2015 was a hot year for catering O2O market. In a series of big news articles about the industry, such as the suspicion of huge financing and the rumors of merger, various media often analyze a situation: Does catering O2O have to monopolize the market first by constantly burning money to subsidize, and then talk about profit after occupying the position? Zhang Xuhao, Ele. me's chief executive, once bluntly told a reporter from Southern Metropolis Daily: "Whoever thinks about profit first will lose!"
In the era of Internet business, "burning money" is not a derogatory term. The "price war", which was once widely criticized in the traditional business field, is slowly going on in a more extreme way. The traditional catering industry has existed for thousands of years, but whether it can maintain the "sustainable" growth of the product after "acquiring users" at any cost through "O2O"? Has become the most concentrated issue in the industry in this era. In Changsha, a startup called Hunan Orange Box E-commerce is thinking and acting on this issue, with a product called Food Jiandao.
"After so many years in the catering industry, I have always had a complex there," Sun said. "Shanghai has Ajisen Ramen, Zhejiang has Grandma's, Sichuan has Haidilao, and Hunan is also famous for its food, but there seems to be no one in China that can be called a famous catering brand."
Since 2013, Sun Juehong, a catering "veteran" working for 9 years, began to prepare to find opportunities from the "future of catering industry", hoping to create a well-known catering brand in Hunan.
At that time, Wang Leming was in Yueyang with "pot boy machine" to do restaurant chain business, this efficient food production mode made Sun Juehong feel very interesting, he investigated the "Ajisen Ramen" and "Little Sheep", "Xiabu Xiabu" and other brands, more and more think that a good restaurant brand, should be to do subtraction, subtraction is not to reduce the quality of the food itself, But to simplify the production process in a more scientific way. The claypot machine was an interesting experiment, and Sun Juehong invited Wang to Changsha, hence the "Mango Jubilee Rice".
In Sun Juehong's view, Mango Jubilee Meal is the "future" catering industry model he could have imagined in 2013: diners order food through a Web page and 400 phone calls, and Mango Jubilee Meal has a dedicated delivery team to deliver food to customers on time. In prototype, this model is almost exactly the same as the current popular ordering App. In essence, it is already a kind of O2O, except that the ordering form of phone and website is less efficient than App.
Rather than bring the Mango Jubilee Fan upgrade to the mobile Internet in 2014, Sun and Wang halted the project at the beginning of the year -- having pre-empted the problem that so many ordering apps now face: the inability to make money. In Sun Juehong's opinion, this is not a simple problem that can be solved by the method of "burning money first to occupy the market, then considering the profit". The way of food delivery determines that it will be a mode supported by "manpower". However, the random change of catering market demand is large, and the frequency of idle and busy can not be adjusted, so it is easy to cause the waste of labor.
Wang Leming explains it this way: "When the meal order is crowded, the meal order will be idle, and the final cost of food delivery will be transferred to the consumers, forming a drag. If we do not solve this problem, this type of product will go to two extremes, the bigger the business, the more losses until self-extinction, or the cost pressure after the dominant company to consumers, in essence, these are not benign products."
But "Mango Jubilee Meal" huge user demand and market response, let them feel that the direction is right. Two months later, Sun decided to change the name from "Xiifan Catering Management Co., LTD." to "Canteen to catering Management Co., LTD." He came up with a new idea from the vending machine in the office building: "Why can't we also put a food machine in every office floor? If this machine has heating and insulation function, then we can put the food into heat preservation in advance, save labor cost, and provide office workers with warmer food. After all, take-out food delivery also needs to go through the torment of distance and time, which will lead to the decline of food quality.
This seemingly simple idea was not so easy to implement. In March 2014, Jianzhi commissioned a vending machine manufacturer in Changsha to produce the first generation of food taking machines. After several delays, the company handed over two machines with very different functions and no way to use them. They decided to go to Shenzhen to find a more suitable solution, but were disappointed after some research. "At that time, we heard that Shenzhen had introduced a foreign advanced equipment which cost 120,000 yuan, but the result was quite different from our needs," Wang said.
In the case of machines, they had to look for other times. In March 2015, Sun Juehong went to Dongguan and met Liu De 'an, a young man she had not seen for many years. He is the chairman of Dongguan Xianghua Hardware Technology Co., LTD., an electronic equipment manufacturer with strong research and development, and one of Huawei's suppliers. Liu Dian heard Sun Juehong's idea, feel very interested, immediately put forward to join, with their own team responsible for the research and development of equipment. In April, Yu Yi, chairman of Hunan Ruizhou Technology Co., LTD., and a friend of Sun's, heard about the plan and decided to join the team, responsible for the development of network technologies such as server building and App development. So far, "food to" this catering O2O industry Xiangjun formed by several partners. In a short period of 3 months, the second generation of food machine was developed. It was not until September 2015 that the third generation of food machine with more advanced functions came out. The project also received 5 million yuan seed capital and began to be tested in Changsha Shuntian Wealth Center office building. At the height of the battle between Ele. me and Meituan, many people asked Sun: "Should we expand faster? Or the opportunity will slip away!" Sun and his team, however, decided to suspend testing after two months to continue developing the fourth-generation machine and invest heavily in building a factory to build a central kitchen that belongs to the dining room.
"They may think I don't understand the Internet thinking, don't know 'first up and then strong, small step fast, fast iteration' and so on, but I think this is a misunderstanding," Sun said. "I think the Internet thinking said fast, should be on the basis of the business logic and the prototype of the product has been very clear, can quickly copy and expand. If the business logic and the prototype of the product are not perfect, it is not right to pursue speed. If a bad thing is multiplied by a hundred, it is a hundred times worse. This is not right." Sun Juehong at this time to realize that the nature of "food to" is no longer a catering management company, he got inspiration from the third generation of food machine color, the company was renamed "Hunan orange Box E-commerce Co., LTD."
Wang Leming, one of the partners, said: "During the 2-month test, we gained valuable experience that consumers are very sensitive to the quality and price of dishes. If we allow small restaurants or partners without supervision, it will be a great harm to the brand. Therefore, we decided to establish our own food research and development center and reliable central kitchen to form a supply and demand closed loop. From raw materials and processes to ensure the quality of the dishes served, and through bulk purchase to reduce the cost of dishes, lower prices." "Closed loop does not mean closed, we will definitely be open in the future," Yu Yi, another partner, further explained. "We first established a self-standard through the central kitchen. After having this self-standard, we will definitely open up soon and welcome recognized and trusted brand partners to cooperate with us."
In mid-April 2016, after two years of iterative research and development, 100 kiosk to intelligent food collection terminals will be put into operation in office buildings such as Huijin International, Shuntian Wealth Center, Huameiou and Biyuntian in Changsha. For the first time, office workers in Changsha will have the chance to eat a good-quality, warm office lunch without having to wait.
"This model can be accepted in Changsha, and we will go to the whole country, which is something that can be quickly picked up," Sun said. "In my heart, I really expect it to go out faster and become a representative of the Hunan food Army."
