Hot pot, Chinese food, barbecue, takeaway...... In the past two years, the popularity of bullfrogs has continued to rise, and the consumption scene has been continuously subdivided.
Since the major brands launched the pulp-free bullfrog for B-end catering, bullfrog prefabricated dishes have developed C-end consumption. So, what exactly is the bullfrog home market?
Reporter Yao Bingbing/text
The scene is rich, and bullfrog products have exploded in an all-round way
Pulp-free bullfrog, seasoned bullfrog, hot and sour bullfrog in golden soup, bullfrog skewers, spicy frog belly, French fried frog legs...... The industry's interest in bullfrogs continues to grow.
Relying on its own advantages in the whole industry chain of the aquatic industry for more than 30 years, Hengxing Food, the main brand of Hengxing Group's aquatic food business, has been laying out the whole bullfrog industry chain for four years, from feed, breeding to prefabricated dishes, and in 2024, its professional frog meat brand "Naughty Frog" will make a blockbuster appearance, which shows that Hengxing attaches great importance to bullfrogs. For catering and family, Hengxing Food has launched bullfrog-related products, such as tender frog blocks, tender whole frogs, smoked frogs, oil marinated frogs, flour frogs, Jintang sauerkraut bullfrogs, etc., covering the whole consumption scene.
"Two shrimps, three fish, one frog". According to different consumption scenarios and needs, Guolian Aquatic Products specializes in the development of snacks and prefabricated food products for bullfrog products, develops a wide range of bullfrog prefabricated products, and launches new products such as crispy crispy frogs, pickled pepper bullfrogs, and hot and sour bullfrogs in Jintang, with hot and sour bullfrogs in 5 minutes, so that consumers can eat delicious bullfrogs at home.
As a bullfrog industry chain company, in 2022, Guangxi Chuantao Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. will release a series of new products such as perilla, spicy, rattan pepper, garlic bullfrog and grilled skewers, which are oriented to catering, supermarkets, and community group buying, and can achieve one-piece delivery across the country. "Large flow, high profits, good experience, high repurchase, bullfrog prefabricated dishes are the current tuyere products, bullfrog processing products have grown rapidly in the past two years, and the industry has increased a lot of bullfrog prefabricated food enterprises." General Manager Zhang Feiyang introduced.
Guangzhou Lucheng Aquatic Products Co., Ltd. took the lead in laying out the prefabricated food sector and is one of the enterprises with the most complete categories of bullfrog prefabricated dishes. Among them, the main markets of the whole single jelly series are barbecue and hot pot restaurants; Pulp-free bullfrog is more to help small and medium-sized catering enterprises solve the pain points of the supply chain; Cooked products are more direct-to-end consumers. On the basis of pulp-free bullfrog and small crispy frog, it launched spicy bullfrog skewers and spicy frog belly, and innovated a variety of dishes in the terminal, such as fried bullfrog with green pepper, bullfrog noodles, French fried frog legs, etc.
He's Jumping Fish has served a lot of fish chain restaurants, and has launched pulp-free bullfrog blocks due to customer demand for bullfrog products; Qianjiang Shrimp Sharing Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd. launched a spicy bullfrog ...... Bullfrog pre-made dishes are in full swing.
The competition in the catering channel is fierce, and the bullfrog pre-made dishes open up for family consumption
At present, the bullfrog market is hot. According to the data, as of December 2023, there are more than 50,000 bullfrog catering stores in China (including bullfrog specialty stores and bullfrog-related catering stores). In the catering industry, there is a matrix of bullfrog head brands, with a total of more than 2,000 stores of 10 head chain catering brands such as Frog Laida, Frog Xiaoxia, Ge Laoguan, and Yongwa, and the number of stores of individual brands such as Frog Laida and Weizhi Wonderful Frog Fish Head has also exceeded 300.
According to statistics, it is expected that the national bullfrog catering market will reach 68 billion yuan in 2023. In addition, KFC, Taier Sauerkraut Fish, Haidilao and other well-known national restaurant chain brands have also launched bullfrog products.
With the blessing of high efficiency and convenience, bullfrog prefabricated dishes began to usher in a new round of outbreak. "At present, bullfrog catering stores are all over the country, becoming a consumer fashion, bullfrog has a wide range of consumer groups, which also lays a certain user base for the development of bullfrog prefabricated dishes. The catering side is mainly to cultivate the market and educate the market, Hengxing Company has launched a lot of AB package products for the B-end, and the first condition for supplying the B-end is food safety, followed by nutrition and deliciousness. The person in charge of Hengxing Food Bullfrog said that in the current market environment, the sales volume of the B-end catering market has declined, and the bullfrog manufacturers have opened up the C-end market in order to expand product channels, but the actual C-end is more volatile than the B-end, which is more affected by the price.
"The industry is involuted, the pulp-free bullfrog market is chaotic, and manufacturers can only win the market by opening up a new track, whether it is a catering store or a C-end family user, bullfrog has a wide range of applications as a featured product." Wang Weiyuan, head of Lucheng Aquatic Products, said that the rapid growth of bullfrog-themed restaurants in recent years has laid a good foundation for the development of the bullfrog industry, and the acceptance of bullfrogs by the market and consumers has been greatly improved.
"The little crispy frog is a good product, and it is very well received in hot pot and home scenes. Especially in the Sichuan-Chongqing hot pot scene, the elderly and children can't eat too spicy, and almost all of them will order a small crispy frog as a snack; It is also convenient for home consumption, and only needs to be simply heated in an air fryer. "According to the person in charge of a crayfish manufacturer, the spicy bullfrog is to be used with the lobster for catering and take-out, enriching the category, through a period of observation, the market does have a demand for bullfrogs, and the next step may continue to enrich the bullfrog category.
The market prospect is broad, and the pain points of the industry need to be solved
At present, bullfrog enterprises can be roughly divided into four categories: the first category, large-scale aquatic enterprises Guolian, Hengxing, Tongwei, Zhongyang; the second category, focusing on Hongyi, Yuanxin, and Kelv of the whole bullfrog industry chain; the third category, fish fillet or crayfish enterprises, involved in the bullfrog industry; The fourth category, other companies, are more optimistic about the prospects of the bullfrog market.
According to the analysis of the person in charge of Hengxing Food Bullfrog, there is a broad market space for bullfrog prefabricated dishes, but there are still some industry pain points that need to be solved: first, establish a standardized system for bullfrog prefabricated dishes to realize the standardization and large-scale production of bullfrog prefabricated food products; the second is to ensure the green, safe and healthy production of bullfrogs, starting from the entire industrial chain from the pond to the table; Third, there is still room for improvement in bullfrog technology, and innovative freezing technology is used to ensure the taste and nutrition of frozen frogs and effectively control the decline in quality; The fourth is to carry out product development and innovation around bullfrogs.
"Product innovation is the easiest, and the difficult thing is the systematic construction of the breeding end and the factory, and the whole industry chain makes concerted efforts." In his opinion, the current bullfrog industry development is very primary, the recognition of live frogs by restaurant enterprises is still very high, the bullfrog family market is not mature, the people almost do not eat bullfrogs at home, although some people like to eat, but the negative impact is still more, formal breeding has not yet been popularized in the country, and manufacturers need to continue to guide and cultivate the market. "As a delicious and healthy food, a substitute for high-quality protein, the bullfrog industry must be optimistic in the future, with high output and great opportunities."
As it is in the early stage of the development of the processing sector, the bullfrog industry is facing problems such as the uneven quality of enterprises, the degree of product taste reduction needs to be further improved, and the market awareness of related processed products is low. Wang Weiyuan said that the prospect of bullfrog prefabricated dishes is very good, but due to the beginning of the processing stage, the current market recognition of bullfrogs is not enough, and manufacturers need more forms of innovation and promotion to help bullfrog prefabricated dishes enter thousands of households.
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