Chinese fast food in the cracks： white-collar workers spit too much, and restaurant companies don’t earn much.

　　Can you get an affordable and delicious working meal when you work in an office building in the business district every day?

　　In recent years, with the rise of the new consumption track, new modes such as on-site frying, weighing and self-selection, and small bowls of vegetables have been born, and Chinese fast food has become the choice of many office workers.

　　The Red Star Capital Bureau noted that according to the data of "Consumer Behavior Preference for Chinese Fast Food Consumption" released by Euromonitor International in September 2020, the proportion of white-collar office workers in the whole Chinese fast food consumption population was as high as 46%.

　　In this context, many Chinese fast food chain brands have emerged in the industry, such as Country Base, Mr. Rice, Country Chicken, Kung Fu, King Yonghe, Shunwangji, Old Uncle and so on.

　　With the rapid development of Chinese fast food brands, recently, online consumers’ comments that Chinese fast food is too expensive have also aroused many people’s discussion and resonance.

　　Urban office workers

　　Can’t afford Chinese fast food?

　　Under the general trend of consumption upgrading, Chinese fast food is developing towards healthy cooking food, on-site cooking methods, brand characteristics and leisure dining environment.

　　Convenience, quickness, health and a good environment … may be the reason why many office workers choose Chinese fast food.

　　Is Chinese fast food expensive?

　　Due to the differences in economic development levels in different regions, Red Star Capital Bureau mainly selects popular Chinese fast food brands in Shanghai and Chengdu, and calculates them according to the standard of one person, one meat, one vegetable and one soup.

　　In Shanghai, 42 yuan’s meal stung the stomachs of office workers.

　　In Shanghai, Red Star Capital Bureau selected three popular dishes of Chinese fast food head brands: Mr. Rice, Laoxiang Chicken and Kungfu.

　　According to the standard of "one meat, one vegetable and one soup", Mr. Rice’s popular dishes are matched, and the price of a single meal is 36 yuan; The popular dishes of Laoxiang chicken are matched, and the price is in 46 yuan; The popular package price of real kung fu starts from 42 yuan.

　　According to the standard of 42 yuan/Meal, if you calculate 22 working days a month, lunch will cost a total of 924 yuan, and if you add dinner to calculate two working meals a day, it will cost 1848 yuan.

　　What kind of consumption level is this? According to the data published on the website of Shanghai Municipal People’s Government, the per capita disposable income of Shanghai urban residents in 2022 was 84,034 yuan, with an average of 7,003 yuan per month.

　　Spending on working meals alone accounts for nearly 30% of disposable income.

　　According to the per capita consumption expenditure, the per capita consumption expenditure of Shanghai urban residents in 2022 was 48,111 yuan, with an average of 4,009 yuan per month.

　　According to the estimate of working meal expenditure of 1848 yuan/month, this expenditure accounts for nearly half of residents’ consumption expenditure.

　　Two working meals a day in 42 yuan, the consumption in Shanghai is really not low.

　　In Chengdu, 25 yuan’s working meals are also not cheap.

　　In Chengdu, Red Star Capital Bureau selected three popular dishes of Chinese fast food head brands: Mr. Rice, Country Base and Shunwangji.

　　Similarly, according to the standard of "one meat, one vegetable and one soup", Mr. Rice’s popular dishes are matched, and the price of a single meal is 25 yuan; The price of popular packages in rural areas is 24 yuan; Shunwangji popular products are matched, and the price is 29 yuan.

　　On the whole, according to the standard of "one meat, one vegetable and one soup", the price of a Chinese fast food is between 20 and 30 yuan. According to the standard of 25 yuan/Meal, if you calculate 22 working days a month, you will need to spend 550 yuan for lunch, and 1100 yuan if you add two working meals a day for dinner.

　　According to the data of Chengdu Municipal Bureau of Statistics, in 2022, the per capita disposable income of Chengdu urban residents was 54,897 yuan, with an average of 4,575 yuan per month.

　　According to the estimate of working meal expenditure of 1100 yuan/month, this expenditure accounts for about a quarter of disposable income.

　　According to the per capita consumption expenditure, in 2022, the per capita consumption expenditure of Chengdu urban residents was 32,171 yuan, with an average of 2,681 yuan per month.

　　According to the estimate of working meal expenditure of 1100 yuan/month, this expenditure accounts for over 40% of residents’ consumption expenditure.

　　Whether in Shanghai or Chengdu, it is really difficult to realize the freedom of Chinese fast food, and it is not difficult to understand why there is a discussion on the Internet about "I can’t afford Chinese fast food with a monthly income of 20,000".

　　Office workers, the budget for eating is really not that high.

　　According to the data of per capita consumption expenditure in 2022 released by the National Bureau of Statistics, residents spend about 30.5% of their consumption expenditure on food, tobacco and alcohol.

　　According to this ratio, in 2022, the total expenditure of Shanghai urban residents on food, alcohol and tobacco will be about 1228 yuan/month, and that of Chengdu urban residents will be about 818 yuan/month.

　　This also shows to some extent that most people don’t have that much budget for food.

　　How do office workers view lunch consumption? The Red Star Capital Bureau has compiled relevant reports on white-collar workers’ budget for working meals in recent years, and "expensive" is the key word for white-collar workers to vomit.

　　According to the survey report on the living conditions of white-collar workers in 2019 released by Zhaopin, more than 60% of the white-collar workers’ lunch expenses are controlled within 20 yuan, followed by the budget of 21-30 yuan, accounting for 27.64%. For working meals, affordability and satiety are the core requirements.

　　According to the data of "China Catering Industry Development Status and Market Research and Analysis Report in 2022" released by Ai Media Consulting, among the acceptable prices of Chinese fast food for white-collar workers in China in 2021, 41.5% of the respondents chose 21-30 yuan (including 30 yuan) and 40.9% chose 10-20 yuan (including 20 yuan).

　　It can be seen that below 30 yuan is the choice of most white-collar workers, while less than 4% of the respondents can accept the price of working meals above 40 yuan.

　　In addition, according to the data of "China Catering Industry Development Status and Market Research and Analysis Report in 2022" released by Ai Media Consulting, in 2021, 54.5% of the white-collar workers in China thought that Chinese fast food needed improvement, and 50.5% chose price adjustment.

　　In other words, more than half of the respondents think that the price of Chinese fast food is high and needs to be adjusted.

　　Although "it feels expensive", many office workers have to choose "compromise" under various objective factors.

　　According to the data of Consumer Behavior Preference for Chinese Fast Food released by Euromonitor International in September, 2020, the main reasons why consumers choose Chinese fast food are commuting, busy work and no time to cook.

　　In this way, the budget is limited, and there is no time to cook by themselves. In the face of Chinese fast food that is not cheap, white-collar workers can only "unable to vomit".

　　On the one hand, consumers are voicing that Chinese fast food is expensive and losing the freedom of Chinese fast food; On the other hand, Chinese food chains are also complaining, indicating that money is not easy to earn.

　　Chinese fast food enterprises

　　Low net profit rate

　　According to public information, the average net interest rate of the old uncle, the old chicken and the rural base in the past three years is less than 4%. According to the data of China Hotel Association, the overall net profit rate of domestic catering industry is around 10%, and the net profit rate of Chinese fast food is obviously low.

　　The reason why it is difficult to "make money" is that the "three mountains" of rent, raw materials and labor in the catering industry have overwhelmed enterprises.

　　Most white-collar workers working in CBD office buildings have a short lunch break, and they can accept the scope of walking to the restaurant, which is basically concentrated in the shops on the first floor of the office building, or the negative floor of the shopping mall adjacent to the office building.

　　Chain catering brands choose to open stores in such a place with a large flow of people and a fixed consumer base, and the store rent will inevitably not be low. Moreover, in order to provide diners with sufficient dining area, they open hundreds of square meters of stores.

　　Doing business in such a land-intensive place naturally costs consumers. Narrow-door dining eye data shows that the craziest and most exaggerated people to open stores in shopping malls are Ma Jiyong, Hefulao Noodles and Chen Xianggui, who have more than 70% stores in shopping malls.

　　Like Yoshinoya, a Japanese fast food brand, half of its stores are located in shopping malls, and 20.2% and 34.1% of its stores are located in shopping malls, which is already a low proportion of catering brands.

　　Here, the Red Star Capital Bureau takes the rural base as an example to make a concrete analysis.

　　According to the prospectus of the rural base, from 2019 to 2022, the revenue of the rural base was 3.257 billion yuan, 3.161 billion yuan, 4.618 billion yuan and 4.706 billion yuan respectively; In the same period, the net profit was RMB 80 million,-2.424 million, RMB 110 million and RMB 30 million respectively.

　　Obviously, the net profit of an enterprise is like riding a "roller coaster". In 2020 and 2022, the profit will drop sharply, and in 2020, it will be in a state of loss.

　　From the perspective of the cost of rural base, the prospectus shows that from 2019 to 2022, the above three costs of rural base all showed an increasing trend. In 2022, its raw materials and consumables, staff costs, property rent and related expenses were 2.02 billion yuan, 1.174 billion yuan and 132 million yuan respectively, accounting for 42.9%, 24.9% and 2.8% of the income in the same period respectively.

　　In other words, for every income from 10 yuan, the rural base will spend more than 7 yuan’s money on raw materials, labor and rent.

　　However, there are some reasons for the high cost. The mode of instant frying, which is the mainstay of Chinese fast food such as rural base, has raised the cost of raw materials and labor to a certain extent.

　　At the same time, the direct marketing mode of rural base also makes its labor cost high. The data shows that by the end of 2022, there were 8,402 full-time employees and 1,740 part-time employees paid by the hour in rural areas.

　　It can be seen that Chinese fast food represented by rural base is really difficult to make money.

　　Will Chinese fast food chain brands that can’t make money improve their profitability by raising prices?

　　If so, this may be another bad news for office workers.

　　summarize

　　Consumers are faced with Chinese fast food that is really not cheap, and catering enterprises are facing a situation of low profits, which also reflects the contradictions and difficulties faced by the Chinese fast food industry at present. Let office workers eat an affordable and delicious working meal, and all parties need to seek an optimal solution. (Chengdu Business Daily-Red Star Journalist Liu Wei)