Why is “unconventional” catering so popular?

After a busy day at work, workers inevitably don't want to cook because they have to go through a series of actions such as washing vegetables, cooking, and cleaning up. It is precisely because of this "wild way" catering that this article analyzes its model and current situation. Let's take a look.

After a busy day at work, many young people still have to wash vegetables, cook and clean up after get off work, which is a psychological burden for them.

“Even though I know that cooking by myself saves money and is healthier, I still don’t have enough motivation to cook. In the end, most of the time I just collapse on the sofa and order a random takeout meal,” said consumer Yifan.

Soon, a new problem arose. He had tried almost all the takeaway brands near his company and home, especially healthy light meals. "I just ordered the same few every day, and I was about to vomit." Every day when it was time for dinner, he would browse the takeaway platforms, but he had no idea what to eat to satisfy his healthy, delicious and rich dietary needs. Yifan was very troubled.

Until she accidentally saw a private chef light meal brand on Xiaohongshu, which provides light meal delivery service for 2 meals a day, 20 days a month, to consumers across Shanghai.

In the notes released by this light food brand, the pictures of the dishes look homely and healthy, and the portions are just right - just what Yifan needs. The slogan also hits Yifan's heart: "Feed clean food to your body, You are what you eat."

Yifan was immediately attracted by the idea and placed an order immediately. Soon he began to enjoy delicious and healthy meals without having to think too much.

1. Private chef light meals that are not cheap

Around 10 a.m. every day, Yifan's lunch and dinner are delivered together in simple insulated bags. Through the transparent plastic lid, you can see the simply cooked and seasoned food neatly stacked in a kraft paper-colored disposable lunch box. On the bag is a thermal paper-printed menu of the day and the slogan that moved Yifan.

Yifan's unique "takeaway" successfully attracted her colleagues. Soon, three people in their small team ordered meals from this private chef light food brand with Yifan: "This way, the shipping cost is shared and it can be cheaper."

However, the cheapness Yifan mentioned is only "cheap" compared to when she orders food alone. The price of private chef light meals is actually not cheaper than ordinary takeout.

Even if you choose package A in the picture, a meal will cost nearly 35 yuan excluding shipping costs. If you choose package C, plus shipping costs, the average meal will cost more than 50 yuan - much more expensive than ordinary takeout.

In addition to providing three sets of meals, this private chef light meal brand does not provide more refined set meal services for other needs of consumers, such as adjusting ingredients for consumers with allergies or dietary restrictions. In other words, as long as the same set meal is selected, everyone has the same recipe.

If you want to satisfy your personal needs for customized meals, there are private chef brands on Xiaohongshu founded by "professional nutritionists" who claim to be able to provide recipes for thousands of people. Consumers can tell the service staff what they like and adjust the recipes in a timely manner. However, such services are naturally more expensive and usually have more full schedules.

Retail Jun sent a private message on Xiaohongshu to inquire, and the other party said: "If you don't book now, you will have to wait until mid-to-late July. Sorry, there are too many orders. Our team is very small and we are too busy to handle it." Of course, if you book now, "we can try our best to arrange it for you."

The private chef light meal brand chosen by Yifan is often very busy. Yifan said: "The manager is both the chef and the customer service representative. She often doesn't reply to messages for a long time." However, the manager of the brand once promised that she would not accept excessive orders and that ensuring the quality of food and service is the first priority. This promise made Yifan feel at ease.

This makes people curious. They work with a small team, don’t receive many orders, don’t provide sophisticated services, are not on food delivery platforms, don’t even have a formal store, and their ingredients are not high-quality. Why are these private chefs, which have very low costs compared to regular catering brands, so expensive?

On Xiaohongshu, you can already see training courses for private chefs who prepare light meals. Words like “easily complete 300 orders and earn 40,000 yuan a month” sound very successful, and also show that private chefs who prepare light meals can indeed make money.

Some SCRM system suppliers found business opportunities here. They added a monthly card sales mechanism at the end of May this year and widely publicized the "excellent result" of the monthly card system increasing the light food store's sales by 6 times.

Those who sell knowledge and software have begun to look for opportunities here, which indirectly shows that private chef light meals have indeed grown into a small track with a rich ecology. However, it is undeniable that behind these brands making money is precisely the huge hidden danger of industry non-standardization.

2. Who is responsible for food safety?

Issues regarding pricing and service are secondary; the food safety issues of these private chefs may be more difficult.

Retail Jun investigated several "brands" on Xiaohongshu that provide private chef light meals. In private consultations, without exception, they did not take the initiative to show their business licenses, food hygiene licenses, catering service licenses and other licenses.

According to the entry rules of the Ele.me platform, in addition to the required business license, you also need to provide photos of the store's facade and the store environment. In other words, to open a store on Ele.me, you must have a physical store.

When asked by Retail Jun, these private chef brands often avoided the question. The most common line of speech was: "We used to cook for relatives and friends, and then more friends found us, so we opened a shop."

The main theme is "Come if you trust us."

Yifan and her colleagues chose to believe it: "I heard that they also deliver meals to many large companies...it shouldn't be a big problem, right?"

But problems have already arisen.

Yifan told Retail Jun that one day, the taste of beef delivered by the private chef brand was not good, which aroused doubts from consumers. The owner did not reply to the private message immediately, but delivered an "apology letter" the next day, using hundreds of words to clarify: there was no problem with the quality of the beef, it might be that the cooking method was wrong.

I don’t know how many people will buy it.

Obviously, when the scale of consumers reaches a limit that a small workshop cannot bear, there will be more and more uncontrollable factors.

For example, although a pre-designed menu can make procurement more stable, does a small team really have the ability to control the quality of ingredients?

For example, many private chef light meal brands only deliver meals to consumers within five miles of their location. For deliveries beyond the range, it is likely that riders are hired from other outsourcing platforms, with an additional delivery fee of one yuan per kilometer. When the order volume is too large, can the outsourced delivery service keep up?

For example, Yifan’s two meals will be delivered on time at around 10:30 every day, but if there is no refrigerator or microwave in the company, the hot weather will easily breed food safety problems. These small brands that are not affiliated with the platform are bound to have limited ability to solve such problems.

In addition, if the user is on a business trip or vacation and the service needs to be suspended, the slow customer service response speed and the probability of manual errors will greatly increase - you can't expect a small team of only two or three people to be equipped with an SCRM system, after all, it is a huge expense.

It is conceivable that if any problems arise from these private chef light meal "brands" that bypass professional certification and professional platforms, consumers will have to pay for them themselves.

3. Regular Army, Application for Participation in the War

As early as 2019, a Japanese one-person restaurant brand launched a monthly card product with unlimited meals. Its logic is similar to the stored-value card of a barber shop or the annual card of a gym. It makes money from you if you sign up for the card but don't consume - this can easily lead to subsequent refund disputes. Naturally, this model has not been widely used in the catering industry.

In May this year, Xiabu Group launched a paid membership unlimited eating card, which can be used in its brand stores such as Xiabu Xiabu, Coucou, Chenshao, Chamicha, Xiabu Foods, and online mini-programs. Financial report data shows that this business alone is expected to generate an additional revenue of 600 million to 1.6 billion yuan.

However, the core of Xiabuxiabu’s unlimited eating card is still “membership card + stored value card”, but it has broken through the data barriers of multiple internal sub-brands, allowing consumers to have more consumption choices while increasing the average order value.

Many catering and tea brands have also launched monthly cards with similar logic, such as KFC and McDonald’s delivery monthly cards, Luckin Coffee, Starbucks, Heytea’s monthly cards, etc., hoping to increase the number of times consumers visit stores or shop online.

However, the above practices are different from the needs of consumers who look for private chefs or "self-employed" chefs who cook at home on Xiaohongshu. These consumers want a one-time solution that does not require them to worry about what to eat every day and can eat healthily.

However, there seem to be not many brands that can "contract" young people's meals for a month.

At present, some catering brands have also joined the competition of weekly and monthly package packages on Xiaohongshu. For example, Yandaofu in Hangzhou has done a good job and connected to the Xiaohongshu store system, so customers can order directly on Xiaohongshu.

The monthly pass of Yandaofu is not cheap, and the cheapest package costs more than 100 yuan per day. However, the high price still cannot stop the strong demand. The comments below are full of voices such as "Shanghai wants it too!" and "Shenzhen wants it too!"

On other food delivery platforms, I found that some light food brands also provide group meal ordering services, but consumers need to call to consult and place orders through private domains, and cannot directly purchase the corresponding services on the food delivery platform. Perhaps for both the platform and the brand, there are still more service details that need to be polished and considered.

At the CBME2023 China Maternity, Baby and Child Products Expo, a salesperson from "Fanbaba", a brand specializing in infant food supplements, said that they can "provide" healthy meals for adults while providing periodic complementary meals for children.

It can be seen that weekly and monthly meal distribution systems may be the next development trend of the takeout catering industry.

Yifan still feels that eating the private chef light meals with a monthly card gives her a feeling of "being really taken care of", and this feeling makes her put on a different "filter" for the private chef light meals.

She understands the logic, and she also hopes that this private chef light meal brand can become bigger and stronger and more standardized, but she is also worried that once standardization and branding begin, the quality of the food will be affected.

They eat chicken breast, beef and broccoli, but their stomachs are still Chinese stomachs - they crave something different every day, crave fresh taste, and crave "wok flavor". This is also the contradiction of Chinese consumers.

I hope the catering industry can quickly adapt to the new demands of consumers.

Author: Qian Luoying

Source: WeChat public account "New Retail Business Review (ID: xinlingshou1001)"