Editor Yu Fang
Tu yuan Bai Xiang Taobao
After domestic brands such as Red Star Hongxing Erke and Bee Flower were consumed crazily by netizens, netizens ushered in a new crazy consumption object-white elephant instant noodles. The past 3 15 has become the "east wind" of the white elephant.
Later, in order to master the right to speak, Baixiang refused the experience of Japanese companies injecting capital into themselves, which inspired the patriotic upsurge of netizens and praised Baixiang as "the light of domestic products".
Coincidentally, the problem of "potherb sauerkraut" exposed at the 3 15 party happened to involve the current domestic instant noodle brand Kong Shifu Laotan sauerkraut beef noodles. When the giant was busy apologizing, Baixiang Food said: "Baixiang Food and the flag-cutting vegetable industry have never cooperated. Thank you for your concern. Adhere to quality for 25 years, and the white elephant is consistent. "
The white elephant instant noodles that have been silent for a long time finally ushered in an outbreak, but will the "red explosion" be just a flash in the pan? Can the white elephant, which has faded out of the instant noodle market, once again become the "first echelon" of the instant noodle industry in the gap between Master Kong, Uni-President and Jinmailang?
In the era of material scarcity, fried instant noodles used to be a "luxury" that ordinary people could not reach. After the reform and opening up, the domestic economy took off, and a large number of migrant workers came to work in cities. With the green leather train, instant noodles have ushered in a period of rapid development.
China is rich in instant noodles in Henan. Since 1990s, the processing of high-quality wheat and wheat products has been the focus of the development of food industry in Henan province. At that time, the Henan Provincial Party Committee and the provincial government proposed to build Henan into an important high-quality wheat production and processing base in China. So at that time, the development of local instant noodle brands in Henan began to blow out, and instant noodle brands such as Baixiang, Nanjiecun, Yuzhu and Tian Fang also developed during this period.
Baixiang, founded in 1997, was once a veritable first-generation instant noodle overlord. Speaking of the white elephant, I have to mention the helmsman behind it-Yao Zhongliang.
Before Yao Zhongliang took over, White Elephant also experienced overcapacity and large-scale losses. Yao Zhongliang, a soldier, quickly took office after receiving the appointment, took over the White Elephant Instant Noodles Factory as the general manager, and immediately began drastic reforms.
With the efforts of Yao Zhongliang, this white elephant "came back to life". In his second year in charge of White Elephant, he turned losses into profits, with sales exceeding 654.38 billion yuan. Four years later, at 200 1, Baixiang created sales of over 600 million yuan.
A few years later, Yao Zhongliang led the white elephant out of Henan and expanded to the whole country. Set up a new factory by revitalizing the stock of leased premises and buying out property rights, and quickly build production bases in Hunan and Shandong in a short time.
Moreover, according to the market situation at that time, Yao Zhongliang grasped the healthy demand of instant noodles, focused on the soup, and launched "white elephant with big bones". It is understood that the product sold 60 million packages in just 8 months. After continuous improvement, the big bone face of the white elephant won the highest award in the 20 12 World Food Science and Technology Conference, namely the Global Food Industry Award.
The white elephant once became the focus of people's attention. In the early years, when competing with the "deadly rival" gold, White Elephant successfully bet on the sinking of the market, and reduced the grams of the original 1.3 yuan's bagged noodles at a price of 1 yuan. At that time, Jin Mailang gave up the price band of 1 yuan because of the price increase of instant noodle raw materials, and attacked large and medium-sized cities with all his strength, and declared war on Master Kong and Uni-President Group in this market. The end result is that the original share of gold in the low-end market is almost completely swallowed up by the white elephant.
In 2007, White Elephant made a profit of 4 billion, second only to Master Kong, ranking first in the industry. At this time, Master Kong, Baixiang, Uni-President Group and Jinmailang were also called "Four donkey kong" instant noodle brands in the domestic market.
The difference is that Baixiang is the only instant noodle enterprise in the "Four donkey kong" that refuses Japanese companies to inject capital. As early as 1999, Japan Sanyo Food Co., Ltd. already owned 33. 18% of the shares of Master Kong; In 2008, Uni-President Group also began to cooperate with Japanese-funded enterprises. In 2004, Nissin Food invested 65.438+55.4 billion yuan to establish the world's largest noodle making enterprise-Sino-Japanese joint venture Hualong Nissin Food Co., Ltd. with Hualong Noodle Industry (predecessor of Jinmailang). But the two companies parted ways after 10 years of cooperation.
The turning point of the war is around 20 10. Baixiang adjusted its strategy and decided to go to the high-end market, shifting its main energy from 1.5 yuan/packaging products to 2.5 yuan/packaging products. On the contrary, Jinmailang began to vigorously promote 1.5 yuan/Daidajinye instant noodles. As a result of the mutual attack, the "low price strategy" worked. Jinmailang successfully grabbed nearly 30 million/month sales from the middle-priced noodle overlord Baixiang, and began to gain a foothold in the low-end market.
Since then, the market share of the white elephant has begun to decline. Although there have been several efforts, we have never found a correct breakthrough. For example, in 20 1 1 year, Baixiang proposed to attack the pasta industry and opened more than 150 Fuxi noodle shop chain stores, but in the end the stores did not even leave Henan.
In recent years, with the arrival of high-end consumption boom, many instant noodle brands among network celebrities have emerged, such as Lamian Noodles Mianshuo and Akuan. Baixiang once said that Lamian Noodles launched the brand of "Fresh Noodles Pass", but based on Lamian Noodles's consumption mentality of occupying the market ahead of time, Baixiang did not splash too much water in the market.
In addition, the rejection of Japanese acquisition made Baixiang miss the opportunity to develop with foreign capital. Due to cash flow, Baixiang once maintained its business by selling steamed bread and fried dumplings. As Japanese capital monopolizes almost all the instant noodle industries in China, under the heavy pressure, all supermarkets and distributors can only "choose one from the other". There are rows of shelves in big supermarkets in first-and second-tier cities, and there is no place for white instant noodles.
According to official website, Baixiang Food has formed the layout of high-quality flour products 12 production bases in Henan, Hebei, Shandong, Sichuan, Jilin, Shanxi and other provinces, with more than 20 molecular companies. In terms of production strength, Baixiang has more than 90 instant noodle production lines, with nearly 65.438+0.2 million sales terminals and an annual output of nearly 65.438+0 billion packets of instant noodles, covering 30 provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions and overseas regions.
Despite this, it is still difficult for the white elephant to reproduce the glory of that year. According to the data of the convenience food conference, in 2020, the sales of Master Kong, Uni-President and Jinmailang in the instant noodle market in Chinese mainland accounted for 46%, 15% and1%respectively, maintaining the top three positions. The share of white elephants is less than 10%, only 7%, ranking fourth.
For the white elephant, now is undoubtedly an excellent propaganda node. But although feelings are easy to use, they may not last long, and the memory of the network is often short-lived. Last year, after Red Star Hongxing Erke caught fire due to charitable donations, all the products in its live broadcast room were out of stock, and even some consumers broke into offline stores and ran away without taking products.
However, only after 100 days, the live broadcast room began to lose 10,000 fans every day, and lost 269,000 fans in one month. Fans break in because of emotions and leave because of the disappearance of enthusiasm. The tide rises and falls. Obviously, what White Elephant lacks is not a wave or two of propaganda rhythm, but a clear positioning and planning of its own brand and products.
Although White Elephant is very popular in Weibo, most users say that they have never heard of this product, or that the surrounding supermarkets can't buy this product at all. Few people say that the white elephant is delicious. Only when it comes to the fist product of the white elephant-bone soup noodles, will some netizens respond. It can be seen that there are only a handful of white elephants that have been established for more than 20 years.
In addition, under the concept of health, new consumers have less and less demand for traditional instant noodles, and instant noodles are becoming more and more inconvenient. According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, from 20 18 to 2020, the output of instant noodles in China declined for three consecutive years. Compared with 6,994,800 tons in 20 18 and110.32 million tons in 2018, the output in that year was even more steep.
The emergence of self-heating hot pot, Lamian Noodles and other semi-finished products, prepared dishes and other new categories has also squeezed the original instant noodle market. In addition, take-away platforms such as Meituan and Hungry have gradually become a must-have APP for migrant workers, and the original "convenience" advantage of instant noodles is no longer. Now instant noodles have only one price advantage, but in the face of successive price increases, consumers' choice space is getting smaller and smaller.
In the era of online celebrity consumption, the preferences of young consumers are actually not easy to figure out. Many hot spots and explosive products come and go quickly. If the white elephant simply copies the explosive products on the market, it is easy to have new products at one end and outdated at the other. For the white elephant, it is difficult to get out of its own style and give play to its advantages simply by following the strategy.
Labels such as disabled employees, refusing Japanese companies to inject capital, and not cooperating with "Tukeng sauerkraut" have brought white elephant instant noodles back to the public's field of vision, and also rekindled the flame of a comeback for this forgotten giant. But the heat will eventually pass, and the enthusiasm for buying will also decline. White elephants need to seize this excellent market sentiment window period, so that even if the emotional label on the market is torn off, they can still use products to circle powder. At this time, the white elephant will really grow into an "elephant."