The core of "productism" is to take the quality of ingredients as the first element, and continuously promote product technology innovation and process improvement investment.
Author: Lv Xinyi
出品：零售商业财经 ID：Retail-Finance
"Chronic son" Banu has polished a new store type in Wuhan.
According to "Retail Business Finance", the hot pot brand "Banu Mao Belly Hot Pot" will open a "street store" in the Chuhe Han Street Commercial District of Wuhan City in mid-July, adjacent to the "global store king" SKP (Wuhan store).
Han Street is a commercial area that has attracted much attention in Wuhan, with the head player of mass snack "Ming Ming is busy", which has just broken through 10,000 stores, and Uniqlo, the first urban flagship store in Central China, have all landed here, and the entry of SKP has further strengthened Han Street's positioning as a "gathering place for the most fashionable and latest brands and consumers".
In Wuhan for three years, Banu chose to "innovate chess" in the Hanjie Luozi store, and his posture can be called "stable". And the word "stability" runs through the growth process of Banu in the past 23 years.
Source: Retail Business Finance
In the eyes of industry insiders, there is never a shortage of "novelty and peculiarity" in the catering industry, and if you only make "strange moves", there is a high probability that you will not be able to escape the hasty ending. This fertile soil of the industry actually has enough nutrients to cultivate a brand that has passed through the cycle, but it is especially a test of the stability of the brand core (product power, service power, brand power).
Whether it is KFC and McDonald's, which have been at the head of the international market for a long time, or Laoxiang Chicken and Xibei Noodle Village in the domestic market, the stability of its chain and standardized core has conveyed to the market the core meaning of catering brands from "explosive" to "long-lasting".
Looking back at Banu, in addition to store innovation, what we have to think about is whether this hot pot brand, which uses "stability" to fight "strange" and has been controversial by "Internet celebrities", can continue to cultivate the internal strength of the supply chain, and provide different solutions for the industry with a more stable chassis and more valuable "productism".
Not an "influencer brand"
It's a lot of accumulation
"You can't see the tail of the queue at a glance", Xiao Di still remembers the grand queue on the opening day of the first store in Banu Wuhan in 2021. The store is located on the eighth floor of Wuhan International Plaza, and Xiao Di's first impression of Banu at that time was in the "Internet celebrity store". Three years later, Banu opened a total of five stores in Wuhan (the sixth Hanjie store is about to open), and in the second quarter, eight stores were opened across the country, and the dining time of each store maintained the same level of enthusiasm as when the first store opened.
Source: Internet
After dining many times in several core business districts in Wuhan, Xiao Di changed his opinion on Banu's "Internet celebrity store". "Internet celebrity stores can't stand the test of time, Wuchang once opened a popular Internet celebrity hot pot restaurant, and only a year later, the store changed its signboard." Xiao Di said to "Retail Business Finance".
Xiao Di's misunderstanding of Banu is not unique. In recent years, Banu has frequently settled in first- and second-tier cities, and there are long queues everywhere he goes, and netizens will inevitably give it the name of "Internet celebrity brand" when they spontaneously "Amway" on social media.
In fact, behind the explosion of "Internet celebrity brands" is the pessimistic judgment of consumers that they cannot break the traffic curse of "no more than three months", but Banu, which has emerged in the industry with its "big single product" strategy and strongly occupies the mental highland of the hairy belly category, has obviously been popular for more than three months.
With only one plate of "hairy belly", Banu has completed the construction of core product strength from 0 to 1.
Different from most of the hairy tripe products on the market that use (lower cost) caustic hair, Du Zhongbing, the founder of Banu, chose to put the quality in front of the business in the early stage of his business, and decided to cooperate with Southwest University to use the "papain tenderization" technology to make hairy tripe, and choose better quality New Zealand hairy tripe. Through better production and innovative technology, Banu has improved the freshness and crispness of the hairy tripe, and now the annual sales of Banu hairy tripe exceed 100 million.
Source: Banu Mini Program
In Du Zhongbing's view, "product is the medium of communication between brands and customers. Product capability is the underlying capability of an enterprise, and it is also the essence of enterprise operation. "The soul of the brand is heavily invested in products, which means that from the back-end supply chain to the front-end of every store, the "return to the essence" will be used as the decision-making factor, and it is regarded as "first principles".
Today, Banu has evolved from a "large single product" strategy to a product matrix from 1 to N, and Banu, which has always adhered to the almost simple business logic of "good products", has finally ushered in the phased fruits.
"Retail Business Finance" has learned that good products that are better than the industry standard, such as fresh duck blood that has applied for the national standard, rolling dough made from gluten, and wild mountain mushrooms grown in mountains and forests, are continuing to be updated in Banu.
Dianping's evaluation of consumer team Banu: "never go wrong" in terms of ingredients, service, taste, etc., and there will be unexpected surprises, this is the first choice for banquets and parties.
For consumers, only when the brand can guarantee the quality and taste of the dishes served on each plate, will they choose to establish an emotional connection with the brand and maintain a long-term relationship of trust. Consumers' word-of-mouth is the best "golden signboard" of catering brands.
In addition to devoting itself to researching how to provide consumers with healthy and delicious ingredients, Banu has always focused on "how to meet consumers' all-round dining experience" in the seven store renovations and upgrades since its establishment.
Enterprises represented by Banu that adhere to the quality of catering are opening the curtain of a new growth story. Banu, which focuses on natural and healthy ingredients, predicts the pursuit of "rational and refined" needs of customers in the fourth consumption era. While healthy ingredients are the most popular factor for consumers, there are many more "Wow Moments" waiting for users to experience for themselves.
"Speed" but also "freshness"
The measure of whether the internal strength of catering enterprises is deep is still the strength of the supply chain. Economist Martin Christopher once hit the nail on the head: "The 21st century is not a competition between companies, but a competition between supply chains." ”
According to Banudu, the world's food and beverage supply chain system has gone through three stages of development: "The first stage is industrialization, which uses freezing and additives to extend shelf life. The second stage is the standardized production of central kitchen + industrial material package. The third-generation supply chain is the customized production + cold fresh of the central kitchen, which uses the cold fresh process of 0~4° to keep it fresh as much as possible. ”
In the first and second stages, the catering supply chain focuses on large-scale and standardized production processes, from the field to the consumer's table, by compressing the intermediate circulation links, so as to improve the speed of food circulation and reduce food loss. In this stage, the optimal solution for the scale of Chinese food was born - the central kitchen, which can not only ensure the quality of ingredients through standardized processes, but also create personalized production plans according to the needs of its own brand.
However, the first two stages of development only solved the problem of "speed" of the catering supply chain, and Du Zhongbing's judgment on the future is that the supply chain that is more popular with the market is healthy, delicious and fresh.
In 2021, Banu invested 150 million yuan to build a third-generation supply chain to achieve a "fresh supply chain" that can be cold and not frozen, natural and additive-free, and force stores to be matched once a day. In order to ensure that each dish appears in the store in the freshest state, its distribution link is realized in the central kitchen supporting logistics vehicle equipped with temperature control system and TMS cold chain monitoring system. In addition, Banu also has 3 comprehensive central kitchens integrating warehousing and logistics, and 1 specialized base processing plant.
Let the supply chain have "speed" and more "freshness", the industry has gradually abandoned the value logic of "cost first", some catering brands have played a "food safety card", and Banu of differentiated supply chain has taken the lead in polishing the "quality first" breakthrough weapon.
Quality first means breaking through the life cycle of popular products, strictly controlling the details of food origin, production and processing, quality control technology, etc., to ensure that every meal served to consumers' tables is a "high-quality product".
One of the most distinctive features is that there are many stories behind the discovery of all the ingredients in Banu.
Taking Ben spinach as an example, Banu and Xinxiang farmers used the method of targeted cultivation to produce it on a large scale. At the same time, Banu launched the product strategy of "Vegetables Every Month", focusing on seasonal vegetables, passing on the concept of "not eating from time to time" to consumers, and bringing them a steady stream of freshness through continuous introduction of new dishes. In addition, Banu has also launched a nationwide "Fresh Food" market to allow consumers to get a closer look at the story behind the origin of the food.
Source: Retail Business Finance
If supply chain innovation is the stabilizer of the "preservation" of ingredients, then direct procurement from high-quality production areas is the "ballast stone" of the freshness of ingredients. Taking root at the source of the industry, Banu has ensured the authenticity of each dish with the model of "integration of production, supply and marketing", and once again proved to the industry that steady and far-reaching action is the eternal truth of the catering industry.
In order to further strengthen consumer perception, Banu has also launched a nationwide "Fresh Food" market to allow consumers to get a closer look at the origin story behind the food.
It is Banu's continuous efforts to improve the efficiency of the supply chain and take root at the source of the industry, so that there is a quality guarantee of authenticity and extreme freshness of every dish in the store. Steady and far-reaching, "pay attention to everything" Banu is continuing to bring "natural deliciousness" to the table.
Is there a standard answer in the industry?
At present, the competition of F&B brands is becoming more and more fierce, and players in the industry are trying to find a standard answer that can stand out from the encirclement. However, most brands focus on "new concepts", and even rely on additional links such as singing and dancing, desserts, etc., to satisfy consumers' emotional value.
In the short term, new tricks may attract the attention of consumers, but they only carry the "curiosity" needs of consumers, and cannot leverage the long-term needs of consumers. In addition, the excessive pursuit of differentiation rather than focusing on ingredients will make it difficult to put the cart before the horse and truly enhance consumers' awareness and stickiness of the brand.
In other words, "returning customers" cannot support the long-term development of a catering brand, and "returning customers" is the foundation of its existence. And if you want to gather more repeat customers, the way is simple: return to the essence of the product.
Today's consumers have a particularly clear demand for products. According to the 2024 F&B Enterprise Development Report, jointly released by KPMG China and the China Cuisine Association, consumers' consumption concepts have changed significantly, and they are no longer simply based on price as the only criterion, but pay more attention to the quality and cost-effectiveness of food and beverages. According to the "2024 Catering Industry Trend Report", the primary dietary direction that consumers pay attention to is healthy eating.
It can be seen that the reason why consumers choose to eat out is nothing more than that: they eat well and have a decent party. These two major needs need to be met by catering brands that can serve high-quality dishes.
These two major needs are also forcing catering companies to evolve in the direction of healthy ingredients and quality-price ratio. Unlike Lao Xiang Chicken, who discloses the traceability report of the dishes to the public, Banu is more low-key, but both follow the same logic - to return to the essence of catering and promote the development of the industry in a healthier and sustainable direction.
In fact, there is no consistent standard answer for the development of the catering industry, but the traffic password of the industry has evolved from "high" to "quality-price ratio". Banu, which is out of the circle with "productism", is continuing to return to the ingredients themselves, bringing a vigorous return to value in order to create healthy, delicious and ultimate product quality, to create a unique first or only in the hearts of customers, and to become the spiritual belonging of customers.