Mala Tang has moved from the streets to new retail. Where will the next stage of fast food snacks be?

Yang Guofu Malatang has 5,616 stores nationwide

Zhang Liang Malatang has 5,249 stores nationwide

They all started in Bin County, Harbin, Northeast China

01.

A bowl of Malatang

From Sichuan to Northeast China, radiating across the country

It is said that Malatang was created by boatmen along the Yangtze River in Bashu. They have been in a cold and humid environment for a long time. In order to drive away the cold and dehumidify, they put various ingredients in the pot and seasoned it with Sichuan pepper and chili pepper, but that In Chengdu at that time, there was no such thing as Malatang. People called Malatang Chuanchuan.

The earliest street Malatang was very simple. It was a roadside stall where hot pot ingredients were strung on bamboo skewers for anyone to choose. After the dishes are cooked, take the ingredients off the bamboo skewers and put them into the bowl. However, the current Malatang just omits this step.

Maocai is a "hot pot for one person". It has soup, needs to be paired with dipping sauces, and rice. It is cooked by a chef, and the taste is more inclined to hot pot.

Chuanchuan, also known as Chuanchuanxiang, is actually another form of hot pot. Various ingredients are skewered on sticks and placed in a hot hot pot to eat. However, there is another form where the chef cooks it, then pours the red soup base or seasonings on it and eats it directly with a skewer, eliminating the need to rinse it yourself.

02.

Taste improvement

A subversive revolution with milk powder and rock sugar

Driving from Sichuan in the southwest to Harbin in the northeast, neither Liu Bei nor Zhuge Liang dared to think so. Behind this is the expansion of the Sichuan food market.

Sichuan cuisine is famous for its spicy and heavy taste, which caters to the pursuit of "heavy taste" by modern Chinese people, especially urban people. In the past two decades, Sichuan cuisine has dominated all major cuisines and swept the country. Countless Sichuan restaurants have opened in every county and city across the country.

As the star player in Sichuan cuisine, Sichuan Malatang is even more invincible.

If Sichuan people created this street snack, then Northeastern people are the driving force behind making the category bigger and stronger and spreading it nationwide.

Sichuan Malatang had spread to all parts of the country at that time, and also came to the Northeast. However, the taste has not changed much. It is still spicy, which is actually not suitable and not suitable. Northeastern people eat spicy food. Later, the Northeastern people modified the taste of Malatang to be more universal.

First of all, Malatang has been transformed locally, incorporating bone broth to replace the red soup, reducing the spiciness and greasiness, and adding northerners My favorite soul sesame sauce, the heat brought by sesame sauce is very suitable for replenishing energy in the cold north.

Yang Guofu must be mentioned here, which has made a subversive revolution in Malatang. He blended beef bone broth into the soup base, and also added milk powder and rock sugar to combine, resulting in a milky white, salty and sweet "delicious food", making Malatang not only edible, but also drinkable, completely subverting Sichuan-style Malatang.

Secondly, the rise of the category has a great relationship with the economy at that time.

Malatang, like rice noodles and Shaxian snacks, were all born in the 1990s. At that time, a large number of workers in the Northeast were laid off and went to the streets. They eventually chose catering projects with relatively low technical and financial thresholds for re-employment.

03.

Franchise chain

Snacks become big business

Xiao Xu, a franchisee of Yang Guofu Malatang from Jiangsu, said that the store rent is 100,000 yuan a year, and opening a new Yang Guofu store requires an investment of 300,000 to 400,000 yuan.

Mr. Zhen, Yang Guofu’s regional agent in Zhejiang, said that to open a Yang Guofu Malatang restaurant in a provincial capital city like Hangzhou, the investment starts at 200,000 yuan, excluding store rent and labor costs. Including franchise fee, decoration fee, equipment purchase fee, etc.

How long will it take to get the money back? Mr. Zhen said: "Most stores can recover their investment in 10-12 months, and the fastest is five or six months."

The franchise fee of Zhang Liang Malatang is relatively low. It is 19,800 yuan per year in first- and second-tier cities, and only 10,000 yuan in other cities. The staff of the investment promotion office said that Zhang Liang Malatang invested about 130,000 yuan to open a store in Hangzhou, excluding store rent and labor costs, and the investment was recovered within about one year on average.

Yang Guofu’s Malatang is slightly more expensive, 24.8 yuan/jin, while Zhang Liang’s Malatang is 22.8/jin; Yang Guofu has implemented electronic calling, and Zhang Liang’s Malatang is 22.8 yuan/jin. Liang is still a traditional physical number plate.

The nearby Zhangliang Malatang’s dine-in orders are comparable to Yang Guofu’s, but its monthly sales on the takeout platform exceed 13,000 orders. Calculated at a unit price of 25 yuan, the monthly takeout sales alone exceed 320,000 yuan.

04.

New retail

What’s next for Malatang?

"Old stores are newly opened, riding the wind and waves." Such a slogan hangs in Yang Guofu's Tmall flagship store.

The self-heating spicy hotpot launched for the first time has six flavors including spicy, tomato, and seafood. The price of a single box is between 24.8 and 38.8 yuan; the hot pot base includes butter and clear soup. The three flavors of tomato and tomato are priced at 11.8 to 23.8 yuan. There are three levels of shopping credits: 200 yuan, 300 yuan and 500 yuan. The purchase price is 95% off the face value and can be used at Yang Guofu Tmall store.

Yang Guofu said that the reason for launching two types of retail food is to enrich consumption scenarios so that consumers who cannot go to the store can purchase their own food. Hot products come to Yang Guofu Malatang, thereby increasing customer stickiness.

Although he is already a giant in the catering industry, Yang Guofu is considered a newcomer in the retail industry. At this time, the convenience food track has already been in turmoil. Brands such as Li Ziqi, Zihaiguo, Kaixiaozao, Mo Xiaoxian, Dezhuang, Haidilao, Xibei Youmian Village are in full swing. Various flavors emerge in endlessly, and the price of a single box is as low as 15 yuan. It can be said that this track has become unprecedentedly crowded. Where does Yang Guofu have the confidence to enter?

Having chosen a track with fierce competition, Yang Guofu expressed full confidence. In his opinion, self-heating hot pot and self-heating Malatang are not the same. They are very different from the soup base to the taste. In other words, although the competition for self-heating food is fierce, it can be further subdivided into more categories. "In the new field of self-heating Malatang, Yang Guofu has full advantages." Yang Guofu said.

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