The Dilemma Of Dining Enterprises: Takeaway And Save Themselves, Do They Go To War Or Not?

At noon on March 2nd, ah Jing, who was working in CBD, Guangzhou, received lunch from the staff of the dining hall downstairs, including steak, lettuce and rice, and a bowl of soup. "It's quite light every day, but it can be understood in a special period."

Ah Jing worked in the financing department of a Real Estate Company. He used to eat out for more than 3 days a week. But since returning to work in February 17th, he has basically solved the problem of stomach in his office every day. Although the company has its own dining hall, the company's administration has temporarily chosen a more convenient and flexible way of ordering meals.

In the face of the sudden drop in the number of tourists caused by the outbreak and numerous restrictive requirements, many catering enterprises stop business and stop their losses, or turn to other takeaway formats such as takeaway, group meals, self promotion and semi finished products retail.

"Business meals increased after the epidemic. In the past, more enterprises in the form of subsidies for employees to solve their own meals, chose to sign a meal agreement with us. However, due to the impact of the current epidemic, there are no business activities or large meetings, resulting in fewer temporary orders. Guangzhou restaurant official told reporters.

Chen Min, vice president of real Kung Fu company, told the twenty-first Century business news reporter that the real business is expected to decrease by at least 70% in the first quarter. In order to cope with the impact, the company actively promotes the promotion of self catering, takeaway and group ordering businesses. "At present, the proportion of contactless takeover and takeaway business has risen to 35% and 45% respectively. Among them, the performance of group subscription is worthy of attention.

But looking at the whole industry, the practical impact of these self-help measures is very limited. According to the second round of industry survey conducted by the China Hotel Association in from February 21st to 23rd, although takeaway has become the preferred way of self-help for many food enterprises, the total number of takeaway orders for 55% of the catering enterprises has dropped by more than 80% over the same period of the whole industry. For many catering companies, takeaway sales are just a drop in the bucket.

Save oneself for a drop in the ocean

According to the survey by the China Hotel Association, during the Spring Festival (thirty - fifteen of the Lunar New Year), the sales enterprises accounted for 88% of the year-on-year decrease in the revenue of 80% over the same period, and 49% of the catering companies did not carry out the takeaway business during the Spring Festival. However, under the cold winter, the catering industry has launched a self rescue mode. At present, takeaway is the preferred proportion of 29%, followed by providing group meal booking business, accounting for 20%; the proportion of providing food for lunch, non contact ordering and food processing business accounts for 17%, 16% and 4% respectively. But overall, takeaway orders accounted for only 11% of the year-on-year increase in meal enterprises.

In order to meet the needs of first-line epidemic prevention and control personnel and employees of enterprises and institutions after resuming work, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Dongguan, Foshan and other places have launched different public welfare allocation platforms since February 5th.

Only one week in advance, some days or even one day, the demand can be provided to the catering enterprises with group reservation service, so that the problem of morning, noon, supper and night snack can be solved. As for what to eat, frugal people can negotiate with their catering enterprises according to their budgets, and finally distribute them to the designated locations.

This way of dining has a long history. In the past, most of the suppliers were schools, enterprises and institutions, and the suppliers should have corresponding qualifications before they could provide services. However, under the new crown epidemic situation, the catering industry has been hit hard, so local governments and trade associations have relaxed the requirements, so that more catering enterprises can carry out such services and reduce losses as far as possible.

Taking Guangdong Province as an example, in February 15th, the Guangdong food and Beverage Service Industry Association issued a notice to ensure the resumption of production, catering and supply services, and to make an appointment for takeaway service. It was advocated that the resumption enterprises should make collective appointments, merchants should prepare safe meals ahead of time, the third party platform would send meals centrally, and the resumed enterprises would organize the distributed meals for employees.

At the same time, it also announced the list of the first batch of Guangzhou booking network ordering enterprises, and 50 restaurants, such as Kung Fu, KFC, pizza hut, Guangzhou restaurant, Tao Taoju, pastry king and guest language, were selected. The notice also requested that the order distribution be provided by the US group, hungry and Shun Feng Logistics, and the catering enterprises themselves and the platform side will complete the distribution service together.

A person in charge of catering business told reporters that such a list could be interpreted as opening a green channel for catering enterprises, because they all need to have a certificate before they can make a group meal.

"However, as far as the current situation is concerned, the platform brings us more orders than our own channels." The above responsible person in charge of catering business said that because the platform generally only announced the ordering contact method, some of them might have the order function, but basically there was no promotion.

Moreover, group meals have more restrictions on cuisine. A Western-style restaurant operator admitted that, because Chinese people are still used to Chinese food and drink, the group meal has a natural barrier for Western food and drink. "It is impossible for employees to eat Cola Chicken Wings for five days a week, so we will not promote group booking as a key point. Most of them are temporary items with a large volume of business activities. Our business department will talk about some preferential prices.

Is regiment meal a life-saving straw?

The epidemic stirs up the catering market, but not everyone is in the market. Fish farmers, 99 Fen restaurants and other chain restaurants have made it clear that the company does not carry out the service for the time being. Western style restaurants generally do not have the strength to promote, while some small and medium-sized catering enterprises are holding the mentality of "multiple channels and selling more than one single".

However, some catering enterprises have great expectations for the group meal market. Guangzhou restaurant official told reporters that the company has been carrying out a business meal catering business, for trade fairs, banks, corporate units and other enterprises for meals. After the outbreak, many enterprises have provided lunch demand for their employees before resuming work.

For the group customers, the Guangzhou restaurant will provide each 30-50 yuan meal menu for reference, and can choose to order by month, week or day. The transportation of meals mainly includes customer self mention or third party distribution (such as home delivery). Some of the more close ones (for example, in the same commercial body) will arrange catering outlets to serve meals directly in the incubator.

However, the profit rate of group meal business is lower than that of starting food and general takeaway. "Raw material procurement for food supply is not the same as raw material purchase, but enterprises need more manpower to carry out sub packing, packing, logistics and so on, and the cost of dining is relatively higher." The above Guangzhou restaurant responsible person said.

Although the cost is not low, group meal has always been a more important business. According to Chen Min, when the "5+1" brand development strategy was implemented, the group incubated the brand "Kung Fu ordering" of the group catering business, and invested in the production and distribution plant supporting the group's business (Dongguan Dongcheng and Guangzhou Panyu assembly plant). The situation has also maintained a good momentum of growth.

During the epidemic period, the Kung Fu group catering business was mainly aimed at enterprises, institutions and government departments after resumption of production. "At present, there are a lot of orders that have been transferred from the government to the rest assured food distribution platform. There are hundreds of small businesses, hundreds of thousands of them. From the quantity of the documents, we can see that the food gap of the resumed businesses is still very large." Chen Min said.

In addition to the reason that "too much volume is too big to do", many catering enterprises feel that "no match" and choose to give up group meal business automatically. The 2019 China food and beverage industry report shows that raw materials, rents and labor costs are the three highest cost accounts for catering enterprises, and they have continued to rise in the past three years.

Under the epidemic situation, the catering enterprises lost nearly 90% of their revenues, and at the same time suffered a lot of fixed expenses, such as labor costs and rent, and huge losses caused by raw materials. Cash flow problems have become the biggest problem facing the catering industry. According to the latest survey by the China Hotel Association, there are only a few enterprises that can hold more than 3 months in liquid funds, accounting for only 9%. Cash flow accounts for 31% of the 1-2 month meal enterprises, and 27% of the catering enterprises are unable to continue to support them.

"Due to the impact of the epidemic, consumer demand has changed dramatically, and the demand for restaurants has declined, and demand for restaurants has been increasing rapidly. In Chen Min's view, who can better survive at this time when catering enterprises can better and faster satisfy customer needs?

It is reported that the proportion of real food business has dropped to 20%, and the contactless takeaway business has risen to 35% and 45% respectively. However, Chen Min believes that the adjustment of the business structure is a product of a special period and is not necessarily a long-term outcome. "The development direction of the catering industry in the future should be comprehensively judged according to the situation of consumption recovery and people's lifestyle changes after the outbreak."

A Jing told reporters that the company canteen is expected to recover a limited service after a week. Compared with the group meal, the takeaway autonomy and selectivity are stronger, but the hall food is always the best flavor. "Wait until the epidemic is over, and then eat it again."

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