In the "polyphonic" market worth hundreds of billions, who will come out on top among Jiadianziwei, Jideli and Xiaoxiong?

Polyphonic competition has quietly risen. With a scale of hundreds of billions and many leading players, who will be the ultimate winner? In this article, the author uses three major condiment brands, Jiadianziwei, Jideli, and Xiaoxiongjiadao, as cases to analyze the current market status and prospects from many aspects, including traditional fast-moving consumer goods models, hot products, fans, profits, and future trends. It is recommended for those who are interested in brand marketing and brand competition.

Who will be the winner of "Polyphony"?

Recently, compound seasoning company Jideli completed a RMB 200 million Series B financing, which attracted people's attention to the compound seasoning industry.

In addition to Jideli, a number of emerging brands have obtained financing in recent years, such as Jiadianziwei which obtained a RMB 100 million Series A financing, Xianwei Yeye which obtained a RMB 60 million Pre-A round of financing, Xiaoxiong Jiadao which completed a Series A financing, Meixin Food which completed a Series A financing of tens of millions of yuan, and Xibao Research and Development which completed a Pre-A round of financing of tens of millions of yuan. However, most of these financing events occurred in 2021.

According to statistics, there were 93 investment and financing events in the condiment brands in the 10 years from 2011 to 2020, with a total disclosed investment and financing amount of over 13 billion yuan. The influx of capital has rapidly heated up this track.

Two years later, this track, along with the entire new consumer track, seems to have cooled down a lot, but there are still brands that have obtained financing.

So, what is the situation of this compound seasoning market with a market value of hundreds of billions of yuan? Which brands are still strong? Who will be the winner of the compound seasoning market in the future? In this issue, New Consumption Think Tank interviewed Shen Yueren, founder of Jiadianziwei, Lu Mingkun, CEO of Jideli, and Ai Xiao, head of Xinghua Industrial Investment Fund (Limited Partnership) and investor of Qingshan Capital. Let's take a closer look at this market.

01 The rigid demand products among fast-moving consumer goods have a "sexy" model but are "traditional" in practice

Compound seasoning is a seasoning made by mixing two or more seasonings and undergoing special processing, such as hot pot base, spicy hot pot ingredients, pickled fish ingredients, etc. Why do capital and entrepreneurs "fall in love" with compound seasonings?

First, the market for compound seasonings is large enough, with a scale of hundreds of billions.

Let's look at condiments first. According to Zhiyan Consulting data, in 2021, the scale of China's condiment market reached 727 billion yuan, an increase of 270.2 billion yuan from 2020, a year-on-year increase of 59.15%. This increase of nearly 300 billion yuan in one year is probably "envious" of many industries. So why did condiments increase so much this year?

In the view of Shen Yueren, founder of Jiadianziwei, the implicit factor behind this is the gradual increase in the penetration rate of compound seasonings. This, on the one hand, brings a lower threshold for cooking - more dishes that were previously only available in restaurants can be made at home; on the other hand, compound seasonings provide users with enriched and alternative value , which not only saves time and energy, but also makes the taste easier to control, which naturally creates value, namely a higher value per meal.

In the view of Lu Mingkun, CEO of Gideli, today's compound seasonings are actually a disguised way of encouraging consumers to use more seasonings . In the past, it was enough to add soy sauce to dishes, but now compound seasonings may contain vinegar and MSG. Consumers have higher and higher demands on taste. In the past, it was enough to just be full, but now they want to eat well and eat deliciously. From all dimensions, the market for seasonings may have increased.
Let’s look at compound seasonings.

Frost & Sullivan data shows that the size of China's compound seasoning market was 148.8 billion yuan in 2020, with an annual compound growth rate of 14.7% from 2016 to 2020, exceeding the average level of the seasoning industry.

Second, compared with ordinary food and beverages, condiments have two typical characteristics. One is that they are anti-cyclical and are essential products among fast-moving consumer goods; the other is that they have high gross profit margins, so they are favored by capital and entrepreneurs.

There is a condiment brand called McCormick in foreign countries. This company has experienced World War I and World War II, but it has been growing every year and has strong anti-cyclical ability. Why is condiment so anti-cyclical? Because condiment is a small product with a large market. Unless the consumption level of fast-moving consumer goods in China does not rise and the Chinese population does not increase, it may stagnate, but this is impossible.

What’s more, condiments are a must-have among fast-moving consumer goods. Consumers may not drink tea or beverages, but they have to eat three meals a day, so condiments are indispensable. Therefore, condiments have a strong ability to resist cycles.

According to financial reports, the gross profit margin of Baoli Food, a listed company for B2B, is about 32%, while the gross profit margin of Yaomazi, a pepper and numbing compound seasoning company that is preparing for listing, is about 40%. From the relationship between market value and revenue, if the market value of an ordinary food company is 2 to 3 times its revenue, then the market value of a seasoning company is 10 times its revenue, which is comparable to that of a liquor company.

Third, there is great room for future development of compound seasonings in China.

"We published a series of research articles on key industries in early 2020. Compound seasonings were the first one and are also a very important industry in the food and beverage industry. When we were observing the market at that time, we saw some trends on the user side. Compared with the social structure in Japan when compound seasonings exploded, China was also gradually moving towards smaller families. Home cooking requires both convenience and enrichment. However, at the time, it seemed that the players in this industry were mainly traditional sauces, and there were supply chain brands with factory attributes. The supply of real user-level products was still insufficient. We were also looking for a team with both brand and product capabilities at the time." said Ai Xiao, an investor at Qingshan Capital.

Let's look at the data specifically, first of all, condiments . A single user in Japan spends $88.7 per year on condiments, while in China it's only $9.3. If the current Japanese society is the future of Chinese society, then with reference to Japan, China's condiments have a lot of room for growth in the future.

Looking at compound seasonings , the downstream sales of seasonings mainly include three sectors: household, catering and processing, which are further divided into single seasonings and compound seasonings. In China, the proportion of compound seasonings to single seasonings is 26%:74%, while in Japan this ratio is almost 60%:40%. There is still a lot of room for improvement in penetration.

Fourth, the condiment industry has a solid foundation.

Shen Yueren, who was then Pinduoduo's senior director of the food industry, visited many food factories. She found that the seasoning category had a very solid industrial foundation. It did not only serve TO C companies like ours, but mainly served a larger industry - the catering industry.

In the process of chain development in the catering industry over the past decade, compound seasonings have become an important tool for catering standardization. Seasonings determine the taste benchmark of a chain restaurant to a certain extent. Moreover, as catering becomes more standardized, users can quickly penetrate and recognize many new flavors.

"Based on this industrial foundation, if we continue to innovate on the To C side, we will have a better chance of touching the jewel in the crown," said Shen Yueren.

Fifth, compound seasonings still have the opportunity to become “big brands”.

The seasoning industry is a very good industry, and there are already many giants guarding it heavily, so many new entrants have set their sights on its niche track, compound seasonings.

Ai Xiao said: "China is a country of great food. The food structure of each province and city is highly regional. So when looking at each market horizontally, the selection of Chinese food is very broad, which also makes consumers' pursuit of taste naturally diverse. Of course, the gross profit structure of the industry is indeed very good, so we can see that there are many small and medium-sized companies with good profits in the industry.

We believe that the key breakthrough lies in the ability to break through the scale constraints of the industry itself, which requires the team to have a high level of comprehensive ability to seize opportunities, build brands, create hits, and integrate resources. "

This track looks so good, and many brands that have received financing have entered the market, but why do there not seem to be so many brands that are doing well "coming out"?

Shen Yueren said: "The epidemic has indeed accelerated the development of compound seasonings, but why haven't more brands seized this market prematurely? We think there are several reasons.

First, compound seasonings may not have had the same user base as they do today five years ago.

Five years ago, the chain rate of catering was not that high. As the saying goes, it is difficult to satisfy everyone. There are multiple versions of user definitions for one flavor. For example, the braised pork in the north and the braised pork in the south cannot be standardized. However, with the increase in the chain rate of catering, many flavors have been given the greatest common divisor solution, and new flavors have entered the public's field of vision, such as Tom Yum Goong and Sukiyaki, which can quickly form cognition and penetration. Based on this point, our innovation of compound seasonings is actually twice the result with half the effort in this era.

Second, although the condiment industry is a golden industry and both the capital market and users think it is a very good industry, there are not many brands that can succeed. This is because we feel that we need to have very strong product definition capabilities and operational capabilities to offset some of the drawbacks of this industry.

What are its drawbacks? First, we believe that compound seasoning is not a "what you see is what you get" category (compared to snacks and RTE foods). We call it a semi-closed-loop product. If it is a pre-prepared meal or instant food, the display of snacks is actually very intuitive, and the immediate conversion rate is very high.

Semi-closed-loop products must have good content display and scene creation to improve conversion rate. Therefore, we really like more complete content media, such as short videos. We also have a cooking content team in-house, which produces a large number of cooking videos every day to teach everyone how to use compound seasonings to try to explore the flavors that they liked to eat before but could not make at home.

Third, the average order value is naturally lower.

Because our original intention was to provide an option that everyone can afford, but in a real business environment, the average order value will restrict the development of many brands. If the average order value is half as low, it means that the conversion rate must be twice as high to achieve the same ROI.

So everyone thinks compound seasoning is a good industry, and the entry threshold for seasoning is not high, but being able to do well in a sustained manner still tests the team's skills. "

The person in charge of the "Hequan (Xinghua) Industrial Investment Fund (Limited Partnership)", one of the investors of Jideli and a shareholder of the Jiangsu Provincial Government Investment Fund, believes: " First, compound seasonings must go through a process of factoryization and scale. This process started with basic seasonings, so some relatively large companies have emerged in the soy sauce and vinegar categories. Compound seasonings are a popular category that has emerged in recent years, and its development will be relatively late, and there is a process in between.

Second, since it is a new product, it is relatively complicated . For example, when we eat New Orleans wings at different restaurants, the taste is different in different restaurants. If you buy different brands of dipping sauces at home, the taste is also different. Some brands may be the same as what you eat at KFC, but most of them are different. Because it is difficult to season the product well. For example, which ones are spicier or sweeter are very particular. "

Third, it has something to do with China's supply chain, especially compound seasonings. Its upstream is actually agricultural products, because the quality and scale of agricultural products themselves are still somewhat restricted. Therefore, it is not easy to achieve stable production of compound seasonings. For example, there are 20 to 30 basic seasonings in hot pot soup base. If one of them has a problem, won't the brand be in trouble?

Fourth, it is also related to the operation of the enterprise itself . There is a way for Internet celebrity brands to play the game, which is to spend money on traffic online, and to build a large amount of traffic online or through channels, but lose money, so this is unsustainable. "

02 Add a little flavor continues to be a hit, Little Bear has 350,000 fans, and Gideli’s annual revenue exceeds 1 billion yuan. Who will be the winner of “Polyphony”?

From a product perspective, compound seasonings are still relatively homogeneous, and new players are fighting fiercely over some popular flavors.

At the same time, in addition to companies that take the brand route such as Jiadianziwei, Jideli, and Xiaoxiongjiadao, there are two other forces entering the market. One is the large companies that originally made single seasonings and are promoting "sub-brands", such as Haitian's Quick Ways and Haidilao's Kuaishou Xiaochu; there are also companies that have their own factories and have been supplying the catering industry for a long time, but also have brand dreams.

According to people familiar with the matter, Zoshidai and Xibao Research were originally pursuing the brand route, but their development momentum seems to be getting weaker and weaker.

Next, we will focus on analyzing several brands. The New Consumer Think Tank browses the Tmall flagship store. The Add Some Flavor Tmall flagship store has 244,000 fans, the Little Bear is Here Tmall flagship store has 350,000 fans, and the Gidely Tmall flagship store has 50,000 fans. In addition, Gidely’s revenue in 2022 will exceed 1 billion yuan.

1. Add some flavor: Hillhouse Capital and IDG Capital invested in attracting users with blockbuster products

Jiadianziwei was established in September 2020 and entered the market with compound seasonings.

In October 2020, Jiadianziwei received an angel round of financing of several million yuan led by Qingshan Capital.

In February 2021, Jiadianziwei completed an angel+ round of financing of nearly 10 million US dollars, led by Hillhouse Capital, and followed by IDG Capital, Yiling Capital, and old shareholder Qingshan Capital.

Shen Yueren, the founder of Add a Flavor, graduated from UC Davis with a degree in food science. He was formerly the senior director of food and beverage at Pinduoduo. He was responsible for the channel market of Nestlé infant nutrition and introduced Gerber's official cross-border business.

2020 happened to be the year when Shen Yueren started his business. The black swan event of the epidemic allowed users to spend more time cooking at home, and also promoted the rapid penetration and development of compound seasonings.

In Shen Yueren's opinion, the advantage of adding some flavors is that compound seasonings are still in the early stages of penetration, and are driven more by product innovation and category innovation, which is very suitable for product-driven companies to do this. At the same time, because compound seasonings are a category that requires scene creation, it is necessary to build cooking teaching content to penetrate users.

In 2021, the new product "Real Chicken Soup Bobo Chicken Seasoning" launched by Jiadianziwei in April was launched at the end of June. Within 2 months of its launch, 500,000 boxes were sold on the entire network; it was immediately selected by the team of the super head anchor Wei Ya, and sold 130,000 boxes in 4 hours after entering Wei Ya's live broadcast room, becoming the top selling product in a single game; and the "Shabu-Shabu Hot Pot Series Flavor Soup Base" launched in February was launched in April, and won the top brand of Tmall soup seasonings in July, August and September.

According to Shen Yueren, “Before everyone saw the first hit, we had already iterated two or three times internally. Creating a hit is called topic selection ability internally. Which flavor will become the trend next? We have several observation points:

First, the catering data , because the catering industry is a highly innovative and competitive industry, the catering innovation will give us a lot of inspiration. We conduct structured analysis on the catering platform data such as Dianping to determine the trend of dishes in each region.

Second, we will pay close attention to flavors that have the potential to become a "single dish to build a store" , such as sauerkraut fish. At that time, there were companies such as Tai Er and Yu Ni Zai Yi Qi on the catering side. Professional stores specializing in sauerkraut fish developed very rapidly, so the speed at which consumers' awareness of this dish penetrated must be faster than opening a comprehensive restaurant. This mental penetration will provide a better foundation for both sauerkraut fish pre-prepared dishes and sauerkraut fish seasonings.

Next, we think it is possible for a single dish to become the flavor of a store, such as big plate chicken, chicken pot and other local specialties. Our product team observed that there were some sukiyaki specialty stores starting last winter, and we also launched the sukiyaki soup base at the same time, which also became a hit on the entire network last winter.

Catering and condiments are a joint effort and mutual achievement in educating users on taste.
In addition to the ability to select topics, there is also the ability to define products. For example, if we make a big plate chicken, what kind of product do users expect and what are the selling points? Because data itself has no secrets, the processing mechanism of data and information and the subsequent team collaboration are the key points.

Take Mapo Tofu for example. This is a classic dish. Many industry veterans have launched Mapo Tofu seasonings before. However, our Mapo Tofu seasoning quickly exploded in the market after its launch. We looked into the difficulties faced by users in making Mapo Tofu and found that the difficulty was not in seasoning. Seasoning itself is also very simple, including the basic seasonings of chili, bean curd, and Sichuan pepper. Seasoning is not difficult, but the difficult part is actually preparing the auxiliary ingredients and stir-frying the minced meat.

We assume that the user's cooking skills are already able to support him to complete the preparation of auxiliary materials and stir-frying of minced meat. In fact, he is already a user with advanced cooking skills, and seasoning is not a difficult point for him. So when we were making this product, we were thinking about what users expect from a seasoning for the dish of Mapo Tofu. In the end, we decided to make a Mapo Tofu with minced meat. We added 22% minced meat, which may be much more expensive. In terms of technology, we have achieved room temperature storage without adding preservatives through a retort bag similar to a soft can, but this is a product that is very close to the real needs of users.

So even though there are many players in the mapo tofu seasoning market, when a flavor-defined mapo tofu containing minced meat was launched on the market, it immediately received positive feedback from the market. It also defined a new form and standard for the mapo tofu seasoning to a certain extent, which is a very interesting thing.

We believe in the theory of multiple brand touches, which means that users must see a product in a variety of places before they believe that it is a truly trustworthy product.

We hope that users can see us when they are learning to cook or watching food content on Douyin, and can find us on Tmall, Pinduoduo, and JD.com through active searches, find us on next-day delivery channels such as JD.com’s own operations and Tmall Supermarket, buy us through instant delivery channels such as Dingdong Maicai and Hema, see us in the elevator on the way home, and see us on the shelves when they go shopping in the supermarket with their family on weekends. I think we are actually around users, and this is also the multi-media and multi-channel strategy that we will adhere to.

Compared with other food and beverage categories, compound seasonings have a more immediate demand; but compared with single seasonings, they have a more planned demand.

For example, single condiments such as soy sauce and vinegar are more like household staples, and users have a low level of mental involvement in them. However, the magic of compound condiments is that they can stimulate users' interest in making this dish, such as spicy seasonings and sukiyaki seasonings. Users may be impressed by online cooking tutorials or food sharing content. They have eaten this dish in a restaurant before, and now they find it so simple after watching the video. Moreover, this condiment looks good, and this brand seems to be serious about making products, so I will try to place an order.

So to a certain extent, we are actually inspiring users to explore more possibilities in cooking and helping them expand their cooking abilities, allowing them to cook more dishes and enjoy the fun of cooking more.

In addition, we found that compound seasonings are highly correlated with ingredients, and this year we are also focusing on the associated sales of ingredients with some offline KA supermarkets. Because supermarkets also want to increase the proportion of fresh food sales, we hope to display them together with ingredients to build a complete scene and form associated purchases. From the perspective of product development, we will observe the specifications of daily ingredients such as beef rolls and chicken thighs sold in mainstream supermarkets, and we will also take this into consideration when designing the specifications and operating procedures of our seasonings.

Everything we do, whether it is selecting product categories or expanding business, is to achieve win-win results with channel users as much as possible. In my first job, Nestlé’s value is “creating shared value” , and this concept has been influencing the way I start my own business.

It is not difficult to be a company that makes money in the short term, but I think it is the way for the long-term development of an enterprise to enable all my partners in the chain to win together.

“We can see some surprising comprehensive abilities in Yueren. She is a graduate of food science, and has a certain understanding of online and offline channels in her past work experience. She is also good at thinking and solving problems in a systematic way. Most importantly, the team is very young and capable, and we can also feel the team’s love for the industry. We are also very lucky to be able to help such a team in the early stages, and we look forward to them bringing some fresh blood and new solutions to the seasoning industry.” Ai Xiao said.

2. Jideli: Not focusing on the flagship store model, insisting on multiple brands and multiple channels

Beijing Jideli Food Co., Ltd. was established in March 2000 and recently completed a RMB 200 million Series B financing round. The investors are Wuchan Zhongda Group, Wenrun Investment under Wen's shares, and the "Hequan (Xinghua) Industrial Investment Fund (Limited Partnership)" in which Jiangsu Provincial Government Investment Fund has a stake.

As early as December 2021, Gideli had received an investment of tens of millions of yuan from Huoquan (Xinghua) Industrial Investment Fund (Limited Partnership). The investment helped Gideli build a new compound seasoning factory to support its channel expansion and brand upgrading.

In 2016, Lu Mingkun, the current CEO who has 9 years of experience in Internet marketing, took over the company's business from his father. He used a "multi-brand strategy" to segment the customer base and create condiments with functional, nutritious and convenient characteristics based on consumers' different cooking needs and consumption scenarios.

Because Lu Mingkun entered the market early, 2016 was the year when JD Supermarket and Tmall Supermarket were rising. Lu Mingkun did not choose the model of building his own flagship store and shipping the goods himself as his peers had always chosen, but chose to cooperate with online supermarkets, an instant food retail channel.

Lu Mingkun believes that there is no way out by taking the route of big single products and competing head-on with seasoning giants . In addition, users do not have enough loyalty to the seasonings themselves, and the life cycle of compound seasonings is relatively short. They are more suitable for young people aged 25-35. Therefore, he chose to use multiple brands to satisfy different groups of people, rather than using big single products to satisfy all groups of people.

Gideli has established four independent brands to serve different groups of people . Currently, it has more than 350 self-developed products: Gideli brand focuses on the popular taste group and the main force of consumption; Snorlax focuses on cost-effectiveness and focuses on the market below fourth-tier cities; Food Time Past focuses on organic and healthy seasoning; Henry Morgan focuses on imported seasoning groups and only produces imported seasoning. And through various brands, it covers the price ranges of 1 to 10 yuan, 10 to 20 yuan, and 20 to 40 yuan, blocking all the mainstream price ranges of compound seasonings.

When it realized that the online bonus was slowly disappearing, Gideli immediately laid out offline channels, using multiple channels such as hypermarkets, convenience stores, distributors, and small catering merchants, and using digital means to assist in decision-making. The proportion of Gideli's offline channels in total revenue has increased from 20% in 2021 to 40% in 2022.

From a small workshop, Jideli now has nearly 4 factories. The equipment has evolved from manual and fully automatic to robots, and it is moving towards Industry 4.0. The number of employees in the company has also increased to 500. Through Lu Mingkun's operation, Jideli has grown from a revenue of less than 10 million in 2016 to a company with a revenue of more than 1 billion and a net profit of more than 100 million in 2022.

3. Little Bear Arrives: Transforming from TO B to TO C, becoming popular through “live streaming by experts”

Before founding Xiaoxiong Jiadao, Xiao Junyong had been engaged in the seasoning industry for more than 20 years. He not only worked in the upstream supply chain of seasonings, but also ran a seasoning processing factory. His main business was TO B.

Around 2010, he began to pay attention to the TO C condiment market, looking for opportunities to transform. The premise of condiment consumption is "knowing how to cook", and the target audience is people who often stay in the kitchen, such as parents and food lovers. What they need is salt, oil, sauce, vinegar and other condiments. Giants such as Haitian, Lee Kum Kee and Gaga are difficult to shake. Xiao Junyong believes that the TO C market was not mature at that time.

It was not until 2019 when Xiaoxiong Jiadao was established, the third year after the brand was launched on the market, that it completed its A round of financing. The investors were Xingnah Capital, Yonghui Capital, and Kunyan Capital.

In 2019, Xiaoxiong Jiadao launched a compound seasoning that can make a dish with one pack, which hit the pain points of young people's needs today. The product was a hot-seller as soon as it was launched, and the single product directly ranked first in the category.

In 2019, the first year of its listing, Xiaoxiong Jiadao entered the live streaming sales. Its Orleans chicken wings marinade and bread crumbs were introduced in Wei Ya's live broadcast room, and more than 500,000 copies were sold on the same day. The following year, the brand set a record of nearly 10 billion clicks on a single product in a single day. Xiaoxiong Jiadao quickly ran away from Tmall.

It is understood that the number of SKUs of Xiaoxiong Jiadao is nearly 150, and the sales in 2020 were close to 100 million yuan. According to the data in 2021, Xiaoxiong Jiadao has completed full coverage of mainstream online channels. On Double Eleven, the GMV of live broadcasts on various channels reached tens of millions, and Douyin and JD.com's self-operated stores both increased by more than 1000% month-on-month. Starting from the online channel, Xiaoxiong Jiadao began to layout offline channels in March 2021, and has covered the entire East China, South China and Southwest China, and entered KA supermarkets such as Yonghui, Metro, and Hema. It is expected that the number of store terminals will reach 5,000 by the end of December 2021.

It can be seen that Xiaoxiong Jiadao, which has the upstream supply chain and processing plants of condiments and often does TO B business, still relies more on the logic of hot products and live broadcasts by experts when transforming into a C-end brand. According to people familiar with the matter, Xiaoxiong Jiadao has set up many points in offline channels, but the sales situation is not ideal.

03 Trend: "Polyphony" will have a considerable increase in the future and will undergo structural changes

As mentioned above, the annual consumption of seasonings by a single user in Japan is 10 times that of a user in China.

Shen Yueren believes: "In addition to the different bases of consumption levels in the two countries, the bigger difference is that Japan's seasoning expenditure is mainly compound seasonings, while China's expenditure is mainly on single seasonings such as salt, sauce and vinegar. This is the most essential difference."

Compound seasonings deliver two important values ​​to users: substitutability and enrichment.

First, the substitutability means that compound seasonings replace the process of making braised pork by frying sugar color, for example, but directly provide a compounded braised sauce prepared by a chef, making it more convenient for users to cook without having to prepare a lot of basic ingredients at home.

Second, richness means that compound seasonings allow users to make dishes that they used to like but never thought they could make at home. The transmission of these two parts of value is the difference in the core value provided by compound seasonings and single seasonings, and it is also the main difference in per capita spending on seasonings in China and other markets. So overall, compound seasonings will have opportunities for structural changes in the future. "

So why is it possible that compound seasonings will replace single seasonings in the future, and the growth rate will be faster and faster?

Lu Mingkun said: "As the new generation of young people in China grow up, they may have higher and higher demands for compound seasonings and use basic seasonings less and less frequently, because people are working harder and harder, all walks of life are becoming more and more inward-looking, and everyone's requirements and demands for efficiency are getting higher and higher. These will be reflected in pre-prepared dishes, which are actually compound seasonings plus ingredients, and the consumption habits of the entire society will change.

In the past, restaurants were all chefs who cooked their own food, but now many chain restaurants, schools, and canteens are slowly moving towards pre-prepared meals. The development of pre-prepared meals has directly driven the development of compound seasonings. In the future, you will find that a factory will purchase a variety of basic seasonings, make compound seasonings, and then make related products to sell to consumers. Or if you look at many foreign countries, fresh food accounts for the majority. Based on these points, compound seasonings should have explosive growth in China in the future. "

Shen Yueren, founder of Add a Taste, and Lu Mingkun, CEO of Jideli, both mentioned that it is difficult for compound seasonings to gain a large enough market with just a single product, or in layman's terms, "it is difficult to rely on a single big product." However, Shen Yueren also said, "Dishes or flavors that have a sufficient foundation in the minds of users are limited and precious. We continuously iterate products and work together with various channels to improve the height of single products and break the ceiling of single brands in the industry."

In the compound seasoning industry, there are three types of players: those who start from the brand perspective, those who build brands from the factory perspective, and large companies that make single seasonings and create sub-brands to make compound seasonings. These three types of players each have their own advantages and disadvantages.

For companies that enter the market through the branding route , the requirements for the team's own soft capabilities, such as brand power, product power, and content power, will be relatively high, so that they can enter the market in a lighter and faster way.

For factories that want to build brands , the first thing they need to do is to break the difference between TO C and TO B, because TO B is more about meeting the customized needs that customers have already put forward. However, building user-level products requires deeper user research and market insight capabilities.

Companies that make single seasonings , such as Japan's Kikkoman, which is also the world's number one soy sauce company, have not been able to develop a second curve in compound seasonings. One very important reason is that the strong innovative nature of compound seasonings means that the team needs to have a higher density of insight into users and the market, and the overall management difficulty is higher than that of single seasonings. Another reason is that single seasonings are also important raw materials for compound seasonings . For example, Kikkoman has reached many years of stable cooperation with many compound seasoning companies in Japan, and does not want to destroy this cooperative relationship by making compound seasonings itself.

So in fact, no matter which angle you enter this market from, there will be difficulties and ease. The key is whether you can break through your own bottleneck and build a long-lasting company in the seasoning industry, which is a long-term and arduous industry.

Author: New Consumption Think Tank

Source: New Consumption Think Tank