Wen | Burning Yuan Cao Yang
Editor | Rao Xiafei
"2 pieces of beef +2 or 3 pieces of fat sausage, 8 yuan."
Afei, who hasn’t eaten mala Tang for a long time, made the above sigh after experiencing how expensive a bowl of mala Tang is, and met his colleagues at the mala Tang Ma Spicy Mix downstairs.
Afei said that it is no wonder that everyone is yelling now that "the wallet was pierced by mala Tang", which is really easy to pierce.
"My appetite is relatively small. The meal took about 35 yuan, and the two male colleagues who walked with me spent a bowl of mala Tang near 60 yuan."
In fact, like Afei and his colleagues, there are many consumers who are shocked by the price of mala Tang.
In the little red book, the netizen with the ID "Cherry Maruko" bluntly said in the note "Family, am I too poor or is Mala Tang too expensive?" "If you go to eat Mala Tang after work, you will need 19.5 yuan if you don’t take much." And mala Tang, which is popular in 88 yuan and 99 yuan, is not uncommon.
Source/Xiaohongshu Burning Yuan Screenshot
In the photo that the netizen "basked in", Burning Yuan Yuan saw that the mala Tang of 19.5 yuan probably had a sausage, two baby dishes, two pieces of gluten, a little Flammulina velutipes and two pieces of lotus root slices. So that the netizens in the comment area bluntly said, "This is a black shop" and "I don’t think I have enough to eat like 60 yuan".
Some netizens also pointed out, "Now these mala Tang weighing shops, maocai spicy pot mala Tang, are all like assassins. 15 yuan /250g, isn’t this a pound of 30 yuan? " As said by the above-mentioned netizens, Burning Yuan recently came to a number of weighing mala Tang stores and found that "a pound of meat and vegetables together" seems to have become the industry standard.
But what makes netizens vomit is that Mala Tang is not only expensive, but also has many "pits".
Recently, the blogger "superB Tai" pointed out in the video that "Sean Mala Tang is short of weight. One store peeled 36 grams less, while another store inflated 82 grams of products. " Although Sean Mala Tang responded by saying, "It is mainly due to the irregular operation of the staff involved in the store, resulting in weighing errors, and the above two stores have been rectified immediately."
At the same time, Tik Tok blogger "Barley (Beipiao Edition)" mentioned in the video that he went to eat Sean Mala Tang after a workout and was shocked by the price, so he came to the store again with a scale. Unexpectedly, the same dish was called 0.81kg, but the store weighed 1.06kg..
But the "small details" in the store don’t stop there. In the course of the blogger’s saying "take away-no need to pack the box-ask for the receipt", not only did the price of the same mala Tang change from 29.9 yuan to 26 yuan, but its weight also changed from 1.06 kg to 0.97 kg.
Although in the seven chain mala Tang brand stores visited, Burning Yuan Yuan didn’t encounter the situation of "short weight" and "inconsistent weight before and after" as netizens said, but it also made several new discoveries, that is, "the receipts of chain mala Tang brands are quite mysterious, either recycled or not given", and "the cashier basically doesn’t show the weight and price".
Behind the more and more expensive mala Tang, perhaps, merchants are pinning their hopes for this street snack to be "high-end" and "branded", but at present, it is not easy to realize this hope for mala Tang with scattered brands.
01、How much does it cost to eat mala Tang?
From a serving in 6 yuan to a bowl in 60 yuan now, the price of mala Tang can be said to have been at the forefront of Chinese chain restaurants.
In response to consumer disputes, at noon on a working day, Burning Yuan came to seven different brands of chain stores, including Yang Guofu Mala Tang Jianwai SOHO Store, Sean Mala Tang Jianwai SOHO Store, Liu Wenxiang Mala Tang Fried String International Trade Store, Xiaogu Sister Mala Ban Mala Tang International Trade Store, Lickitung Mala Tang Jianwai SOHO Store, Laojie Hengpan Mala Tang Donghuan Store, and Xu Xiaoshu Mala Tang Fenghuanghui Store.
Among them, Sister Xiaogu and Old Street Weighing Plate are undergoing product operation adjustment. A person familiar with the matter told Burning Yuan that Xiaogu’s sister Spicy Mix Mala Tang Guomao Store was being reloaded. "The snail powder shop now operating on the original site is the former Xiaogu sister."
Also being adjusted is Laojie Hengpan Mala Tang Donghuan Store. The staff of the store told Burning Yuan that the previously sold mala Tang form is now gone, and soon the store will be changed to a rice noodle shop. "But it is the same as the current brand."
Except for these two stores, the other five brands of mala Tang stores are in normal business.
Although the five mala Tang brands are different, their sales forms are basically the same, all of which are "mixed and weighed together with meat and vegetables", and the unit price of the products is similar, and the price of one catty is around 30 yuan.
Among them, the "cheapest" is Sean Mala Tang, which costs 28.8 yuan/kg, and the most expensive is Xu Xiaoshu Mala Tang, which costs 39.9 yuan/kg. Other brands, Liu Wenxiang Mala Tang fried skewers, Lickitung Mala Tang and Yang Guofu Mala Tang are priced at 29.8 yuan/kg, 29.88 yuan/kg and 29.9 yuan/kg respectively.
"I’m a veteran mala Tang fan, and I’ve been eating it since I was in Yang Guofu or 6 yuan. Up to now, if you choose to eat a bowl of mala Tang in Yang Guofu for a working meal, you need about 25-30 yuan. " Xiang Bin, who is having lunch at Jianwai SOHO in Yang Guofu Mala Tang, said that it is not cheap, but it can’t be said that it is particularly expensive. After all, the prices of many things are rising. "I feel that this is already the average price of eating a bowl of Mala Tang. My male colleagues around me basically spend about 40 yuan."
As Xiang Xiang said, the observation of Burning Yuan in Yang Guofu Mala Tang Jianwai SOHO Store shows that the consumption amount of female consumers is roughly between 25-35 yuan, and that of men is relatively high, generally above 30 yuan, with the largest amount around 40 yuan, but basically not exceeding 50 yuan.
Source/combustion element shooting
In fact, the price in 50 yuan is far from the high price of a bowl of mala Tang for ordinary consumers. On the same day, a female consumer who dined at Xu Xiaoshu’s Fenghuanghui store told Burning Yuan that her company was upstairs in Fenghuanghui, and she loved spicy food, so Xu Xiaoshu became a high-frequency choice for lunch.
"This mala Tang brand is more expensive than other mala Tang brands, and the basic meal should be around 60 yuan." As she said, the consumer showed the small ticket of her meal to the burning yuan, "The boiled food is 0.847kg, 67.59 yuan; Plus a bottle of sour plum soup 9.9 yuan, a total consumption of 77.49 yuan. "
In addition to "expensive", the vague price tag is also one of the factors that consumers vomit.
Taking Yang Guofu Mala Tang as an example, unlike other merchants’ clearly marked prices, Burning Yuan found that Yang Guofu Mala Tang did not indicate the price in the food area.
Perhaps because it coincided with the lunch peak, there was a constant stream of consumers queuing to choose dishes in the store that day, and the seats were almost full of guests. After watching the food area for about 2 minutes, and shopping for some things, Burning Yuan found that at least in Yang Guofu Mala Tang Jianwai SOHO store, there was no price of food.
At the same time, on the scale of the checkout counter, although the weight of the container has been deducted by 0.350kg, the unit price and total amount are not displayed except the total weight of the food after the consumer puts it on. Moreover, Yang Guofu, which sells mala Tang, does not provide sesame sauce in the free snack area. If you need sesame sauce, you have to pay extra.
With curiosity, Burning Yuan handed the selected dishes to the cashier. Subsequently, the cashier handed the receipt to Burning Yuan. The dishes weighing 0.422/kg totaled 25.15 yuan, and the paid-in amount was 25.10 yuan. The overall consumption amount was basically in line with expectations.
Later, when picking up the meal, although the receipt was taken back as a meal voucher, it was not easy to provide the receipt on its own initiative. After all, in Sean Mala Tang, Liu Wenxiang Mala Tang Store and Xu Xiaoshu Store, only Xu Xiaoshu provided the receipt. After weighing the dishes, the cashiers of the other two companies didn’t offer the receipt at all.
Of course, the three companies still have something in common, that is, when consumers settle accounts at the front desk, the weighing platform does not display the weight and price.
However, what surprised the burning yuan even more was that almost no consumer questioned the price of the dishes, nor did he think that it would be wrong not to give a small ticket.
A girl who dined in Liu Wenxiang Mala Tang told Burning Yuan that when she was eating Mala Tang, she never asked for a small ticket or even asked for the price. "After weighing, she directly scanned the code and paid."
02、Is the rising cost the main reason?
Xiao Xiao, who has been in the industry for several years, has different views on the discussion that mala Tang is becoming more and more expensive.
Xiao Xiao is an independent mala Tang store operator. In his view, the price increase of chain stores is a very normal phenomenon. "In fact, in terms of unit price, it is not only the mala Tang weighed by the above chain brands, but also the string-like mala Tang like ours. In fact, the price is not cheap. There are often male customers in my store who spend 60 to 70 yuan for a meal."
Not only that, there is no uniform standard in this industry. For example, Xiao Xiao said, "Take a fish seed bag as an example. My shop sells 4 yuan money, but in the county towns more than ten kilometers away from me, some sell 6 yuan money, while others sell 8 yuan money. But in fact, no one can explain how much it is worth."
"But we can’t just see the rise in front-end prices and ignore the price increase of the entire industrial chain or raw material costs. Especially in the past three years, the rent cost, labor cost and raw material cost are all rising. Even after the unsealing last year, in fact, this price has not dropped, and this trend of price increase has continued this year. "
Xiao Xiao added, "Seasons will also affect the cost of mala Tang. For example, some special spinach and rape for mala Tang will lead to different prices due to different seasons."
"The first thing is that in the winter when the cost of raw materials is high, stores will increase the price of products as the cost rises. However, in the season when the cost of raw materials falls, basically no stores will follow the price reduction; Secondly, such as fungus, potato chips, gluten and other categories, this creature itself has strong water absorption, and it will undoubtedly be much heavier if it is soaked in water for a long time. "
Of course, netizens are not unaware of this. On the Zhihu, netizens posted in the post "Mala Tang talks about selling by the catty, and vegetarian food costs one price. What is the most cost-effective?" As mentioned in the article, "going there to eat meat dishes is actually a trap. First of all, meat dishes are processed meat, which is cheap; Followed by frozen wholesale, with a lot of water. "
Xiao Xiao said that in fact, the weighing form of mala Tang has only begun to rise in recent years. Take Yang Guofu as an example. It was originally made by portions. "At first, I remember that it was 6 yuan’s money, and then it rose to 8 yuan, and then it was slowly changed to weighing."
"For stores, especially chain stores, the biggest advantage of weighing may be that the model is simple and saves high labor costs." Xiao Xiao added, because the store staff only need to wash the dishes, just put them there. But string is different, all dishes need to be strung, which seems simple, but it is a waste of time.
Figure/Yang Guofu Jianwai SOHO Store; Source/combustion element shooting
In Xiao Xiao’s view, there is another key point, that is, consumers’ purchasing power is becoming more and more rational. "I can intuitively feel that consumers’ purchasing power is generally declining this year, but prices are in the opposite state. This will make consumers more intuitively think that Mala Tang’s price increase is too fast. "
Xiao Xiao added that it may be because of these hidden and opaque factors that more and more consumers feel that "mala Tang is ridiculously expensive."
03、Brands are scattered, and high-end is difficult.
In fact, in the eyes of some people in the industry, behind the increasingly expensive mala Tang, perhaps there is a hidden hope that this street snack can also be "branded" or even "high-end". Although at present, it is not easy.
Zhu Danpeng, a food industry analyst in China, made it clear that despite the rapid development of the domestic mala Tang industry, it is still in a relatively low-end operation stage, which may also be the main reason for the constant problems in the industry.
"The domestic mala Tang industry has a history of more than 20 years, but at present, the whole mala Tang is still in the operation stage of lack of standardization, specialization, branding, capitalization and scale."
Zhu Danpeng added that whether it is Sean or Yang Guofu, they do have thousands of stores, and they have also become a "double-leading pattern" in China. But in fact, their proportion in the whole mala Tang market is actually very small, and the whole market still presents a very scattered status quo.
Zheshang Securities Research Institute’s report "Mala Tang First Share, Rapid Expansion of Nugget 2B Supply Chain" points out that Mala Tang belongs to Chinese fast food track. According to the sum of total merchandise transactions, China Mala Tang market increased from 96.8 billion yuan in 2016 to 130.6 billion yuan in 2019, with CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 10.5%. Affected by the epidemic, the market size will be reduced to 114.2 billion yuan in 2020, down 12.5% year-on-year. It is estimated that the market scale will reach 197.3 billion yuan in 2025, and the CAGR of China Mala Tang market will be 11.5% in 2020-2025.
The above report also pointed out that the market concentration of China Mala Tang is higher than that of Chinese fast food as a whole, but it is still highly dispersed. According to the total transaction volume, the market share of CR5 is only 10.2% and that of CR2 is 8.3% in 2020. Yang Guofu ranks first with 4.3%, followed by Sean Mala Tang. There are many malatang chain brands other than "Yangzhang", but the number of restaurants is less than 1000, and the scale gap is obvious.
Another group of data from Narrow Gate shows that there are currently 490 malatang brands in China. Among the seven mala Tang brands mentioned above, ranked by the number of stores, as of April 13th, Yang Guofu Mala Tang, Sean Mala Tang, Xiaogu Sister Mala Ban Mala Tang, Liu Wenxiang Huanan Dawan Mala Tang and Laojie Chengpan Mala Tang ranked among the top five domestic mala Tang brands with 5656, 5646, 905, 884 and 860 stores respectively.
The number of Lickitung Mala Tang Noodles and Xu Xiaoshu’s stores is much less, only 103 and 12 respectively.
Source/Narrow Gate Data
Obviously, the brand also saw the huge potential of the domestic mala Tang market at this stage, so that Yang Guofu, which was still bidding for Haidilao in 2019, turned its attention to Starbucks in 2021.
Yang Guofu, the founder of Yang Guofu Mala Tang, once publicly stated, "Now the price of Mala Tang in first-tier cities is about higher than that in 30 yuan, which is equivalent to a cup of coffee, but the brand of Starbucks is more high-end." And mentioned, "I hope Yang Guofu will form its own brand culture, so that consumers can feel honored when they eat mala Tang".
"But before that, whether it is an old brand or a new brand, the first thing to be solved should be the shortcomings of the mala Tang industry, such as food safety and service awareness." Zhu Danpeng bluntly said.
As Zhu Danpeng said, food safety has always been a stubborn disease that Mala Tang brand is difficult to solve.
On April 17th, # Many online celebrity restaurants in Beijing have food safety problems # attracted consumers’ attention. According to the topic, in 2023, Beijing Municipal and District Market Supervision Bureaus will continue to conduct food safety inspections on chain restaurants, "online celebrity" restaurants, food cities and other catering enterprises throughout the city.
In the bulletin published since January, 2023, among the number of chain restaurants with food safety problems, Sister Xiaogu, Sean Mala Tang and Yang Guofu Mala Tang are all on the list, with 4, 4 and 2 restaurants respectively.
"In addition, the store’s operational capabilities, service capabilities and customer stickiness also need to be improved." Zhu Danpeng further emphasized that at this stage, the chain stores in the franchise mode have weak management and control, and it is obviously not competitive to ensure the integrity of the supply chain.
Zhu Danpeng also said that on the whole, although China’s mala Tang market is still at the node of low-end operation, the rise of its consumer groups with the new generation as the core has just given the brand more imagination, market potential and development prospects. Still available.
References:
Yang Guofu is not "blessed": tens of thousands of entrepreneurs joined in a few years. Source: Orange Xiaoxiang.
* Afei and Xiang Bin are pseudonyms in the text.
* combustion element (ID:chaintruth)
* Disclaimer: In any case, the information or opinions expressed in this article do not constitute investment advice to anyone.
