This is the "30-day set meal" he ordered in a light food shop. 1.200 yuan. These light dinners delivered to his home on time every day consist of arowana, chicken breast and vegetables. In his view, "although the taste is not as good as the traditional diet, I can't care so much about losing weight."
Did you eat grass? Do you eat less?
Nowadays, light diet is very popular among young people in China. I believe you must have friends who eat grass around you. Perhaps it is the concept of healthy living, or the anxiety about face value and figure that makes more and more young people join the ranks of "light eaters" or "herbivores".
It is estimated that the scale of China's light food industry is expected to exceed 1000 billion yuan in three years, and gradually account for about 10% of the total catering revenue in five years.
The outbreak of light food has attracted countless young people and is also regarded as a business opportunity by businesses. For a time, light food shops have mushroomed in gyms, neighborhoods and many take-away platforms. However, the fierce competition and the impact of serious homogenization also made many newcomers feel the cruelty of reality and were eliminated with a little carelessness.
Some people go in, some people go back. In order to seize the market, more and more light food shopkeepers are no longer limited to individual orders. Some of them try to launch a "30-day package", and some try to cooperate with institutions such as gyms to get more stable orders.
"Although the light food industry has ups and downs, as long as someone has the need to lose weight, there will naturally be a market for light food." Zhang Yong (pseudonym), who still runs a snack bar, said.
The rise of "grazing" wind;
Yan value anxiety and physical anxiety promote the market outbreak.
After the fitness, Kelly (pseudonym) habitually walked into the snack bar next to the gym and ordered a snack.
In recent years, the "light food culture" among young consumers in China has gradually emerged. The so-called "light food" is not a specific food, but a form of catering. Cook with cold salad, boiled water, steamed, etc. To provide consumers with foods with low fat, low calorie, low sugar, high fiber and high satiety. On the premise of ensuring normal diet structure and certain calories, we should pursue a simple, balanced and healthy diet concept.
Behind the outbreak of light food, dubbed by young people as "eating grass", is the gradual improvement of young people's anxiety about face value and figure in recent years. According to the 20021netizen physical anxiety report released by Mo Mo, about 54. 1% netizens have physical anxiety, 46.4% netizens think they need to lose weight, and the proportion of women is higher, and 54.3% female netizens think they are too fat.
The pursuit of young people has made many businesses see business opportunities. Soon, more and more light food shops have mushroomed in gyms, neighborhoods and many take-away platforms.
"Light food is a new type of diet born by young people in pursuit of health. This preference is not only seen by many traditional catering brands, but also by countless newcomers who have just set foot in the industry. " Kelly said.
Light food business:
Low calorie, energy and tricks are all aimed at grasping the stomach of young people.
At 0: 30 a.m./kloc-0: 00 a.m., the light food store operated by Zhang Yong (a pseudonym) gradually became lively. The chef is busy cooking Longli fish, chicken breast and other ingredients and slicing them. The waiter put a portable food box on the delivery note and waited for the takeaway brother to pick it up and hurriedly distributed it to all customers.
Zhang Yong said that the original intention of opening a light food shop was that after the outbreak, many friends who got fat because they stayed at home expressed their plans to lose weight. This made Zhang Yong, who had been engaged in traditional catering for many years, have the idea of transforming into a light food shop.
After planning to cook a simple meal, Zhang Yong conducted a long study at home alone. He bought purple cabbage, Chinese cabbage, pitaya, arowana, chicken breast and other ingredients to study cooking and collocation methods, traveled all over the city, tried the dishes of various light food shops one by one, recorded the advantages and disadvantages of his peers, and made his own menu.
After many attempts, several of his main snacks have been recognized by friends around him. In September, 2020, Zhang Yong, full of confidence, invested 654.38 million yuan to formally open a light food shop in his hometown in Sichuan.
Zhang Yong once painted portraits of consumer groups. He found that the customers who choose light food are mainly young people after 90. The needs of this group are concentrated on "beauty" and "thinness", which makes him deliberately take "low calorie", "vitality" and "health" as selling points when choosing dishes and designing menus. "In addition, we should also consider the habit of young people who like to take pictures, and we need to design dishes so that we can take pictures.
Today, Zhang Yong can sell more than 40 kinds of snacks every day. He calculated that he can earn about 20 thousand a month, not counting the rent, water, electricity and labor costs If this income is maintained, the cost can be recovered in almost half a year.
But what makes him dare not slack off is that the craze for light food has made more and more peers appear in the market. The competition in the light food industry has also become quite fierce.
Li Tao (pseudonym), who has run a number of young food enterprises in Jiangsu, also feels great competitive pressure.
"In the past, there were not many shops specializing in light food around, but now there are three or four in this street alone." Li Tao said, "In order to survive, operators need to spend more time designing dishes and improving the quality of light food."
Light food shops in Li Tao mainly focus on fruit and vegetable salads, which also attract many customers who are eager to lose weight. "Light food will strictly control the calories of ingredients. Usually, traditional catering brings about 1200 calories to human body, while light food only has 350 calories. Long-term persistence will definitely have a slimming effect. "
But it is not easy to make customers like eating grass. The core selling point of light food is health, which means the ingredients must be fresh. "Light food usually tastes light, and customers can easily eat the original flavor of the food. If it is not fresh, it is easy to lose customers because of quality. "
Li Tao is also studying and updating the menu every day. "Colleagues are developing new categories. If your dishes are always the same, customers will soon lose interest. "
More difficult than expected:
It is difficult to survive offline and online. Is it feasible to fight price wars?
Although the light food market is booming, it is not easy to do business.
In fact, behind the outbreak of light food business, a large number of light food shops have indeed disappeared from the market due to poor management and sluggish business.
"Unlike the traditional online and offline catering mode, small-scale light food shops are more focused on online sales. Offline only has a stable business near the gym, and it is difficult to have guests in other places. " Han Fei (pseudonym), who is only doing online now, said that he had suffered a fiasco in the operation of offline stores.
At the end of 20 19, Han Fei, who took a fancy to the light food business, rented a storefront in the prime location of the local pedestrian street and opened an offline store for light food. I thought that with the influence of light food and lots where young people are concentrated, business should have no worries. But to his surprise, there are not many customers who usually go into the store to spend money, and even only sporadic people go into the store to spend money on weekends. Compared with the counterparts who run traditional restaurants next to them, the passenger flow is only 30% of each other.
Upon inquiry, Han Fei found that in addition to people who are keen on fitness, they choose light food every day. More young people tend to treat light food only on a whim and prefer traditional catering after shopping. "In addition to those big brands of light food stores, they can continue to operate offline, and small individual brands simply cannot afford the losses of physical stores." Han Fei said.
But it's not easy to do it online. The threshold of light food industry is low, but in order to ensure the freshness of ingredients, cold chain transportation is usually used, which invisibly increases operating costs. In addition, many newcomers often copy from each other in the design of dishes, and most of the ingredients used are similar, which makes the market homogenization more and more serious. In order to attract customers, merchants eventually fell into a price war.
"In the past, a light food cost more than 40 yuan, and the profit was similar to that of 20 yuan. Now in order to grab customers, the price has dropped to 30 yuan. " However, the price reduction still did not bring a large number of orders to Han Fei. He found that many colleagues also adopted the method of reducing prices, even reducing prices to more than 20 yuan. "This price may be a few dollars after deducting the cost. If a large number of orders are unstable, it will not work at all. "
Another reason why Han Fei and his colleagues are anxious is that the sales of light food are obviously affected by the seasons. "Usually, business will be much better in summer, but after September, sales will drop significantly, and it may not rebound until 65438+February." At present, Hanfei's light food shop orders about 2000 orders per month in summer, and only more than 400 orders in autumn and winter. "Customers want to eat hot food in autumn and winter, while light food based on cold food is naturally unpopular."
In addition, what worries small practitioners is that the freshness of dishes determines the quality of light food. However, how to strike a balance between ensuring quality and reducing purchase price has become a difficult problem for them. Zhang Yong tried to negotiate the price with the supplier, but he finally failed to reach an agreement. "How many goods do suppliers need you to buy every day before you are willing to give a more favorable price, but on the current scale, it is definitely impossible to eat such a large amount."
The cruelty of the industry reality is also constantly deterring new entrants. "In the past, there was a peer group. At most, there were nearly 100 shopkeepers. Everyone discusses dishes, spices and prices, and now I feel that people disappear from it every day. " Han Fei said.
On the transformation of light food stores;
Push 30-day customization, cooperate with the gym, and a stable customer base is more important.
According to public information, 20 14 is the first year of light salad. This year, the first batch of domestic salad brands such as Mi You Salad and Sweetheart Rock Salad appeared on the market. From 20 15 to 20 17, the light food market broke out constantly, and more and more entrepreneurs poured into it. At the same time, some brands including rice salad and sweetheart rock salad received capital blessing.
But the lively scene changed after 20 18. At that time, the industry shuffled, many light food brands gradually withdrew due to poor management and other reasons, capital cooled down, and the market gradually became rational.
Although the market is constantly eliminating practitioners, light food still attracts the influx of new people.
The difference is that in addition to daily retail, newcomers have also begun to seek a more secure development path.
"More and more light food shops have adopted the' 30-day customization' model. This will not only guarantee the customer list, but also guarantee the income. " Shops in Zhang Yong have also launched this set meal. He set the prices as 900 yuan, 1.200 yuan and 1.800 yuan to match the corresponding dishes, and suggested that some regular customers with high repurchase rate choose to order light food for 30 days.
"This not only has a relatively stable sales volume, but more importantly, it can avoid the take-away platform and the profit is higher than before." Now Zhang Yong cooperates with a local distribution company, which is responsible for daily delivery. "Customers don't have to spend time choosing every day, just wait for the light food to be delivered to the door."
Li Tao also began to try to cooperate with the gym.
"Although the unit price of light food is 30 to 40 yuan, except for ingredients, cold chain transportation and platform sharing, the profit is not high." Li Tao said, "It is better to actively seek more stable customers than to receive unknown large orders online."
In order to win the favor of the fitness crowd, Li Tao not only invited a professional dietitian to design the menu, but also calculated the calories contained in each dish one by one and publicized them on the dishes. "Fitness people are particularly sensitive to calorie intake, and it is more difficult to obtain this group than ordinary consumers. However, once they are recognized, they will be more sticky to the brand than individual customers. "
Although the current operation is not easy, Zhang Yong is still full of confidence in the light food market. "Although the light food industry has been ups and downs for many years, the outbreak of the market and the growth rate of customers may make it another billion-dollar market in the future catering industry." Zhang Yong said, "After all, as long as someone has the need to lose weight, light food will naturally have a market."