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(edited by Ma Sofi and Wang Fangjie)

Zhang Yong, who fished at the bottom of the sea, retreated.

On the evening of March 1, Haidilao released the announcement of management personnel appointment, and Zhang Yong announced his resignation as CEO. This obviously exceeded many people’s expectations, because nine days ago, Haidilao just issued a profit warning, saying that the company turned into a loss in 2021, with a net loss of between 3.8 billion and 4.5 billion yuan.

When the enterprise encounters major challenges, the decision of the founder to withdraw from the front line is really beyond the expectation of many people.

Because the failure of Haidilao coincides with the epidemic, many people feel that China’s catering industry is greatly affected by the epidemic. They also feel that the costs of rent, water and electricity, food materials, labor and online services have become an unbearable burden for hotels.

But in fact, commercial deification never exists, so there is no need to alienate the success or failure of an enterprise into a symbol of the times. Because there has never been an era of enterprise, only an era of enterprise.

The bottom fishing that has become a pot may just be defeated by it. Zhang Yong is 52 years old. In fact, he doesn’t have to retreat in a hurry. He should pick up another stove for the seabed.

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According to the data, in 2018, the turnover rate of undersea fishing was 5 times / day, but by the first half of 2021, it had become 3 times / day.

Can we judge that the winter of catering industry is coming?

The real data is like this. According to the report “analysis of China’s catering market in 2021 and forecast of market prospects in 2022” released by China Cuisine Association, the national catering revenue in 2021 was 4689.5 billion yuan, an increase of 18.6% from negative to positive compared with the previous year, which is roughly close to the scale of 2019 before the epidemic. Obviously, the industry has gradually come out of the haze. Despite the turbulence and twists and turns, the catering industry has shown great resilience.

So, can we say that the hot pot industry is weakening? Probably not.

Sichuan style hotpots such as Banu and brother Zhou are still expanding with the naked eye, and their capital is still churning in butter. These emerging hotpot chain brands have won a large amount of financing of 100 million yuan.

Similarly, because there are more and more hotpot brands and diversified tastes, people’s choices have become richer, and eating Haidilao has changed from a must to an option. Even Zhang Yong himself said that some people think Haidilao is not delicious.

Of course, Haidilao is also making efforts. For example, it recently launched the bottom of pickled cabbage and white meat pot, hoping to awaken people’s taste buds again. But in fact, it can also make more choices, such as developing products with lower customer unit price, higher turnover rate and more suitable for takeout, so as to increase people’s consumption frequency.

In fact, there was delivery before Haidilao, but the frequency of hot pot is not high in the whole takeout catering industry. It involves complex on-site processing, and the taste of spicy hot pot is not very suitable for home scenes.

Songhe tower, a time-honored brand of Fosun Group, has also faced problems similar to Haidilao. Originally, Songhe tower was positioned as a medium and high-end restaurant, and the consumer groups are mainly tourists or business banquets. Not long ago, songhelou began to develop a sub brand - songhelou noodle restaurant, which provides services for white-collar workers in the office building with low customer unit price and standardized Soviet style noodle products. At the same time, songhelou noodle restaurant also settled in the takeout platform.

It can be seen that many standardized catering brands similar to songhelou noodle restaurant have achieved good development in recent years. On January 29, A-share listed company Jue Wei food announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Hefu Laomian, plans to be listed overseas, impacting the “first share of Chinese noodle restaurant”.

On January 27, the CSRC disclosed that Shanghai “Yang Guofu Malatang” had submitted an application to the CSRC. It was accepted by the CSRC on February 8 and impacted the “first share of Malatang”.

In addition, more catering enterprises, such as rural base, rural chicken and other catering enterprises, have also disclosed their listing plans.

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Zhang Yong once issued a “criminal edict” internally. He said, “in June 2020, I made a further plan to expand the store. Now it is really blind self-confidence. The current bitter fruit can only be swallowed by ourselves.”

According to statistics, during the listing period in 2018, the number of Haidilao stores was 466, but it expanded sharply by 544 in 2020 and 299 in the first half of 2021. As of June 30, 2021, the number of Haidilao stores had reached 1597. With the issuance of loss warning, Haidilao announced that it would close 300 stores.

In fact, the development of a catering enterprise never depends on how many signboards are hung on the street, but how many dishes are sold and how much money is made. It doesn’t matter whether consumers go to stores or not.

The boss has an account in his heart.

Bao Yi, the owner of the April cafe in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, still remembers that during the epidemic, the cafe was sustained by taking out food.

“In 2020, some employees had to rest at home and take turns to work because the canteen food could not be opened. We were forced to find a way to open the second growth curve - takeout. Although we started meituan takeout in 2018, it was not warm until the epidemic came.”

Although there were only 40-50 takeout orders per day in the cafe at that time, it was all the revenue of Baoyi. Later, through the online and offline linkage of meituan takeout, the performance gradually improved.

At present, Hall Food and takeout are the most important revenue methods of April cafe. Now, the monthly sales of cafes in April are about 20% higher than before.

The overall area of the cafe has also reached more than 200 square meters, with nearly 20 employees, mainly in hall food, but takeout is still a very important part, with an average of more than 2000 orders per month.

In terms of takeout cost, Baoyi has calculated an account: the selling price of each takeout is 40-59 yuan, and the Commission, that is, the technical service fee, currently accounts for 6.6% in Dongguan, with an average commission of 2.64-3.8 yuan per order; The main part is the delivery fee for riders, that is, the performance service fee charged according to the distance and order price. The average delivery fee per order is about 3.9 yuan. The total cost of each order is 6.54-7.8 yuan and the income is 33.5-51.8 yuan.

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