What is the current market for room temperature snack cheese? Can it become a new explosion point in the market? In this regard, the Food Bureau interviewed Ding Xiangyang, the founder of Youxian Workshop, a representative enterprise of normal-temperature cheese snacks transformed from distributors, and listened to his business experience together.
The following is an interview with Ding Xiangyang, general manager of Hangzhou Langduo Trading Co., Ltd. and founder of Youxian Workshop:
Keeping up with the pace of market and channel changes is the key for dealers to remain competitive.
Food board: You started as an imported food and have been a trading company for more than ten years. What achievements have you made?
Ding Xiangyang: Rondo Trade is located in Hangzhou with a unique geographical position. From offline stores to traditional e-commerce companies such as JD.COM, Tmall and Taobao, and then to new retail platforms such as community group buying and Tik Tok a auto faster, every channel change can keep up in time, and the scale has been growing steadily. Of course, this year has also been affected by the epidemic, but the overall sales volume is still relatively stable.
Food Bureau: Which brands does Rondo Trade mainly represent at present?
Ding Xiangyang: At present, we mainly import food, mainly acting as an agent to import chocolate, biscuits, laver, citron tea and other categories. Domestic brands include Starbucks, Red Bull and White Elephant. With the rise of domestic products, it also represents new consumer brands such as empty shells. New consumption channels are also covered, such as box horse fresh students all over the country.
Food Committee: We have done a very good job in the dealer team. How can we stay ahead?
Ding Xiangyang: Distributor is the role of service provider. I think the most important thing is to keep up with the pace of market changes and channel changes and seize the dividend of changes.
Grasp the initiative of product upgrade iteration
Food board: Since the trading company has been doing business for more than ten years and the sales through various channels are also good, how do you think of setting up a factory in Huzhou?
Ding Xiangyang: It can be said that being a private brand is the ultimate dream of all trading company bosses. Because trading companies always feel that they are making wedding dresses for others, and they already have so many channels, then they can make use of existing resources to produce a product.
There are upstream brands to communicate every day, which will give dealers a feeling that I think I can do it. In addition, dealers have a better understanding of what products sell well in the market and what products are the future development trend. Therefore, every dealer with a long trading time and a large scale will mostly transform into a brand.
Food board: trading companies turn upstream to make factories and brands, and downstream to open retail stores. I think there are many peers in the downstream transformation. Is the downstream also the direction of transformation?
Ding Xiangyang: The dealer is in the middle of the upstream and downstream. I think the downstream technology is lower, but the challenge is greater, because the downstream physical store is the Red Sea, and the competition is fierce; The upstream is relatively more demanding, because there are factory buildings and production technology requirements.
I set up a factory to produce lollipops seven or eight years ago, and I lost 6 million yuan. Everyone thinks it's easy to set up a factory, so did I at first. However, dealers have no production experience, and it is easy to fail to invest and build factories rashly.
Food board: What's the difference between this factory and the last one?
Ding Xiangyang: After summing up and thinking, we are more mature. In the past, when dealers saw what products were selling well in the market, they would follow suit and produce the same products.
With the experience and lessons of the last failure, we must first ensure the choice of a big track, and then establish a technical reserve to ensure good product quality, repeat customers and repurchase rate. Then there must be a clear plan to enrich the product line, produce a series of products, and iterate constantly, in order to control the initiative of product upgrade iteration.
This iterative process is not to find a foundry and let the foundry do iterative product upgrades, but to master product research and development and industry technology in their own hands and deeply understand the industry, which is the biggest difference from the previous factory. To this end, we invited Kang, the former food research and development director of Nongfu Spring and with nearly 20 years of scientific research experience in the food field, to lead the team to concentrate on research and development.
Food Bureau: What kind of products does this factory mainly produce?
Ding Xiangyang: Focus on the cheese industry this time. Milk protein and milk calcium are best absorbed by human body. On the basis of liquid milk, ten parts of milk are condensed into one part, which is cheese. Cheese is a very mature product in Europe and America, and it is the most needed source of protein.
The first thing we should do is to dilute the flavor of cheese fermentation, and then to solve the problem that low-temperature cheese is inconvenient to take out and store, we will develop normal-temperature cheese. Our partner, Dr. Cheng, developed ultra-fine particle water locking technology, which successfully turned low-temperature cheese into normal-temperature cheese.
Cheese at room temperature will become a permanent product after dessert.
Food board: I found that our brand has changed its name, right?
Ding Xiangyang: Before, our brand name was not the Cheese Plan, but in the process of media promotion, it was found that the original name was weakly related to the category, and later it was renamed the Cheese Plan after many considerations. Consumers enter search terms related to cheese, and products will jump out.
Eating board: Some people say that room temperature cheese products are not the future trend, or just a small trend suitable for China's national conditions. what do you think?
Ding Xiangyang: Normal-temperature cheese products may not be as large as low-temperature cheese products, but they still have great growth potential. In particular, room temperature cheese is developing towards snacks, and it will become a permanent product when combined with seaweed, cod and other raw materials. What enterprises need to do now is to get consumers used to the form of cheese snacks.
Food Bureau: What is the current situation of room temperature cheese market?
Ding Xiangyang: The whole industry is trying to promote the transition of cheese from liquid to solid and from low temperature to normal temperature, which is suitable for more consumers. Whoever can take the lead in making products that conform to the market trend will be able to take the initiative in the market.
At present, Yili, Dr. Cheese and other enterprises are trying to promote normal-temperature cheese snack products, and Youxian Workshop is also producing cheese-filled seaweed for Dr. Cheese. In addition, the foreign brand Belle Belle Group created Kiri Sweetheart Cheese for the China market. However, the industry is still in its infancy, and particularly mature brands have not yet appeared. A few days ago, Youxian Workshop received tens of millions of investments from the listed company Panda Dairy, which attracted the attention of the industry.
Food board: Panda Dairy also has its own brand of room temperature cheese, which is the companion of pandas. Did he invest in Youxian Workshop for product upgrade?
Ding Xiangyang: Panda Dairy has a normal-temperature cheese factory in Shandong. He invested in us because we have technology accumulation and development ideas. It is also the investment of Panda Dairy that has enabled Youxian Workshop to obtain sufficient R&D and promotion funds.
The iteration speed is fast, and the leading position in product innovation is maintained.
Food board: In the field of normal-temperature cheese snacks, the cheese plan already has financial advantages and technical reserves. Facing more brands to join the competition, how should we build a brand moat?
Ding Xiangyang: First of all, quality is the most important thing. For example, seaweed with cheese sandwich, the pursuit of clean formula, high casein content, more suitable for children Secondly, the diversification of eating scenes. Cheese bar is an upgraded version of the Japanese fan house. It turns starch into cheese, which is closer to the original flavor of cheese, more suitable for heavy taste lovers and expands the eating scene of cheese lovers.
Another point is continuous innovation, and the speed of innovation is one step faster than that of competitors. At present, the production plan of the first stage of the cheese plan includes four items: 55% cheese filled with seaweed, new small fish cheese, triangle cheese crisp (pre-production of new products) and cheese crisp (pre-production of new products).
The first and second products have been followed up. It is not a bad thing to have more followers, which has promoted the pace of continuous innovation of the cheese plan. It is also hoped that more enterprises will follow up, quickly cultivate the market demand for normalized cheese consumption and expand categories.
This year, the proportion of online and offline channels reached 6:4, and sales exceeded 30 million.
Food Bureau: At this stage, there is no synonym for cheese zero food in consumers' minds, and there is still a lot of room for growth in the cheese plan. How to balance online and offline channels?
Ding Xiangyang: After the listing of new consumer brands, there are similarities in the number of marketing channels. We plant grass through the little red book, find the head anchor to bring the goods, then make achievements online, and then lay out the offline.
The cheese project started from the offline channel. Compared with other new consumer brands, it has a better understanding of offline channels and stronger offline genes. At present, it has been stationed in RT Mart, ole, Box Horse, Baby and other channels, and has successively developed 30 or 40 agents in the national market, and there are also online direct stores on many platforms.
Food Committee: Tell me your expectations for this year's cheese project.
Ding Xiangyang: In the channel sales of most new consumer brands, online sales can reach 80% or even 90%. After the adjustment and promotion of the channel structure, the Cheese Plan predicts that the proportion of online and offline channels will be 6:4 this year, and the sales target will exceed 30 million.
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