Roasted cactus, roasted watermelon...all kinds of weird barbecues are popping up, and netizens are calling for help!

The "weird trend" in Chengdu's barbecue industry is getting more and more intense, from roasted cactus, lotus pods to watermelons. The video of "Jinx", a blogger on Xiaohongshu, has set off a wave of Internet sensations, and all kinds of weird barbecues have emerged one after another. However, can these weird barbecues really attract consumers? This article will explore the reasons and impacts behind this phenomenon. Readers are recommended to read this article to understand the new changes and challenges in the barbecue industry.

Grilled cactus, grilled lotus pods, grilled watermelons... Chengdu barbecue is really ahead of its time. In the past two days, a video by the Xiaohongshu store exploration blogger "Jinx" has gone viral. In the video, cacti, lotus pods, and watermelons are put on the grill and sprinkled with various barbecue ingredients.

The short 27-second video caused netizens in the comment section to go crazy, calling it too "explosive."

"Too crazy..."

"See how much his brows furrowed."

"I won't allow you to do this to the watermelon."

"If you take one bite, you'll be in a mess tomorrow."

…

However, there is no such thing as the most explosive, only more explosive. If you search for "weird barbecue" on major social platforms, you will find that roasted cactus is not uncommon. Bananas, longans, pineapples, durian, even ice cubes, sesame seeds...all kinds of weird barbecues appear frequently, which makes people frown.

01 Grilled cactus, lotus pods, icicles, sesame seeds...BBQ is taking a different approach

In Jinx's video, the first thing that appears is a few cacti as big as shoe soles, which are put on the grill after their thorns are plucked out. The grill chef flips them back and forth while evenly sprinkling chili powder, cumin and other grilling ingredients on them.

Under the open flame, the originally hard cactus quickly becomes "soft". What does the shiny, chili-covered cactus taste like? It's hard to imagine.

△Image source: screenshot of Xiaohongshu

After roasting the cactus, the chef took out a handful of lotus pods.

After the crooked lotus pod was placed on the grill, the chef picked up the oil brush next to it and brushed oil on the lotus pod, and then sprinkled barbecue ingredients on it. The operation was as fierce as a tiger, and it seemed that the lotus seeds in the middle were not yet cooked, but the roasted lotus pod was already finished and was quickly put into the plate.

The camera turns and a customer takes the roasted lotus pod and starts to chew it together with the seeds. This bite is probably full of sour, sweet, bitter, spicy and salty flavors.

△Image source: screenshot of Xiaohongshu

The highlight of the video is the grilled watermelon.

The long strips of watermelon are neatly placed on the grill. After a simple flip and quick sprinkling of ingredients, the grilled watermelon is ready to go. However, the watermelon has turned from pink to deep red.

△Image source: screenshot of Xiaohongshu

Do you think this is the ceiling of the weird barbecue world? Then you may underestimate the wild imagination and amazing execution of barbecue chefs.

On the social media platform, another Chengdu barbecue chef showed an upgraded version of the roasted banana, where he cut the banana in half and stuffed a few pieces of chocolate into it. The roasted banana mixed with the soft and sticky chocolate made the sweet combination suddenly full of fireworks.

There is also the baked frozen cake (a Sichuan specialty, similar to glutinous rice cake), which is praised by netizens as "the greatest invention in the barbecue world". It is made by grilling the soft and glutinous steamed frozen cake. After baking, it is bright red and has a strong aroma, but the inside is very bland.

In addition, in Guiyang, Suzhou and other places, there is a trend of baking rose buns this year. If you bake the pink rose-shaped buns for a little longer, you can see cracks on the "rose". There are also various baked buns, such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Patrick Star... These buns with special shapes, when baked in the oven, always attract a crowd of onlookers.

△Image source: screenshot of Xiaohongshu

In the Northeast, there is also roasted sesame. First, brush the grill skewers with oil, sprinkle sesame seeds evenly, and then follow the familiar grilling process, but after sprinkling, you will find that there are more sesame seeds falling on the side than sticking to the grill skewers. Compared with roasted sesame, roasted Northeast old popsicles and roasted ice cubes are more common. They are all brushed with barbecue hot sauce, sprinkled with black sesame seeds and colored sugar, and then they are ready to be served. But if the action is not fast enough, you will find that the old popsicles and ice cubes may have lost some "edges" when they are served.

In addition, there are mixed versions of barbecue, fruit + meat, longan, strawberry, jackfruit, mango, etc. are grilled with beef. For the more daring ones, there are fruit danpi + marshmallow, strawberry + tripe, kumquat + fat beef.

△Image source: screenshot of Xiaohongshu

After reading this series of videos on social platforms, to summarize briefly, the common ideas of strange barbecue are: ordinary ingredients + special shapes; using exotic ingredients for barbecue; combining ingredients that are completely different.

It is worth mentioning that many of the weird barbecues are not cheap. For example, a portion of grilled icicles at a night market costs 15 yuan. A grilled cactus at a barbecue restaurant costs 26 yuan, almost catching up with the price of beef cubes (30 yuan per portion). There are also grilled bananas for 6 yuan, kumquat beef for 10 yuan a bunch, and pineapple beef for 27 yuan...

02 Behind the strange barbecue is the anxiety of 330,000 barbecue restaurants

Faced with the endless stream of weird barbecues, most consumers frowned and cried out, "Help! What's wrong with barbecue?"

"The world has finally become what I imagined it to be."

"I can tolerate the others, but I can't tolerate Grilled Watermelon at all. Apologize to Watermelon, apologize to Grilled Watermelon, and apologize to the netizens."

"My cerebellum shrank the moment I saw the frog."

Some netizens even commented, "I will try it when I become mentally ill."

△Image source: Screenshots of comments from netizens on various social platforms

In fact, for barbecue stalls or barbecue restaurants, various exotic barbecues are not regular products of the store. Most stores just take advantage of consumers' curiosity and hope to attract more people to the store.

Judging from the playback data on various social platforms, Qi Ba BBQ has indeed attracted a lot of traffic.

Currently, the topic #EverythingCanBeBarbecued on Douyin has been played 2.87 billion times. Among the top 10 videos on this topic, 7 are bizarre barbecues. They include Squidward made of starch sausage, Pigman made of watermelon, high heels made of eggplant, frogs made of cucumbers...

△Image source: Screenshot of Douyin topic

According to Hubei Education News, at the beginning of this year, a local barbecue restaurant became popular after launching grilled icicles. The owner of the restaurant said that grilled icicles in the restaurant are free, but reservations are required. Grilled icicles also brought a lot of new customers to his small restaurant in the first two months.

But if we look deeper, what is reflected behind these weird barbecues is actually the anxiety of the barbecue restaurants.

In recent years, as market competition has become increasingly fierce, the homogeneity of barbecue products has become more and more serious, and it has become increasingly difficult to attract new customers.

According to Hongcan Big Data, as of July 2024, the total number of barbecue restaurants in China will exceed 330,000. According to Qichacha data, from January to May this year, 39,600 new barbecue-related companies were added, a year-on-year decrease of 30%. The number of companies with deregistration or revoked registrations reached 30,800, a year-on-year increase of about 28%.

The competition in the barbecue industry is becoming increasingly fierce, visibly.

Most of the stores launch strange barbecues in the hope of attracting attention. However, relying on consumers' curiosity to stimulate consumption is likely to be a one-time transaction. Moreover, these strange barbecues themselves are not cost-effective, so it is difficult to attract consumers to repurchase in the long term.

Red Canteen noted that many barbecue restaurants that have promoted strange barbecues will quickly remove related products from the shelves after the popularity has passed. Nowadays, many strange barbecues that once caused a stir on social media, such as grilled ice skates, have long been quietly removed from the shelves.

Back to reality, the simple and crude "everything can be grilled" may not be a truly effective product strategy. For the existing more than 330,000 barbecue restaurants, in the future, only comprehensive appeal from products to brands can truly impress consumers.