From coffee to milk tea, fruit drinks, and low-fat light food, the trends driven by young people's appetites come one after another. The landscape of categories changes constantly, but the one thing that remains unchanged is the continuous growth of market scale. Data from food delivery platforms show that since before 2015, light food has become a popular category, with order growth rates reaching 16 times the same period, 5.3 times the growth rate of the overall delivery market. By 2017, order volume increased by over 123.55% compared to the same period last year, and the number of consumers grew 5 to 6 times, reaching a peak, but then it sharply declined and entered a trough. From a certain perspective, light food and milk tea are in the same boat. Looking back at the milk tea track, on one side, grand openings; on the other, closures and goodbyes. Light food stores are no exception. According to Meituan-Dianping data, the number of light food stores rapidly increased from over 600 at the end of 2017 to over 3,500 by 2019, and then quietly disappeared. The scene is lively, but the reality is harsh; many brands may have gone bankrupt before consumers even heard of them. In 2015, GREENY closed its salad business; in early 2017, "Salad Diary" announced its closure; in March 2019, Sweetheart Rock Salad's official media accounts stopped updating, and all business operations ceased; in April, Mi You Salad had only 3 stores left in Shanghai, and its official accounts stopped updating. It seems that the extremely high mortality rate in the restaurant industry is a hot topic, but in comparison, the pressure on niche light food is even more unavoidable. -01- Light Food That Goes Against Human Taste Light food originated from the afternoon tea of British aristocrats in the 17th century. Evolved to today, its definition no longer refers to a specific food but to a form of food, such as low-fat, low-calorie, low-sugar nutritious foods made by cold mixing or boiling. The most common types include salads, sandwiches, and whole grains. Light food was once glorious. As early as 2013, with the popularization of healthy eating concepts, light food entrepreneurs began to appear in China, and many light food brands were born, with capital quickly entering the market. According to statistics, 11 brands including gaga鲜语, Mi You Salad, 好色派沙拉, 沙律轻食, and Sweetheart Rock Salad received financing. Among them, Shanghai light food brand Mi You Salad opened its first store in 2014 and received an 8 million yuan Pre-A round investment from ZhenFund in June 2015. However, by 2017, the booming light food market began to cool down. Although industry insiders had predicted that China's light food industry scale would exceed 100 billion yuan within 3 years and gradually account for about 10% of total catering revenue within five years, the current development of light food in China has indeed encountered obstacles. People's imagination of the light food market was too high. First, light food is an item that goes against human eating habits and genes. In ancient times when humans had not yet reached the top of the food chain, finding food to survive was the most important thing, and high-sugar, high-calorie, high-carb foods were naturally the first choice. Since then, the love for "junk food" has been written into our genes. It's just that with continuous technological changes and increased productivity, we have become more discerning in eating. When we see foods that "violate" high sugar, high calories, and high carbs, we shouldn't be too surprised; those ancient genes invisibly influence our eating habits today. Light food itself is not suitable for most Chinese people in terms of taste. Chinese cuisine emphasizes cooking methods like frying, stir-frying, and braising, which are rich in seasoning, and people find such cooked food more flavorful. But light food is mostly raw and cold, and relatively bland, so Chinese people's acceptance is low. For Chinese people, Chinese food culture is profound and diverse. In most people's eyes, salad, as a cold dish, is usually just a prelude or a snack to go with alcohol, not a main course or a long-term consumption item. This makes it difficult for salad brands operating as a single category to survive. Besides eating habits, these failed or poorly managed salad brands have an average per capita consumption of 35 to 60 yuan, and their products mostly abandon oil, salt, and heavy seasoning. The relatively high average order value and relatively monotonous taste have become a major pain point for salad brand operations. Although some salad brands offer a variety of salad dressings to provide richer flavors, can this satisfy the taste needs of consumers in a country with eight major cuisines? Whether the products can truly be low-fat and low-calorie remains a question. Moreover, pre-cut fruits and vegetables have been exposed to air for a long time, and the vitamins they contain have already been oxidized. Does an expensive salad really contain high nutrition? Furthermore, being healthy doesn't necessarily mean eating salad; fitness enthusiasts' bodies are not built by eating salad alone, and ordinary consumers cannot endure the hardship of eating salad for a long time. In addition, winter is also the off-season for salad sales each year. Many salad brands have developed warm salads suitable for autumn and winter to cater to Chinese eating habits, using sliced baguettes instead of cold vegetable bases... However, this does not change the low foot traffic. Currently, "how to better survive the off-season" has become a world-class problem for existing salad brands in China. -02-
Limited by Operating Physical Stores
Earlier, after reaping the initial dividends, the owner of Salad Diary wrote a long article summarizing his entrepreneurial journey after closing the store, which included a sentence: The real business world leaves too little space for "small and beautiful"; either you grow bigger and stronger, or you die. So, the team of 2 gradually expanded. To operate better, they hired new media editors, customer service, and kitchen staff; the initial 30-square-meter kitchen was fully developed, so they rented a larger storefront; to ensure the freshness and taste of salads and improve production efficiency, they invested heavily in kitchen equipment. However, a series of expansion measures became the "straw that broke the camel's back." It is worth mentioning that Salad Diary's order volume was still considerable when it closed. However, this is the most tragic part. According to founder "Tomato Girl": We had orders but no profit, as if we were in a dead end. Stagnant profits are the most fatal, and the scope of forward planning involves the entire business entity. Service, product, hygiene, and promotion are all integrated and require substantial capital and management to maintain. For the light food industry, which still has room for a larger audience, the difficulty is imaginable. Similarly, besides Salad Diary, in 2017, Tea Fragrance Book Fragrance closed all its stores, owing millions in unpaid wages, rent, and debts. In addition, the restaurant industry seems unable to escape the curse of peaks and valleys, but for the light food industry, the terrifying peaks and valleys are not only within a single business day but also in long-term seasonality. It is reported that after September each year, orders for light food drop sharply. "Tomato Girl" deeply feels this: Who doesn't want to eat something warm on a cold day? All light food brands in China cannot escape the operational difficulties of the autumn and winter off-season. When winter comes, it no longer simply refers to capital and market downturn; the "winter" for the light food industry is annual and unavoidable, becoming a "force majeure" in operations. The fixed costs of store rent, labor, and equipment, combined with intermittent business, make the cost gap larger and larger, eventually leading merchants into a situation of "income cannot cover expenses." On the other hand, it is very difficult for light food products to operate in an e-commerce model. As fresh products that need to be kept fresh, they have a short shelf life and need to be delivered immediately after production, which places extremely high demands on the cost and timeliness of supply chain and logistics. The gap between cost and revenue is hard to control. Indeed, light food is ultimately not traditional catering, and in terms of demand, it is different from milk tea and coffee. It can be said that this is a business with severe intermittency. The weak die at the hands of competitors, and the strong often die at their own hands. -03-
Short Shelf Life Becomes a Development Shortcoming
Although salad brands in the market label salads as "fresh" and "fun" in marketing, once the novelty wears off, the shortcomings of the salad category emerge. Salads are easy to standardize, require no cooking, and the production process has no open flames or oil fumes. On one hand, this eliminates the restaurant's dependence on chefs; on the other hand, precisely because it is easy to standardize, the freshness and stability of dishes become important competitive indicators for salad brands in the market. As a product that needs to be kept fresh, salad has a short shelf life and needs to be delivered immediately after production. This places high demands on supply chain and logistics in terms of both cost and time efficiency. How to standardize and reduce loss has become a difficult problem for all salad startups. Previously, the salad brand "Da Kai Sha Jie" started in Shanghai, with all ingredient processing and preparation done in-store. In addition to plating, staff also had to clean, cut, and pre-mix ingredients. Because the staff were not professionally trained, this operational model affected output efficiency and the stability of food quality to some extent. When the brand had 3 stores in Shanghai, it began centralized procurement of ingredients and established a central kitchen, where all ingredient processing, cutting, and sauce production were completed uniformly. -04-
The Delivery Dividend Period Has Passed
Data shows that currently, 70% of light food products in China use delivery as their main sales channel. Some salad brands even rent a small stall specifically for delivery business. Unlike other categories, making salads does not require heating. Raw fish slices mixed into vegetables and fruits, medium-rare beef, and soft-boiled eggs... These ingredients are all bacteria-carrying. Even if raw fruits and vegetables are carefully washed, they are not sterile. The surfaces of various ingredients are also bacteria-carrying, and during cutting and plating, knives, cutting boards, plates, staff hands, and clothes are all sources of contamination. To meet delivery supply, merchants pre-cool ingredients, and by the time the courier delivers them to you, various pathogenic bacteria have already multiplied under high temperatures and nutrient-rich ingredients. If the meal takes a long time, the eating process is also an opportunity for bacteria and viruses to multiply. These microorganisms multiply at an exponential rate, and after two hours, their numbers increase by two to three orders of magnitude or more. Furthermore, unlike the past when delivery platforms joined forces with internet giants to generously subsidize merchants and consumers to expand territory, creating a pseudo-good-life period of "manna from heaven," the delivery market has now been cultivated, and subsidies are a thing of the past. Merchants not only have no subsidies but also have to pay commissions to third-party delivery platforms. In this case, merchants cannot offer discounts to customers. In view of this, many salad brands use WeChat official accounts or launch apps for delivery sales. However, due to the overly single channel, transaction volume is greatly reduced. At the same time, focusing on the delivery market makes brands highly dependent on platform traffic, and consumers find it difficult to have a more three-dimensional understanding of the brand. To build consumer trust in the brand and achieve the status of dine-in brands in consumers' minds, more time and money costs are required. -05- Schrödinger's "Light Food" Around 2015, with the rise of the fitness industry and consumers' emphasis on healthy eating concepts, a batch of light food brands (especially salad brands) had considerable development space with the entry and support of capital. However, as the trend gradually faded and capital became rational, the financing status of these light food brands mostly froze in 2017. After five years of baptism, salad still cannot shake off the inherent impressions of "fitness meal" and "diet meal." Up to now, under the premise of extremely easy standardization, the light food industry in China has not yet produced a leading brand that can cross regions and scale, and many brands have even died. It is certain that light food is niche and does not belong to the rigid demand category of Chinese dining, making it difficult to produce strong brands, but it is not completely without consumption potential and market. Its current state is more like "Schrödinger's light food"—before opening the "box," we don't know whether it is dead or alive. But in this limited closed track, there are still too many uncertainties. Source: Consumption Pie (ID: xiaofeipai1) Author: Bai Li Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan once adopted.