Many brands have opened more than half of the new stores this year, and under the growth dilemma, why should Chinese fried chicken brands quickly expand their stores?
This article was originally published by Red Meal Network (ID: hongcan18), author: He Peiling; Editor: Wang Xiuqing.
Although many catering brands have encountered challenges this year, there is also no shortage of subdivided track brands that continue to grow, and Red Meal Network has noticed that the track of Chinese fried chicken is still growing, and many representative brands in the track have started the acceleration mode this year.
Will Chinese-style fried chicken become a potential stock after "roast duck"? What's behind the brand's growth?
The 20-square-meter small store sells 30,000 yuan a day
Chinese-style fried chicken is quietly making efforts this year?
As a new category that has only emerged in the past two or three years, Chinese fried chicken has accelerated its growth this year.
Red meal big data shows that since 2021, the stock of Chinese-style fried chicken-related enterprises has maintained rapid growth, with a year-on-year increase of 41.8% in 2023 and a year-on-year increase of 33.3% from January to August 2024.
Taking the three brands of Lao Han Fried Chicken, Jie Wei Po Fried Chicken, and Tiger Head Fried and Chaoshan South Milk Fried Chicken (hereinafter referred to as Tiger Head Fried ·) as examples, they have accelerated their development and expanded their store scale this year.
For example, the old brand of Wuhan fried chicken, Lao Han Fried Chicken, has opened more than 170 stores in one go this year, and as of now, the total number of stores has reached more than 300, and the number of new stores opened this year accounts for about 56% of the total stores.
△ Image source: Old Han Stir-fried Chicken
In addition to the increase in the scale of stores, Lao Han Chicken has also enhanced its brand potential by seizing popular business districts in first- and second-tier cities. From June last year to September this year, Lao Han Chicken stores have successively entered popular business districts in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing and other cities.
As the sales of these stores continue to refresh, the potential energy of the brand has also been further enhanced. For example, the first store of Lao Han Stir-fried Chicken in Shanghai is only about 20 square meters, but it has achieved sales of more than 900,000 yuan in the first month of opening, with an average daily sales of 30,000 yuan, which has attracted the attention of many people in the industry.
Another example is the mother-in-law who has only been established for more than a year, and she has also expanded her store rapidly this year. According to the brand, since the opening of the brand's first store on March 30, 2023, 150 stores have been opened across the country, and nearly 400 stores have been signed.
△ Image source: Mother-in-law Xie Wei
Tiger head fried also accelerated the pace of store expansion, public information shows that in the past two years, the number of stores has grown steadily to 210, and this year, 1-9 months opened 130 stores in one go, the total number of stores exceeded 200, and the number of new stores opened this year accounted for 65% of the total number of stores.
△ Image source: Tiger head fried
In addition, the Chinese fried chicken brand is also focusing on building brand potential in densely woven regional stores. For example, nearly half of the stores of Lao Han Stir-fried Chicken are opened in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, and Tiger Head Fried focuses on Guangdong, and the brand's official channels show that 10 stores were opened in Guangzhou in May this year.
Develop niche flavors and optimize store models
Chinese-style fried chicken continues to practice internal strength
There are two main reasons for the rapid growth of Chinese fried chicken: on the one hand, the consumption of domestic products has increased in recent years, and Chinese fried chicken, as a local fried chicken category, still has a lot of room for growth in the market, attracting many new brands to join. On the other hand, Chinese fried chicken brands are also actively cultivating their internal skills, digging deep into the characteristics of Chinese fried chicken products, and continuously optimizing and iterating the store model.
1. Combine Chinese cooking skills to make bold innovations in Western-style fried chicken
Fried chicken is a common popular category, and Chinese fried chicken has formed the product characteristics of Chinese fried chicken by combining traditional Chinese cooking techniques and flavors to localize and improve the fried chicken from the West. At the same time, Chinese fried chicken has also seen changes in consumer demand, such as making products healthier and less fatty.
In terms of cooking methods, Chinese fried chicken has introduced Chinese cooking techniques such as dry stir-frying and deep-frying without dough, such as "fried chicken without dough" to reduce the greasy feeling of fried chicken and make the taste more crispy.
Lao Han Fried Chicken has created its own method of "three fried and one stir-fried" dry fried spicy chicken without flour, one fried out of water, two fried first ripe, three fried crispy, and then put into the dry stir-fry machine, the oil is stir-fried out, making the fried chicken out of the pot crispy and tough, and the unique skill and taste have also become the symbol of its products.
△ Image source: Old Han Stir-fried Chicken
In addition, in terms of flavor type, some Chinese fried chicken brands try to explore niche local flavors to create differentiated advantages, such as Tiger Head Fried Chicken, which focuses on "Chaoshan South Milk" flavored fried chicken, which has created a strong flavor recognition.
Sun Xu, co-founder of the tiger head fried brand, said that Chaoshan local cuisine has a long history and is very distinctive, and the brand has been inspired by Chaoshan street food bean curd fried chicken, and has developed Nanyu chicken products such as Nanru chicken thighs, which are quite popular in the market, "Nanru chicken thighs account for 30% of the total sales of all products".
Sun Xu said that "regional niche flavor + popular category" is a feasible path for the brand to break through, for example, snail noodles have seized this opportunity to combine Guangxi's local flavor with the popular rice noodle track, so as to become popular nationwide, and there are similar upward opportunities for "niche Chaoshan flavor + popular fried chicken category".
2. Upgrade the store model and improve the efficiency of store opening
Some Chinese fried chicken brands have been able to expand to hundreds of stores in just one or two years, maintaining a rapid development rate, thanks to the brand's upgrade of the store model.
Red Meal Network learned that these Chinese fried chicken brands have upgraded their store models in the past two years.
For example, the Beijing Changping store, which opened in early September, has a store area of 20 square meters, and the daily turnover has reached about 15,000 yuan since its opening, and due to the low rent, the store has achieved a higher profit margin and improved the survival rate of the store.
△ Image source: Mother-in-law Xie Wei
In the past two years, Tiger Head Fried has focused on optimizing the product operation and other processes to improve the stability of the product and the operational efficiency of the store, "We have spent a lot of time testing the operation process of Nanru Seasoning in different seasons and different environments to ensure that the flavor of the products produced in different stores is consistent, which is more conducive to the subsequent opening of stores across the country." Sun Xu said.
Compared with the past, the decoration of the new store is more fashionable and brighter, the layout of the store is further optimized, and the decoration cost and decoration period of the new store type are also lower than before.
Combination of online layout and offline operation
The "killer feature" of the growth of Chinese-style fried chicken
There is also a common feature of these Chinese fried chicken brands with good growth momentum - online operation and offline operation are parallel, and online traffic empowers brand development.
1. Comprehensive online layout continues to empower the brand
Taking Lao Han Chicken as an example, through a comprehensive online layout, the brand has gained a lot of traffic boost, which has fed back the operation of offline stores.
In 2021, Lao Han Chicken entered Douyin and became the first batch of merchants of Douyin Life Service, and since then, the brand has continued to spread and amplify its brand value online.
Li Xueke, head of the integrated marketing center of Lao Han Fried Chicken, revealed that when the brand newly entered the East China market, online content provided more empowerment for its offline stores.
For example, by continuously posting content on Douyin about signature products, influencers visiting stores, new store benefits, etc., combined with group buying, live broadcast and other gameplay, the brand quickly opened up its popularity in the East China market.
"Thanks to strong online support, our monthly GMV in non-provincial capital cities in Jiangsu has reached more than 40,000 yuan, and the monthly write-off of a single store through Douyin can reach more than 30,000 yuan." Li Xueke said.
△ Image source: Lao Han Chicken and Chai Daguan talk about the brand Douyin account
At the same time, the comprehensive layout of the online has also opened up a new situation for the old Han Chicken. Since 2021, Lao Han Chicken has cooperated with more and more Douyin businesses, from only doing live broadcasts at the beginning, to slowly adding group buying, talent store visits, ToB investment promotion, etc., basically covering all the business sectors that the Douyin platform can empower brand merchants. With the continuous development of Douyin's life services, brands with early layouts such as Lao Han Chicken were able to undertake new growth opportunities at the first time, and gained a group of loyal brand fans, thus achieving rapid development.
The online layout also empowers the franchise investment of Lao Han Chicken and improves the conversion rate of franchisees. For example, Lao Han Chicken regularly publishes brand expansion, investment promotion and franchise policies, franchisee interviews and other content on its Douyin account of the investment promotion center, so that users who are interested in joining can directly obtain key information, improve the accuracy of information reaching target users, reduce the noise in the communication process, and improve the signing conversion rate of franchisees.
"At present, among all the online channels that can bring franchise investment consultation, Douyin has received the largest number of consultations, and the contract conversion rate is about 1.85%, which is also better than the general level of the industry." Li Xueke said.
2. Rely on personal IP to gain in-depth insight into customer needs and empower brands to join
The establishment of Mother-in-law Xie is based on the personal IP of millions of fans created by its founder Guo Qinglei on the Douyin platform. Around 2019, through communicating with fans, Guo Qinglei gained insight into their entrepreneurial needs and pain points, and thus came up with the idea of creating a brand that would help small restaurants in third- and fourth-tier cities open stores. Through continuous research on what brands catering entrepreneurs in third- and fourth-tier cities need, Jie Wei Po Fried Chicken came into being.
△ Image source: Mother-in-law's Douyin account
"Small and medium-sized entrepreneurs must first face the problem of product selection, which may determine the life and death of the store, so we chose the popular track, which has a higher upper limit and a wider coverage of consumers, which is suitable for third- and fourth-tier restaurants to open stores around their homes, communities, shopping malls, etc." Yang Xiaolei, co-founder and president of Jie Wei Po-in-law, said.
Many catering entrepreneurs in third- and fourth-tier cities are catering novices, and Granny Xie provides a series of empowerment for Xiaobai from product teaching to site selection to decoration and sustainable operation by improving the internal management mechanism and franchisee services. At the same time, it also provides continuous teaching output through the business school, so that franchisees can master the method of converting online traffic into store customer flow. "Thanks to the founder's successful experience in Douyin content creation, we require every store to learn short video shooting, and the store's Douyin account is a traffic receiver and amplifier." Yang Xiaolei said.
According to Yang Xiaolei, 90% of the brand's franchisees are from Douyin, and the brand's stores are blooming in Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Henan and other provinces, which also benefits from the extensive regional distribution of brand fans.
3. The combination of online content and offline products has led to an explosion of sales of high-conversion belt drives
As a new brand, it is a more cost-effective and sustainable development model to help the brand explode quickly in the short term with efficient delivery.
For example, Sun Xu said, for example, in August this year, Tiger Head Fried entered Shaoguan, Guangdong for the first time, and the first store received a total of 200,000 exposures on Douyin in the first three days of opening, and the store was full of popularity during the opening event, with daily sales reaching 3,000 orders, and the number of praises and local popularity of the store also continued to rise.
△ Tiger head fried Shaoguan first store, picture source: tiger head fried
With such a good start to the new store, Tiger Tou Bomb only invested more than 6,000 yuan in the opening activities on Douyin. Why is the "production ratio" so high? In Sun Xu's view, choosing the right platform is one thing, Douyin can accurately deliver content to users in a certain region, affecting user cognition; On the other hand, the quality control, store control and unique flavor products of Tiger Head Fried can also undertake new customers delivered by the platform, so as to achieve a high conversion rate from traffic to sales.
Thanks to the high conversion rate, the new store was able to smoothly go through the drainage and customer acquisition period. Sun Xu said that the current operating performance of the first store in Shaoguan can be stable at an average of 160,000 yuan per month.
Conclusion
Although Chinese fried chicken brands have achieved rapid growth in the past two years, the category still faces considerable challenges. As an emerging category, although Chinese fried chicken occupies a local advantage, it still needs to continue to build a brand and enrich the connotation of the category to further influence consumers' cognition.
Through in-depth exchanges with Chinese fried chicken brands, RedMeal.com found that brands such as Lao Han Fried Chicken, Worry-Solving Mother-in-law, and Tiger Head Fried are continuing to increase their online layout with the Douyin platform as the core.
In fact, Douyin's value to the brand lies in its extremely high "production ratio" and "integration of quality and efficiency". Compared with the traditional delivery method, the content dissemination efficiency of the Douyin platform is higher, and at the same time, the continuous creation of content based on Douyin can not only build the brand, but also intuitively bring the transformation of sales data.
As the leading brands continue to strengthen the market's awareness of Chinese fried chicken, this track will also usher in broader development prospects. However, from the perspective of the entire catering industry, the competition in the snack fast food track is particularly fierce, and the Chinese fried chicken belonging to it is also likely to usher in more fierce competition.
Next, in addition to doing a good job in market education, how to do a better job in products, store models and organizational management is an important topic for Chinese fried chicken brands to achieve further development.
Cover image source: Picture Worm Creative.