The replacement of old products with "new looks" has driven a new trend of gastronomy

I don't know when it started, the consumer market seems to have been pressed the accelerator button, and the endless new brands and new products are dazzling, and at the same time, they continue to stimulate people's desire
to consume.
In the face of this change, companies have to think about how to keep up with the pace of market changes and make old products constantly revitalized
.

Today, we will take the two mature categories of tangyuan and roasting as an example to discuss how traditional products should break through innovation
.

As a traditional snack with a long history, tangyuan has long been loved by everyone
.
In 1990, with the birth of the first quick-frozen rice balls, it was more convenient to enter thousands of households, and it broke through the boundaries of festivals and appeared on
our tables more and more frequently.

Of course, tangyuan also faces a problem common to all mature categories, that is, how to break through innovation
.
There is a company that has not only created a new category of rhubarb rice balls, but also has entered the vision of consumers across the country with the help of continuous product innovation in recent years, and has become an Internet celebrity brand
.

Text/Lv Cuiping

Find the selling point and create differentiated rhubarb rice dumplings

In the eyes of many people in the industry, Shandong Laizhou Jiale Food Co.
, Ltd.
(hereinafter referred to as "Jiale") is the first batch of Internet celebrity brands in the quick-frozen food industry, but Everyonele answers with facts, which is a misunderstanding
.

Ren Lina, marketing director of Jiale, told Frozen Weekly that as early as 1992, Jiale Food began to produce quick-frozen rice balls, which was the first batch of quick-frozen food manufacturers in China that developed at the same time as Sanquan
.
However, because it is only sold in some regions, it is not as famous as Sanquan
.

Rhubarb rice dumplings, which have become popular on the Internet in recent years, were actually launched
as early as the nineties of the last century.
According to Ren Lina, rhubarb rice is what we often call millet in cereals, which contains 8 kinds of amino acids needed by the human body and has high
nutritional value.
The northern region has always liked to eat rhubarb rice, so everyone came up with the idea
of using rhubarb rice to make rice balls.
After many comparisons and experiments, the varieties suitable for making rhubarb rice balls were finally selected, and a differentiated product - rhubarb rice balls
was successfully developed.

Once launched, rhubarb rice dumplings were very popular
with consumers.
However, because of the limited channel capacity of Jiale at that time, it was only sold in Shandong and never went out of Shandong
.

In the age of the internet, things have changed
.
With the development of Internet technology and cold chain logistics, the e-commerce dividend has given everyone the opportunity
to rise rapidly.

In 2017, on the basis of the original two flavors of black sesame and peanut, we optimized the product and launched two innovative flavors, goji peanut and walnut black sesame, and at the same time, further refined the selling point of the product - health, which allowed Happy rhubarb rice dumplings to cut the pulse of the times and step on the development node
.

In 2018, with the help of the outbreak of micro-business channels, rhubarb rice balls became popular
online.

Continue to innovate to make products that make consumers scream

With the differentiated single product rhubarb rice tangyuan became popular, Happy has also been making continuous efforts to strengthen the differentiated competitiveness
of products.
Following the rhubarb rice balls, Jiale also launched a variety of innovative rice balls such as Zhizhi yogurt rice balls, raw coconut latte, oat milk rice balls, popping pulp flowing chocolate, Musang King durian and so on, which were unanimously praised
by the industry.

"We want to develop products
that make consumers scream.
" Ren Lina said that the development of new products is not only to meet the psychological needs of consumers, but to exceed the psychological expectations of consumers, so that they can involuntarily "scream"
after tasting.

The innovative flavor of tangyuan developed by Jiale is also related to
its consumer group.
The main consumer group of Happy through online popularity is young people, who are willing to try early, so they must continue to innovate to maintain consumers' enthusiasm for the brand
.

It is understood that the product managers of Jiale are very young, and they will also cooperate with some research structures to analyze the hobbies and eating habits of young consumer groups through big data, so as to develop products
that are more suitable for young consumer groups.

For example, raw coconut latte rice balls are a taste
that young people like.
For 996 dozen workers, coffee is a life-sustaining artifact
.
However, black coffee is too bitter, and for the sake of taste, it is usually sweetened and milked, and the calories are greatly increased
.
Is there a way to retain the aroma of coffee while keeping it low in sugar and calories? The Coconut Latte Tangyuan is made of cold-pressed raw coconut puree with 0 lactose and a slight sweetness instead of sugar and coffee to achieve a balance
between taste buds and smell.

The same goes for
Musang King durian.
Everyone selects Musang King durian, and processes the durian meat into tangyuan filling, so that consumers can see the real durian meat, eat it full of pulp, and greatly satisfy.

"Genuine materials, to ensure product quality from the source, this is what Joy has been insisting on
.
" The rhubarb rice we use is selected from more than 60 kinds of rhubarb rice, and it is the most suitable for making rice balls from glutinousness, aroma to texture
.
We also cooperate with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, who provide quantitative, scientific and accurate evaluation criteria for our material selection through scientific experiments, so as to escort good products
.
Ren Lina said
proudly.

In addition, we will continue to optimize our products
based on consumer feedback.
"We will often read consumer comments, pay special attention to bad reviews, analyze the reasons for this feedback, and then constantly adjust the product so that the product is constantly optimized
.
" Ren Lina stressed that in any product, consumer reputation is the most important, and only products with good reputation can go further
.

Strengthen service and management to achieve brand leapfrogging

If good products have opened up the popularity of Happy Music, the other two initiatives have helped Happy move from a regional brand to a national brand
.

First of all, the company uniformly produces promotional copy and pictures to enhance the company's brand image
.
"At that time, both the company and the micro-business were in the exploration stage and had no experience
.
In addition, most of the micro-business groups are mothers, many have not learned to make drawings and copywriting, or do not have free time, we are uniformly produced by the company, which is convenient for forwarding, but also can better highlight the selling points of the product, enhance the company's image, and be well received
by everyone.
Ren Lina introduced that many micro-businesses, especially those that are relatively large, have special team operations, and there are special people responsible for copywriting and drawing
.
But in 2018, this approach of Happy was ahead of other brands and won a good reputation
.

Second, the company strictly controls the product price system
.
At that time, there were many brands that were micro-merchants, but Happy was able to stick to it and get better and better, and the most important point was to strictly control the price system
.
Some brands just sell goods to micro-merchants, and the micro-merchants themselves control the terminal retail prices, and it is easy to have a price war in order to sell more goods, which not only affects the company's image, but also makes no money
in the end.
Therefore, we agree on a unified product price with micro-merchants, maintain reasonable profit margins for the company and micro-merchants, promote healthy competition, and once it is found that micro-merchants reduce the price of products without authorization, they will cancel its agency rights, thereby avoiding internal friction
.

Since the popularity of Tangyuan in 2018, Joy has always adhered to this
.
At first, some people could not understand it, but then they gradually realized the benefits of
standardized management.
Nowadays, many Internet celebrity brands at the same time as Happy are no longer there, and Happy has been developing
healthily and benignly.

After catching the express train of micro-commerce, Jiale quickly went from a local brand to the whole country, and now Joy Tangyuan has no obvious regional in sales, "We can be regarded as seizing the opportunities of micro-commerce and emerging e-commerce, in order to grow into an emerging consumer brand
in a short period of time.
" Ren Lina said
.

Roasted and sold is a traditional Chinese noodle dish, also known as dry steaming, roasted plum, piggyback sale, etc.
, and it is said that it appeared
in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.
Depending on the region, the shape and filling are very different, but most of them are served as breakfast or afternoon refreshments
.
Compared with the staple food advantages of buns, steamed buns and dumplings, roast sales have always been in the position of "supporting role", and the market size is much
smaller.

However, this situation has changed
significantly in the last two or three years.
On the one hand, with the help of automated production equipment, a large number of enterprises are vying to get involved in burning and selling products, on the other hand, the "Internet celebrity wind" has also blown towards this traditional noodle dish, and new games and new channels have opened up new development space
for burning and selling.

Reporter/Liu Shengrong

The "involution" is intense, and the regional attribute is still obvious

As early as a few years ago, Frozen Weekly paid attention to the roast market, and at that time, the growth of sales of steamed dumplings and buns brought the roast sale as a partner food into the spotlight, attracting a large number of manufacturers to enter the market
.
Nowadays, after several years of development, there are countless enterprises in the industry, including Sanquan, Synear, Wan Chai Wharf, Anjing, Qianwei, Chia Tai, Yukang, Kanda, Zimi, Baixiang Fuxi and other large and small quick-frozen food enterprises, as well as restaurant chain brands such as Babi, retail chain brands such as Freshippo, as well as e-commerce brands such as Dahiti, and Internet celebrity brands
such as One Dog.

At the same time, companies are also increasing the publicity of burning and selling single products
.
On the same day, Yukang Food Double 11 once again recommended the star product "Hangzhou Laodi Burning" on its "Yufenhui" WeChat public account, and there were also very attractive preferential activities, and the response was very warm.

The heat of the burning market is also reflected in the
change in equipment demand.
Due to the characteristics of glutinous rice, hand-wrapped glutinous rice is not only easy to scald workers, but also the accuracy of each roasted filling is not easy to control, and the production efficiency and standardization degree are relatively low
.
Three years ago, during the investigation, the reporter noticed that many food machinery companies such as Shanghai Chengtao, Shanghai Shengyi, Chengdu Songchuan Lebobo, Chengdu Solatek and Chengdu Kanghe had launched two types of fully automatic molding equipment
.

A working principle similar to a dumpling machine, the dough used is similar to steamed dumplings, using vacuum filling, one-time pressing and molding, and also equipped with automatic bean ordering (green beans burned and sold) process, which can be wrapped more than 100 pieces in a minute
.
The other is to press the dough into a cylinder, pour the filling into the cylinder, cut it through a cutter and then shape it, the main machine is multi-purpose, can produce a variety of products
such as roasted and sold, soup buns, raw fried buns and so on.

With the influx of a large number of enterprises into the selling market, the surge in demand not only makes fully automatic equipment more sophisticated, but also promotes the sales growth
of semi-automatic decimeter quantitative small equipment.

Manager Yang of Shanghai Shengyi Machinery said that at present, the demand for fully automatic equipment and semi-automatic equipment is relatively large
.
The semi-automatic machine mainly separates the fillings precisely into the dough and then wraps
them by hand.
"Now there are many customers who do roast sales, including quick-frozen food manufacturers, restaurant chains, and various small shops
.
Large-scale manufacturers mainly choose fully automatic equipment, and some pursue the effect of manual packaging and choose decimeter quantitative equipment
.
”

Generally speaking, when a product grows into a large item, it will soon face the problem
of product homogenization and price war.
Today, selling has become a must-have item for many businesses, and they face the same dilemma, but with some differences
.

Mr.
Yan, a frozen food merchant in Hunan Province, has been making steamed fried dumplings for many years and his performance has been good
.
Three years ago, Frozen Weekly interviewed Mr.
Yan about the market, and in his opinion, half of the channels for roasting and steaming dumplings overlap, such as steaming for breakfast
.
Steamed fried dumplings are a large item of quick-frozen noodle rice, and its rapid development has also driven the sales of roasted sales
.
However, referring to the current burning market, Mr.
Yan said, "Now the wholesale market is fighting for prices, one is lower than the other, the volume is very strong, and the sales are declining"
.

Manager Zhang, the person in charge of the business of a burning and selling manufacturer in Henan, also sighed: the value of burning and selling goods is not high, and now the price of glutinous rice is also rising, and the price of products cannot rise, and the market competition is very fierce and difficult to do
.

Manager Zhang introduced that at present, burning sales are still regional products, and production and consumption are in the southern market
.
In Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, Hunan, Henan and other places, there are some enterprises
with large burning and selling capacity.
However, on the whole, the market size of burning is not large enough, and it is not a large item
in the product line of most companies.

Innovative gameplay, traditional roasting and selling into Internet celebrity food

The serious "involvement" of the market, on the one hand, confirms the continuous rise of burning and selling popularity, on the other hand, it also prompts enterprises to start looking for new breakthroughs
.
In the past two years, many new changes
have taken place in terms of specifications, taste, dough, cooking methods, sales channels and consumption scenarios.

First of all, the product specifications are more abundant, according to the consumption habits of various markets, different specifications of burnt sales, for example, 60-65 grams / piece, as breakfast; 70g/pcs, take the group meal channel, etc
.
"In the past, there were more 50 grams / piece on the e-commerce platform, and then many companies did more promotions without increasing the price, and now there are more 55 grams / piece
.
" Shanghai Chengtao Machinery Manager Xie introduced, as for the 30 grams / piece of mini burning, although some companies try, but currently willing to do not much, because a piece of equipment a minute to form more than 100, if you do small burning, the production capacity is still relatively low
.

In terms of burning and selling skins, many companies have also made innovations
.
For example, microwave-heatable paper skins are sold and the change of cooking methods has further extended the consumption scene and can cover a wider range of user groups
.
On the hot selling list of the Hema platform, paper skin burning sales continue to dominate the first place
.

In terms of taste, it is not only simple glutinous rice mixed with meat or vegetables, it has become rich, and it can cover almost everything, such as shiitake mushrooms, dried plum vegetables, sausages, salted egg yolks, seafood, cheese, black fungus, etc
.
, both classic and innovative tastes.

It is worth noting that some emerging brands, starting from the consumer side, reverse the supply chain, combining differentiated products, excellent taste, perfect supply chain processes and online promotion, providing new ideas
for the innovation of burning and selling this traditional product.

Take the Internet red roast brand "A Dog" as an example, this brand that has only been established for three years is handmade as the core, focusing on "big" and rich
taste.
The volume of one roast is comparable to two eggs, and the filling is very full, both classic and innovative
.
In order to ensure the taste, the workmanship is also very particular, for example, the size of the diced meat, bamboo shoots and egg yolk in the three-ding egg yolk roast sale, the origin of the glutinous rice and the humidity after steaming, the weight, folds and bottom diameter and height of each roast have standards
.
In terms of channels, it has been rapidly promoted through e-commerce platforms such as live streaming and goods
.
In the supply chain, the delivery time
is shortened with the help of multiple front-end warehouses for nearby delivery.
From 2019 to the present, "A Dog" has been an online hot sale
almost every year.

China Food News(November 24, 2022, Version 05)

(Responsible editor: Qiu Sisi)