has locked in core asset tracks such as biomedicine and hard technology, and has invested in nearly 300 projects, of which nearly 60% are laid out in the biomedical industry. Why did an investment institution focusing on the biomedical sector vote for Lu Zhengyao?
Sino-Singapore Jingwei was unable to contact Yingke Capital for comment. According to public information, Qian Mingfei, chairman of Yingke Capital, and Lu Zhengyao are both Fujian businessmen, and the former has also had successful experience in the operation of a number of listed companies.
Wang Peng, associate professor of the Gaoli Research Institute of Chinese Min University, told Zhongxin Jingwei that the institution is willing to invest in Lu Zhengyao, in the final analysis, it is still optimistic about the market of prefabricated dishes, the market concentration is low, although there are many players, but there has not yet been a "number one player", and there is no monopoly situation, so whether it is from product research and development, or from the supply chain, there is a large space for development.
Guohai Securities once pointed out in the research report that the prefabricated vegetable industry is expected to usher in rapid development under the impetus of B-end cost reduction and efficiency increase and C-end consumption habits, and the market size can exceed 400 billion yuan by 2026. Ai Media Consulting boldly predicts that in 2023, the scale of China's prefabricated vegetable market will reach 515.6 billion yuan, and if the future growth rate remains at 20%, the scale of the prefabricated vegetable market will exceed one trillion yuan in 2027.
"On the other hand, from the perspective of Lu Zhengyao himself, whether it is Luckin Coffee or his entrepreneurial projects in the field of travel such as Car Rental in China, it can be seen that he has high business sensitivity, rich experience in marketing, resource integration, listing and financing, and strong ability." Wang Peng said.
In the view of Shen Meng, director of Chanson Capital, Lu Zhengyao's prefabricated dish project is just a copy of the Luckin coffee model, that is, choosing a hot concept on the outlet, and then continuously financing to support the rapid replication and expansion of the scale with a price war, until the listing conditions are met and quickly enter the capital market for realization.
"For some mercenary investors, the history of financial fraud is not important, and even if financial fraud continues, it is not serious, as long as you can get excess returns on your investment and cash out smoothly." Shen Meng said.
However, there are also some problems in the prepared vegetable industry. Zhu Danpeng, an analyst in the Chinese food industry, pointed out that although prefabricated dishes have formed a certain market size, the brand still faces no small challenges on the road to development. On the one hand, the consumer's recognition and acceptance of prepared dishes is not high enough, and some consumers will think that the nutrition of prepared dishes has been lost or the ingredients are not fresh. On the other hand, pre-made dishes do not have national standards, which are prone to hidden dangers in food safety.
Zhu Danpeng mentioned that although the prefabricated vegetable industry has great potential for development, it has not yet entered the stage of production and marketing. Lu Zhengyao aims at the prefabricated vegetable track this time, and the early stage can achieve rapid layout by relying on the franchise model, but whether it can persist until the market is mature in the future lies in the follow-up operation.
Lu Zhengyao was once a figure in the capital circle. But after being swept out by Ruixing, Lu Zhengyao has had three entrepreneurial projects, one is a shared space, one is a fun noodle, and the tip of the tongue hero is the third time. Among them, the fun small noodles and the tip of the tongue heroes are incubated by the tip of the tongue technology.
However, according to public reports, the shared space project has long been stopped.
The relevant staff of Tongue Tip Technology also confirmed to Zhongxin Jingwei that at present, due to the impact of the epidemic in various places, the company is adjusting its business operations, resulting in the closure and closure of some stores in various places of "Fun Bayu" (original fun small noodles).
The staff member told Zhongxin Jingwei that the company needs sufficient time to do business optimization and adjustment, and the company has invested a lot of resources to prioritize the development of the "Tip of the Tongue Hero" brand.
This time, did the capital bet on Lu Zhengyao? (Zhongxin Jingwei APP)
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