As the saying goes, foreign monks are good at chanting!
Recently, in the "China Catering Report (White Paper 2017)" released by Meituan, the data shows that Japanese cuisine has entered the 8th category in the turnover of China's catering market, with a market share of 4.5%, killing Cantonese, Zhejiang, Fujian, Hui, Hunan, Suzhou, and Shandong cuisines of China's eight major cuisines. Korean cuisine and Southeast Asian cuisine, which are also Asian cuisines, are ranked 11th and 18th respectively.
China has always been known as the kingdom of food, with a perfect cuisine system and a wide variety of dishes, which is a bright pearl in the history of world food. However, why is the domestic catering market frequently taken away from the limelight by foreign categories such as Western food, Japanese food, Korean food, and Southeast Asian cuisine? What is the market logic behind the success of these cuisines?
1
Southeast Asian cuisine, the opportunity brought by market diversification
Reform and opening up has not only brought an open economic policy to the domestic market, but also brought more open living habits to consumers. The maturing of the domestic catering market has given an excellent opportunity for the development of Southeast Asian cuisine, which was also born in Asia.
Compared with Japanese and Korean food, Southeast Asian cuisine is a more general term. It includes specialties from Southeast Asia as well as some countries in South Asia such as Thailand, Vietnam, India, etc. Typical dishes include omelet rice, sweet potato and chicken curry, spicy tuna, Thai pineapple rice, Indian curry seafood gratin and more.
At present, Southeast Asian cuisine accounts for more than 1% of domestic catering, far more than many specialty cuisines. As one of the first foreign cuisines to enter the domestic market, Southeast Asian cuisine was once a smash hit. For example, Thai food and Indian food, which were once popular dishes among young consumers, are now slightly out of favor.
In the past two years, Vietnamese cuisine, which was once unpopular in the eyes of many people, has begun to become a common exotic cuisine in the circle of friends and Weibo.
Recently, a Vietnamese restaurant chain brand "Yue Pin" announced that it has received a strategic investment from Pfaff Holdings, a Hong Kong-listed company under Hony Capital, which has brought Vietnamese cuisine into the track of rapid development with several other Chinese food chains in the "Pfaff series", such as Hegu, Meet Xiao Mian and Xi Shaoye.
Although the development of Southeast Asian cuisine in the Chinese market due to its differentiated taste is not rapid, the niche catering category in the increasingly diversified catering market, with its own natural new, strange and special attributes, with its own differentiated characteristics, in the current fierce catering competition, but from the deep boudoir to the front.
2
Korean cuisine, with the help of the "Korean tide".
In the eyes of many consumers who have never eaten Korean food, Korean food is kimchi, fried chicken and bulgogi. And most of the formation of these category impressions is related to Korean TV dramas that are popular all over the country.
Under the crazy bombardment of Korean trends, many children can say classic lines such as "On a rainy day, fried chicken and beer go well".
In recent years, Korean pop culture has developed rapidly in China, but the development of Korean cuisine in the domestic market has not kept pace.
According to the data, in 2016, among the four first-tier cities in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, only Guangzhou rose slightly with a slight increase of 10%, and the other three cities continued to decline at a rate of 20%. The situation in second-tier cities is even more intriguing, with a sharp increase of 25% in the number of Japanese restaurants on the one hand, and a 10% decline in Korean restaurants on the other.
In fact, the continuous decline in the market share of Korean food is due to its over-popularity, and it has been lacking some "roots". The freshness and health of the ingredients, the way of cooking, and the bias of taste are far from healthy. When a new round of food is blowing, Korean food will naturally lag behind.
The main concern of consumers about whether the Korean diet is healthy is the excessive nitrite in kimchi miso soup and the problem of causing cancer. Nitrite is ubiquitous in kimchi and miso such as kimchi, and the nitrite of freshly pickled kimchi peaks at the end of the week, and the carcinogenic rate is high and then decreases to a level that can reduce the carcinogenic rate, so if it is handled properly, it will not cause a high cancer treatment rate. According to the latest data from the World Health Organization, the incidence of gastric cancer in China is 22.7/100,000, and this data has reached 41.8/100,000 in South Korea, which means that the incidence of gastric cancer in South Korea is almost twice that of China.
In terms of food variety, taste and dining environment, Korean food is also losing its advantages. Despite this, Korean cuisine still occupies a place in the domestic catering market due to its exotic nature, ranking 11th in the market with a market share of 3.6%.
3
Japanese cuisine, a delicate cuisine with a sense of ceremony
Despite the historical contradictions between China and Japan, it is undeniable that Japan's food culture and lifestyle are gradually influencing us. The popularity of Japanese food in the domestic market was initially driven by the cultural trend of Japan and South Korea. Later, due to various reasons, there were some disconnections in the Chinese market in Japanese pop culture, but this did not affect the steady expansion of Japanese food in China.
Japan's service industry is known worldwide, especially in the hygiene-conscious restaurant industry. Compared with Korean cuisine, which has fallen out of favor, and Southeast Asian cuisine, which has survived in the cracks, Japanese cuisine has more vitality. Through the collection of cases and materials, Sam found that the continued popularity of Japanese food is mainly due to the following reasons.
1) Healthy labels
According to an article published in Forbes, Japanese cuisine ranks first in the world's diet health list, with a food-induced obesity rate of only 1.5% and a life expectancy of 82 years old.
2) Pursue the freshness of ingredients
As we all know, the taste of Chinese cuisine after heavy processing has a variety of rich production methods such as stir-frying, steaming, boiling, frying, roasting, and pickling.
The essence of Japanese cuisine is more about the original flavor and deliciousness of the ingredients, and all of them are designed to highlight the ingredients, so it is necessary to select the best ingredients under the most stringent conditions in order to accurately present the best flavor of the ingredients.
3) Zen-like plating
In the presentation, the Japanese are simple and light, emphasizing the simple beauty of the dish itself, which is an important feature of Japanese cuisine. The same Japanese Zen spirit as usual is also used accurately.
Excellent Japanese chefs not only accurately retain the original taste of the ingredients, but also bring diners an artistic journey of beauty that cannot bear to stretch chopsticks through the collision of colors and utensils.
4) A ceremonial dining experience
The traditional culture of Japanese cuisine has a deep genes and a stronger sense of ritual, and the "Japanese food" that is included in the list of world intangible cultural heritage has added a lot of cultural color to Japanese cuisine.
5) The spirit of craftsmanship that impresses customers
A few years ago, the word "ingenuity" suddenly became popular in the domestic catering market, and became one of the most popular words on the lips of catering people in the past few years. At the same time, Japan's excellent craftsmen have become widely studied by domestic restaurant people, and most of them are familiar with their stories. These artisan stories and craftsmanship that move customers have increased consumers' trust in the category.
Shen said
The emergence of exotic cuisines was initially created and operated by owners of the "country of origin" and enthusiasts who lived in the local area.
With the diversified development of the domestic catering market, consumers have begun to actively seek novel and fresh consumption experiences. Japanese, Korean, and Southeast Asian cuisines, as the same Asian food category, have advantages that other cuisines do not have in the region and history.
Nowadays, these foreign categories have begun to get rid of the original boutique store model, move towards scale and chain, and settle in commercial complexes, and begin to compete with Chinese restaurants with rich types and Western restaurants with high standardization.
In fact, the consumers of these foreign cuisines are mainly born in the 80s and 90s, and in addition to the concept of healthy eating, the pursuit of fashion and the experience of exotic customs are one of the main reasons for consumers to try foreign cuisines.
For domestic cuisines, the prevalent regional characteristics have become an important reason for restricting their development. The highly recognizable cuisine system makes it difficult for Cantonese, Zhejiang, Shandong and other cuisines to expand foreign markets.