Leftovers blind box: a new solution for catering under the pursuit of high productivity and sustainability?

Recently, blind boxes of leftovers have been hotly discussed on social platforms such as Xiaohongshu. A large number of young people who pursue novelty and saving have begun to join the buying camp, and many positive feedbacks have appeared online. So, can blind boxes of leftovers become a normal practice? Let's take a look at the author's analysis!

How else can you play with the "blind box"? Put the "leftovers" that can't be sold out into the box, and a "leftover blind box" is ready.

Recently, blind boxes of leftovers have been hotly discussed on social platforms such as Xiaohongshu. This is a food sales model that requires advance reservations online and offline pickup. Blind boxes usually contain simple foods such as baked pastries and healthy meals, have a short shelf life, and are sold at a price far lower than the original price.

A large number of young people who pursue novelty and saving have begun to join the buying camp, and many positive feedbacks have appeared online. This seems to be a social problem that must be faced after high development. When there is overproduction and consumption is declining, how can the leftover food find its own outlet?

Blind boxes for leftovers is one answer, but whether it can be normalized requires specific analysis of specific issues.

1. Change your “vest” and pay for “leftovers”

At eight o'clock in the evening, in addition to some people waiting for the upcoming price reduction at Hema, there are also people who take a two-hour ride to a certain location to pick up low-priced leftover blind boxes.

According to a report by Daily People, an unemployed young man named Sun Yuan once took a two-hour bus ride during rush hour to get a blind box of sushi that originally cost 60 or 70 yuan but was only sold for 39.9 yuan, plus three or four boxes of side dishes. At the same time, he also bought a blind box of steamed buns for 7.9 yuan, which was enough to eat for two days. You know, such prices are extremely low in Beijing.

The existence of leftover blind boxes allows people to spend less money to occasionally improve their lives, and also allows people to eat fresh food when they are poor.

After learning more about it, iBrandi discovered that this is a food combination that needs to be ordered in advance. Usually the order is placed during the day and the food is picked up in the evening.

This is related to the process of "leftovers". During normal operation, the store has no idea which food will become part of the leftover blind box. It is not until the store closes that the food that can be sold as a blind box can be determined. Before that, no one knows what will be in today's blind box.

At present, such transactions are mainly completed through mini-programs. The more well-known ones include Food Magic Bag, Rice Grain Box, Fun Little Bag, PAKE-AGE and After Eight O'clock, etc. Basically, these are platforms targeting the local area and exist in many cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Chongqing.

Opening the mini program, you can find that the merchants that provide leftover blind boxes are generally supermarkets, bakeries, and coffee shops. But overall, there are still few merchants settled in, and there are not many types to choose from.

Searching on seed user platforms such as Xiaohongshu, you can see thousands of notes shared by many people about "first try", "getting off safely", "addiction", etc. In these discussions, you can see how popular the leftover blind box is. Some users shared that they needed to set an alarm to grab a blind box, and some users found that the blind box they wanted would soon be gone after they missed the time.

However, among the large amount of feedback, some "mine avoidance" sharing can also be seen. A Xiaohongshu blogger shared that when she went to the store to pick up the food, the store manager replaced the bread in the blind box with a cheaper variety in front of her because the original price was too high, which aroused the blogger's dissatisfaction. In response to similar incidents, some comments believe that "leftover blind boxes are for promotion, and it is meaningless to search for leftover blind boxes"; some consumers said that they bought blind boxes in the same store many times but found that they bought the same variety, which lost the sense of surprise of blind boxes.

Negative feedback does not change its popularity. Leftover blind boxes are sought after by consumers who pursue novelty and high cost-effectiveness, but it is still hard to say how the "leftovers" can better "reinvent themselves" through this "vest".

2. With the rise of environmental protection and conservation awareness, blind boxes for leftovers came into being

The rise of rational consumption awareness is one of the important reasons why leftover blind boxes are so popular. Just like the popularity of expiring food and discount stores, young people are always rushing to buy good things at low prices. The mystery of blind boxes has made them so popular.

The second is the improvement of environmental awareness. In 2021, China implemented the "Anti-Food Waste Law" and promoted the catering industry to actively respond and participate, guiding consumers' conservation awareness to ferment. As environmental problems occur more and more frequently, the importance of sustainable development and green living is becoming more and more recognized.

Under this trend, the predecessor of "leftover blind boxes" was born from creative products launched by merchants to reduce food waste. These merchants hope to reduce waste by packaging leftover food into blind boxes and selling them to consumers at low prices. After receiving a good response, some people gradually gathered local merchants and launched mini-program reservation platforms.

At present, Xishi Magic Bag is the platform that has expanded the furthest beyond its home region. Public information shows that in 2021, the platform started in Changsha and has now covered cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing, Nanjing, Wuhan, Hefei, and Kunshan.

Another company that has made more attempts is MiLiBox. Founded in 2022, the platform started in Chengdu and currently covers Chengdu and Shenzhen, with mini programs and Douyin as its main battlefields. This year, MiLiBox not only launched delivery services, but also added raw food blind boxes such as dumplings at the merchant level.

In fact, a similar foreign platform "Too Good To Go" existed long before the rise of blind boxes for leftovers in China. "Too Good To Go" can also be translated as "too good to waste" and is a relatively mature app.

Unlike in China, the development of ordering platforms abroad is relatively complete, and there are more types of stores. Take "Too Good To Go" as an example. When consumers choose to make an order, they can see a rating number based on a sufficient sample size on different merchant pages. Based on this rating, the risk of "stepping on thunder" will be relatively low when purchasing blind boxes. On domestic platforms, because they are still in the initial stage and the number of reviews is relatively small, consumers can rarely refer to this when making purchases.

In view of the different development stages at home and abroad, some netizens have summarized that "foreign blind boxes: no waste of food; domestic blind boxes: a different way to make money", which also shows the immaturity of the development of domestic leftover blind boxes.

3. Conclusion

The emergence of blind boxes for leftovers has indeed brought possible new opportunities to the catering industry.

On the one hand, the rise of blind boxes for leftovers helps save food and reduce operating costs. By packaging and selling leftover food, resource utilization is improved. This has a positive impact on reducing food waste, protecting the environment and sustainable development. On the other hand, the low-priced sales of blind boxes for leftovers also meet the economical needs of some consumers, which has expanded the consumer group and may provide new market growth.

But on the other hand, there is some controversy if the leftover food blind box is to be normalized.

The first is the issue of food safety. Food sold in the form of blind boxes is difficult to be fully supervised. In the absence of supervision, it is difficult for consumers to know whether the food in the blind boxes meets the hygiene standards and shelf life requirements, which has certain disadvantages.

Secondly, there may be fraud. Blind boxes can be a surprise or a shock. For example, if unfresh or substandard food is deliberately put into blind boxes for sale, it will be difficult for consumers to protect their rights through reasonable channels.

In general, the leftover blind box can provide a new idea for the catering industry. However, with the platformization of ordering, merchants on the platform need to provide a certain commission to the platform at a low price, and they can't actually get much profit. Therefore, the profit model of the leftover blind box is not clear at present, and it is still in its infancy. If it is reasonably regulated and guided correctly, it may be worth looking forward to.

Author: Empowering Global Brands

Source: WeChat public account "IBrandi Pinchuang (ID: ibrandi)"