From slimming and sculpting to showing the attitude towards life, who decides the future of light food?

Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “Foodaily daily food” (ID: foodaily), Author: Archur.

From slimming and sculpting to showing the attitude of life, who will decide the future of light food?

Ching Ming has passed, and spring is strong. The domestic light food market is ushering in another spring.

From the financing of several cutting-edge light food companies in 2020, to the investment in light food brands by Yuanqi Forest at the end of the year, and then to McDonald’s launch of Shabat Light Meals in February this year, the light food industry is driven by the pursuit of health and home-convenient food for all people. Already stepped out of the haze and rejuvenated.

Just a few years ago, light food was regarded as synonymous with middle class and petty bourgeoisie, and it was still being questioned because of the embarrassing experience of eating grass. Since 2019, with the rise of Generation Z, especially the outbreak of the meal replacement industry, consumers have a deeper understanding and tolerance of emerging dietary patterns, especially alternative forms of traditional meals. The light food brand and the capital behind it saw the business opportunities created between the huge demand, low brand and low penetration rate, and thus the industry is now full of flowers.

How is light food today different from a few years ago? In the face of well-informed and increasingly picky consumers, how can light food brands firmly lock in the public’s enthusiasm for consumption? What can we learn from the management of successful overseas light food brands?

From afternoon tea to oden, it has been popular for 300 years, and the charm of light food has not diminished

The history of light food can be traced back to Europe in the 17th century. The afternoon tea originated from the British aristocracy, a cup of strong tea, with a few snacks, is enough to support the stomach until the late dinner time. After the afternoon tea culture spread to France, the romantic and lazy French simplified it directly: cut the bread into slices, brush with jam, and add some bacon, eggs and other ingredients. This kind of sandwich-like food becomes a light meal. Prototype. After being introduced to the United States, casual Americans included easy-to-make burgers, fried chicken nuggets, egg tarts and other snacks on the basis of sandwiches.

Picture source: www.npr.org

Later, the light eating method spread to Japan. The local people regarded the simple and easy-to-wrap daily snacks, such as oden and rice balls, as light meals.

In recent years549,764″ src=”https://img.36krcdn.com/20210414/v2_802426c111464bca980ec20be88ab24c_img_000″>

Picture source: Meituan

According to data from Ele.me, among the 10 most popular light salad packages in 2019, the package with the highest calorie is 560 calories, which is less than one-third of the daily energy required by white-collar women. Each light meal contains an average of 10 ingredients, covering staple foods, meat, eggs, beans, vegetables, fruits, etc., and the protein content of each light meal can meet 60% of the daily protein requirement. It is in full compliance with the food diversity principle of the “Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2016)”.

How big is China’s light food market?

According to the “Light Food Consumption Big Data Report” released by Meituan Waimai in August 2019, the scale of China’s light food industry is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan within 3 years, and will gradually account for about 10% of total catering revenue within 5 years.

In 2019, the number of people searching for the four keywords of “light food”, “fat-reducing meal”, “weight loss meal” and “healthy meal” on the Meituan app increased significantly year-on-year. Among them, the search volume of light food An increase of 235.8%. Not only that, but many light food stores that focus on health have also taken advantage of the trend, and the number of Meituan takeaway light food merchants increased by 119.8% year-on-year.

At present, the light food segment has formed different forms such as “light food + coffee”, “light food + tea”, “light food + freshly squeezed juice”, and salad franchise stores.

In the early stage of the development of light food, under the stimulation of fitness and weight loss, vegetable salad became the main product type. Like “grazing” and poor taste, it has become many people’s first impression of light food. Pursue low-calorie, no meat, but ignore the taste, and finally let lightFood has deviated from the track of scientific diet.

Today, consumers’ awareness of healthy eating is becoming more mature and rational. Light food has also changed its monotonous “cold” face, focusing on diversified ingredients, high protein, and high satiety…especially after the entry of traditional catering companies, the “lightweight” transformation of traditional meals has made light food become It not only has “connotation” and “temperature”, but still maintains a high appearance and full of fashion sense.

From weight-loss to light-hearted, how can light meals be made into a long-term business?

If HeyJuice was established in 2013 as the starting mark of the domestic light food market, Light Food has experienced a glorious peak-depression and silence-a life of ups and downs in just 8 years.

In 2014, the concept of light food began to spread rapidly in China, attracting the attention of KOLs and entertainment stars. In the following two years, the light food industry with salad as the main product feature ushered in the first wave of entrepreneurship, and a large number of entrepreneurs emerged online and offline. Salad chain brands such as Miyou Salad, Open Salad, and Sweetheart Rock were all founded at this time.

In 2015, there were still less than 50 salad shops in Shanghai. At the end of 2016, the number soared to three or four hundred.

The period from 2014 to 2017 was the three years of fierce expansion of the light food market. The light food market not only attracts a large number of entrepreneurs, but also ignites the passion for capital. In 2018, light food ushered in a brief silence after the industry reshuffle, and the market returned to rationality while being controversial. In 2019, with the rise of the meal replacement industry, the light food market will be revitalized with the advent of the “Light Food 2.0 Era”. According to data from Ele.me, the national light salad consumption increased by 63% in 2019, the order volume increased by 61%, and the number of consumers increased by 39%. From the perspective of the number of consumers, healthy light meals represented by salads are gradually showing a trend of popularity.

Data from Qichacha shows that there are currently 13,000 light food-related companies in my country. From 2017 to 2020, the number of registrations has increased significantly, and the cumulative number of new companies accounted for 88% of the total.

Since 2019, the new light food industry has shown two obvious trends:

1. The new and cutting-edge brands have risen again, quickly breaking the circle with the support of capital, leading light food consumption from the fitness, white-collar, and fashionable meal circles. In May and July 2020, Super Deer Team and Dong Chi successively received tens of millions of financing, becoming the representative brands of a new round of light food new forces.

2. The types of light food players are becoming increasingly diversified. Including KFC, McDonald’s, Yoshinoya and other traditional chain restaurants, sports and fitness brands represented by KEEP, and Internet catering brands represented by Ruixing. The diversification of the brand background injects fresh vitality into the light food market. From enhancing the taste of products to promoting the concept of “lightweight” life, and designing more personalized eating scenes, more players entered the game, which accelerated the cross-circle communication of light food consumption habits and strongly promoted mass consumption.

The hundreds of billions market supported by tens of thousands of companies can not be described as an exaggeration in the Red Sea. In terms of ingredients and form, the differences in light foods of various brands are very small. Except for a few brands that rely on intensive and seamless marketing to build awareness and reputation, most light food companies are still struggling with cost control and financing capabilities. . How to rely on unique product positioning to form repurchase and brand loyalty is a question that must be answered to make light food a long-term business.

In the current mainstream light food brands with high recognition, fitness meals with the fitness circle as the “core position” and low-calorie meals with light-weight people are the two most important positionings. It will also pay attention to scientific food ingredients, and will also reach consumers through various new retail channels, and build private domain traffic with the help of social media. Under different positioning, how will the actual operation mode be different? Which one is more likely to last for a long time? Let’s take the two light food brands favored by capital last year-Super Deer Team and Dong Chi as examples.

1. Super Deer Team

Super Deer Team was founded in April 2017. Relying on the founder’s years of accumulation in the fitness field, he chooses fitness meals as his main business direction. As of June 2020, Super Deer Team has exceeded 400 stores nationwide, with a market value of over 1 billion RMB.

Picture source: Beiguo.com

Faced with the serious homogeneity and unscientific formula of light food, Super Deer Team made every effort to improve product and efficacy research, hired international top nutrition instructors full-time, and brought together Chinese, Japanese, French, and Italian chefs for joint research and development. Through the ratio of ingredients, the amount of ingredients and calories are controlled within the range of fat reduction. The packaging of each product will be accurately marked with nutrients, reflecting full professionalism. Today, Super Deer Team has developed more than one hundred light food products, including light cut fruit and vegetable juice, muscle-increasing vitality bowl, super cold noodles, fat-reducing shaping series, shaping salad series and low GI spinach roll series.

Although he was born in the fitness circle, the Super Deer team did not limit its business to this circle. Super Deer Team takes fitness crowds as seed users, and through them influences a larger 500 million new Lohas group. The founder Mu Zilong has stated many times: Superpower focuses on fitness meals, but serves people who want to be healthy and slim. In the process of breaking the circle, the Super Deer Team has formed a four-level extension with dine-in and takeaway in stores as the core; group meals ordered by fitness venues, and customized exclusive packages and diet plans for users based on height, age, and weight. Business model.

The diversified business channel composition has brought vigorous vitality to the Super Deer team. Not long ago, they also tried to launch a takeaway business in hundreds of chain stores, such as enzyme fruit and vegetable juice, instant chicken breast, etc., to outline a richer eating scene for light meals.

2, don’t eat

Compared with the super deer team with strong fitness temperament, Dong Chi, which was also founded in 2017, impresses light cannibalism with pure delicacy. Dong Chi is advertised as a “subscription-based weight management brand”, and its biggest feature is the “dinner meal” of the popular snack-based meal replacement. Dongchi uses an online subscription model to freeze the prepared meals in bags and deliver them to their homes in the cold chain. Users can eat them after heating them in a microwave oven or boiling water. Dongchi has now developed more than 100 light meals. The combination of package forms includes three-day trial meal, 21-day commitment meal and 21-day light meal. It is delivered twice a week, and the average meal cost is close to the level of room temperature food.

Picture source: Dong Chi

Compared with other meal replacement brands, Dongchi pays more attention to food taste and is known as the “Oriental Michelin in fat-reducing meals.” In terms of product form, it covers a variety of Chinese dishes, including rice, ramen, vegetable meat rolls, soup, and folk snacks. In the formula, oil, salt, sugar and seasoning are not deliberately avoided. The color, fragrance and shape are all available, so that light food and card control are no longer difficult to adhere to.

In addition to taste, the personalized subscription system is another major feature that distinguishes Dongchi from other light food brands. In order to achieve true personalization, Dongchi has established a series of supporting services. When a consumer purchases a package, he needs to add a dietitian on WeChat and fill out a questionnaire for basic physical assessment; for his 21st meal, Dongchi will promise weight loss based on the evaluation results. The user checks in to eat every day, if it does not reduce the promised catties , Will pay 30% of the payment. Such “self-rigorous” service allows Dongchi to quickly gain the trust of consumers.

At present, Dongchi has hundreds of thousands of users, of which more than 20% are highly sticky users who have subscribed for more than 10 weeks.

Compared with most light food brands, the success of Super Deer Team and Dong Chi may be difficult to replicate. The founding team’s rich business practices, in-depth research on food culture and nutrition science, and accurate understanding and application of new retail and user operation strategies all make them unique from the beginning. However, Foodaily believes that the ability to attract the full help of the capital side is not only based on the charm of the founding team itself, but also the feasibility of the business model, whether it can be self-iterative and large-scale replication. For consumers, the key to building brand loyalty is not the price, but the good experience (good food, humanized service, positive influence on life philosophy) brought by consumption, and the final slimming effect. Super Deer Team and Dong Chi undoubtedly did this.

How can overseas brands play with light food?

Europe and the United States are the birthplaces of light food. What is the difference between the business strategy of light food brands there and the domestic ones? How do they impress increasingly discerning consumers? From them, what experience can domestic light food brands learn from?

1. American chain salad brand Sweetgreen

In March last year, the well-known American business magazine “Fast Company” released the “2020 Top 50 Innovative Companies in the World” list. After 2019, Sweetgreen once again ranks among the Top 20.

In the 13 years since its establishment, Sweetgreen has opened nearly 100 restaurants in eight states in the United States, and has raised nearly 500 million U.S. dollars in accumulated financing, and is now valued at 1.6 billion U.S. dollars. China’s early light food start-up brands mostly took Sweetgreen as an example. From product form to store decoration, all reveal the style of this “foreign master”.

Picture source: Barn Explosive Academy

Sweetgreen was founded in 2007. It is at a time when the American people are rethinking the disadvantages of traditional high-calorie fast food, and a new trend of healthy eating has formed. The founding team, plagued by junk food, aspires to become an explorer of American dietary transformation. After several attempts, it was finally decided to use vegetable salad as the main product, with fresh, organic and natural products as the basis.

Sweetgreen continues to deliver the brand image of kindness, charm, simplicity and nature. Driven by it, salad is firmly bound to the concepts of “green” and “organic”. Consumers believe that what they buy is not just a salad, but a healthy lifestyle. On Instagram, the most well-known social media in the United States, #Sweetgreen is already a very hot topic for a long time. It can be said that the salad will be popular in Europe, America, and even the world in the future, and Sweetgreen has contributed to it.

After summarizing various media reports, Foodaily summarized Sweetgreen’s business secrets into four points: professionalism and innovation in product development, creating a new paradigm of community life, ultimate user experience, and supply chain control. Through well-designed stores, inspirational brand stories, and diverse interactions with consumers, Sweetgreen has established a strong brand influence and product premiums.

Here we want to specifically mention Sweetgreen’s careful cultivation of the concept of light food consumption. Because in the United States at the time,A variety of dietary concepts are coming, aiming to fill the vacancy left by the traditional high-calorie diet after the retreat. How to quickly occupy the minds of consumers often determines how high the ceiling of a certain track will be.

In product development, Sweetgreen focuses on localized production. The small blackboard at the entrance of many stores will be written in chalk: “Red onion, Dagele farm in New York; organic baby spinach, fresh field farm in California…” Today, Sweetgreen has established cooperation with more than 2,000 small and medium-sized farmers and ranchers across the United States. The food supply in each store comes from 200-300 different suppliers. Such a decentralized supply system is not only a great test for quality and safety control, but also has little advantage in cost control. However, the high cost and high risk have been exchanged for the high trust of consumers and word of mouth.

In the store, Sweetgreen makes all items within sight a sustainable case. Not only are all tableware made of 100% biodegradable materials, but the lamps are high-efficiency energy-saving lamps, and the energy used in the store also comes from wind energy.

Outside the store, Sweetgreen uses a combination of education and activities to continuously strengthen the public’s impression. Since 2010, Sweetgreen has cooperated with some middle schools in Washington, DC to teach healthy eating and sustainable development courses. Every May, Sweetgreen will carry out green energy promotion activities, using biodegradable materials at the Sweetlife music festival organized by itself, and by the way, show its own healthy organic salad.

Picture source: mms.businesswire.com

At the end of February this year, Sweetgreen announced to the public that the company’s catering business will be fully carbon neutral in 2027 on the basis that all menus are 30% lower in carbon emissions than ordinary American meals. As we all know, the American concept of sustainability has long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and sustainability measures have a huge impact on the social image of companies and brands. As the leading brand of light food, Sweetgreen’s move will once again strengthen the brand positioning of “Responsible Light Life”.

2, Soup Stock Tokyo, Japan

Soup Stock Tokyo was founded in 19It is beneficial to the artistic accomplishment of the founder, Yuanshan Zhengdao. The Smile Group founded by Mr. Toyama not only owns soup stock tokyo, but also a second-hand consignment shop pass the baton, family restaurant 100 spoons, and tie brand giraffe tie, and many other fast-moving brands. He is well-known in the commercial field and is also an artist who has held numerous exhibitions in Japan and overseas. Under his simple and humble appearance, there is a passionate and sophisticated heart hidden.

Tang Chu incorporates a large number of Yuanshan’s ideas and creativity in the design concept. First of all, in terms of site selection, Tang Chu is mostly located in large shopping malls near railway stations and office buildings. Secondly, in order to get rid of the traditional impression of “old man’s favorite” and “soup-drinking” soup, from the color matching of ingredients, the selection of tableware, to the shop design, the “harmony” culture is cleverly integrated with the simple and fresh style. The simple log style and black and white tones highlight the colorful and attractive soup. In addition, Tang Chu often co-branded with artists to launch limited soup bowls and tableware, which consumers can earn through points or purchases, combining art and food vividly. In order to broaden the market, cater to the needs of more people and various new consumption models, Tang Chu has gradually expanded its online subscription and takeaway models in recent years, so that its products can reach more consumers.

Picture source: Soup Stock Tokyo

Precise positioning, refurbished menus, shops and tableware designs full of cultural taste, these constitute the success of the soup store. Light food is not only a vegetable salad, high-protein low-calorie, but also a reinvention and inheritance of the traditional diet. A bowl of soup has its own commercial value.

Summary

Light food is a product that conforms to the trend of the times. To provide people with healthy, fast and good eating experience food is the ultimate goal of the light food industry. The recovery of light food not only relies on competitive products and mature and stable business models, but also through young marketing methods, layers of broken circles, and seamless interaction with consumers, in order to quickly complete the brand’s mental implantation and Curing.

As more light food needs are tapped and released, more brands will definitely enter the game in the future. Whether it’s sorting out the outstanding domestic light food newcomers, or gaining insight into the operating characteristics of overseas light food brands, we all hope to give some light to the fansInspire and learn from.

China’s light food industry has gone through 8 years. Although there were twists and turns in the middle, driven by huge demand, it was finally getting better, showing a charming business charm.

The strong east wind is driving the hundreds of billions of light food market, and we are moving forward quickly.