36氪 was informed that the community cold brine brand “Ma Zaw Claw” has completed the A+ round of financing with a scale of nearly 100 million yuan . This round was led by Tomato Capital, followed by Jinding Capital and Joyvio Ventures.
Born in Chongqing, Mazuzuo is a cold brine chain brand featuring chicken feet. Relying on the signature spicy/sour chicken feet single product, Ma Zaw Claw has developed rapidly in Sichuan and Chongqing in the past three years . During the period from 2019 to 2021, it will continue to expand at a rate of 18, 63 and 223 new stores each year, respectively. . Up to now, the number of Mazuzuo stores has exceeded 320, which is the head of the cold halogen chain in Chongqing.
This is a contrarian expansion completed under the influence of the epidemic. In 2022, Mazuzuo plans to continue doubling the number of stores. Yu Xuehang told 36氪 that Ma Zaw Claw’s target total number of stores this year will reach 600, and the core of the new stores will be located in Chengdu and Guiyang, and plans to expand to Dongguan and other Pearl River Delta regions as early as this year.
This financing is a new round of financing after about half a year of Mazuocuo. Previously, in October last year, Mazuocuo completed tens of millions of yuan in Series A financing exclusively invested by Dawang Capital. Ma Zaw Claw founder Yu Xuehang told 36氪 that the funds from the new round of financing will be mainly used for upstream factory construction, market development, team building and informatization construction.
Develop a large single product of chicken feet
The founder Yu Xuehang is a serial entrepreneur with more than 10 years of experience in catering business. He started a hot pot restaurant in 2008, but it was not smooth at first. In 2012, Yu Xuehang inadvertently noticed the characteristic chicken feet of his wife’s hometown, Anju Ancient Town, and tried the water to open the predecessor of the Mazujiao “Yujia Double Pepper Soaked Chicken Feet”. Since then, in 2014, after repeated market tests and R & D and improvement, Ma Zaw Claw officially determined to use spicy as the signature flavor.
In Xuehang’s view, Mala itself is addictive and universal enough, and several core chicken feet items such as spicy chicken feet, hot and sour chicken feet, lemon chicken feet, and vine pepper chicken feet have been developed. On this basis, with the expansion of the scale, Ma Zaw Claw has gradually developed classic braised products such as wing tips, duck heads, duck necks, spicy chicken, lotus root slices, dried tofu, yuba, kelp, edamame, etc. There are about 30 stores in total. SKUs.
Regarding product flavor innovation, Yu Xuehang told 36氪 that there are only two core points: one is the real material ; it is reported that the Mazuo claw is mainly made of A-grade chicken feet in the northeast region, which is heavy and has a long breeding days, and has a better taste. The ingredients are similar, and high-quality ingredients are used. Among them, the fresh millet used in hot and sour chicken feet costs only 35 yuan per kilogram in wholesale, and these ingredients are given to customers, regardless of weight.
Product map of hemp claw claw, according to respondents
The second is to constantly try new innovative combinations of flavors to meet more taste preferences. “According to the category and taste, we have made a horizontal and vertical product matrix,” Yu Xuehang told 36氪, Ma Zaw Claw will look for a relatively stable supply chain from the aforementioned research and development matrix, and the production process can be combined with the existing process. Products to meet the needs of consumers with different tastes and product preferences, “The store looks like there are only more than 30 models, but we have more than 90 models in our product library.” Yu Xuehang said.
It is worth mentioning that in the early days, Ma Zaw Claw also tried to distinguish between numb and spicy. In terms of numbness, various series such as micro numbness, special numbness, and crazy numbness were refined. However, in actual operation, it was found that customers would Due to the difficulty of choosing, Ma Zaw Claw finally decided to standardize the degree of numbness and spicyness, focusing on creating characteristic flavor chicken feet.
The continuous development of spicy flavors has allowed Ma Zaw Claw to gradually establish a brand’s flavor barrier. It is reported that in the process of early store expansion, Mazuzuo deliberately opened some stores next to Juewei and Ziyan Baiwei Chicken to assess the impact of mature brands on Mazuzuo. Although it is only separated by a wall, they found that this not only did not affect Ma Zaw Claw, but the business was getting better and better.
Fresh taste is another major feature of Ma Zaw Claw products. Generally speaking, after the chicken feet are soaked in the soup, the taste can be maintained for 7 days to 40 days, and the scrapping time of similar enterprises usually ranges from 2 days to 5 days. The requirements for hemp claw are higher. After the chicken claw is unpacked, the store needs to scrap it the next day, and a strict scrapping mechanism has been made.
In the process of development, Ma Zaw Caw once considered going through the e-commerce channel and achieved a certain scale, but finally decided to freeze the e-commerce project. “Selling chicken feet in e-commerce in pre-packaged form means that additives are needed. In addition, the taste is not comparable to offline ones.” Yu Xuehang told 36氪.
Before chicken feet, duck neck was the biggest item in lo mei. According to the statistics of Narrow Gate Dining Eyes, as of 2021, there will be more than 14,000 restaurants nationwide for the delicious food featuring duck necks. According to statistics from the China National Financial Securities Research Institute, as of 2020, there are as many as 128,000 duck neck stores in first- to fifth-tier cities across the country.
Yu Xuehang believes that after the chicken feet are expected to become the duck neck, the new “Wandian” item in the Luwei chain.
“It is suitable for making braised vegetables and can expand across the country, mainly in chickens, ducks, cows, and pigs,” Yu Xuehang told 36氪, not to mention ducks, three listed companies have been verified; pork is too common, and braised vegetables are all over the place. ; The price of beef is too high; the chicken category includes Ziyan Baiwei Chicken, but it is positioned as a staple food. Chicken feet are the most suitable parts for making braised chicken, which are both delicious and cost-effective.
From an industry perspective, the reason behind the emergence of the new Wandian brand is that the market concentration of the lo-mei chain still needs to be further improved. According to the data of Huajing Industry Research Institute, the CR4 of 2020 Leisure Luwei is about 20%, followed by Juewei Food, Zhou Hei Ya, Ziyan Baiwei Chicken, and Huangshanghuang. For new brands, there is still a lot of market space to be developed.
Cut into the community, Ma Zaw Claw wants to be a “Luwei convenience store”
The halogen products market has maintained rapid growth in recent years. According to iResearch, the estimated market size of China’s halogen products in 2022 is expected to be 369.1 billion yuan, with a compound growth rate of 12.3% from 2018 to 2021.
The exploration of fresh chicken feet lo-mei is not only optimistic about the quality upgrade of lo-mei, but also optimistic about the community business.
Yu Xuehang believes that the convenience of community lo mei consumption scenarios is in line with the random consumption characteristics of lo mei itself. Moreover, compared with online, offline channel costs are also lower. It is reported that a typical Mazaw claw store covers an area of 12-14 square meters, with a monthly sales of about 80,000 yuan, a rent of less than 8,000 yuan, and a channel cost of only 10%. For some e-commerce brands of the same type, the traffic cost can account for 30%.
“Community commerce is the future of Chinese commerce,” Yu Xuehang told 36Kr. Human nature generally pursues convenience, and convenience stores and community stores have replaced some supermarket functions. Part of the reason is that staying at home has become the new way of life, and there is a reluctance to waste time on the commute.
The epidemic has accelerated this process, and it has also pushed chicken feet to appear more frequently at family dining tables. Yu Xuehang told 36氪 that chicken feet mainly appeared in supermarkets and restaurants in the past, but now more and more people are studying how to make chicken feet at home. Ma Zaw Claw is the option of “fresh, convenient and delicious spicy lo-mei” in the community. “Essentially, Ma Zaw Zaw is a lo-mei convenience store featuring chicken feet .”
Map of Ma Zaw Claw store, provided by the interviewee
The community scene is an important market branch in Luweili, but as of now, the coverage of the top brand Juewei is still relatively limited. According to the financial report of Juewei Foods, as of 2021, according to the statistics of different types of stores, the commercial body along the street is the scene with the largest number of Juewei stores, accounting for as much as 49%, compared with only 20% for community stores.
In terms of research and development, distribution, store management, sales strategies, etc., Ma Zaw Claw has now polished a set of standardized processes. On the upstream side, Mazuzuo has invested in the construction of a small model factory . The investment of a single factory is as low as 3 million to 5 million. On the premise of in place operations, it can support 300 stores within 8 hours of delivery time.
The existence of the central factory makes most of the production processes, including more than 30 production processes, pre-positioned. It not only ensures the flexibility of front-end stores, but also can control product quality to the greatest extent. “The store only needs to do one thing, which is to sell products and match them according to customer needs,” Yu Xuehang told 36氪, which is why Ma Zaw Claw is positioned in the Luwei convenience store.
Ma Zaw Claw does not consider the direction of hot brine. In Xuehang’s view, the taste stability of hot brine products is difficult to solve, and it increases the burden on stores. The overall labor efficiency has not improved. “It is still a catering business in essence.”
Although the front-end store operation requirements are low, the management requirements are not low. For the store side, Ma Zaw Claw has formulated a detailed management system at the store manager, on-site, ordering, turnover goals, learning and other levels, and fully introduced Drucker management in 2016. Yu Xuehang told 36氪 that the store is essentially a service role, and the quality of consumers’ experience is not only about product quality and freshness, but also multiple dimensions such as service quality and environment.
According to Qing Yong, founder of Tomato Capital, the lead investor in the A+ round, although Ma Zaw Claw has embarked on the fast lane, the national expansion of the brand is relatively restrained, so as to avoid product quality, management services, and supply chain caused by excessive regional dispersion. Efficiency and customer experience decline.
The improvement of management ability has also helped the store’s operating performance to have a significant improvement. Yu Xuehang told 36 Krypton that Ma Zaw Claw has done tracking statistics, and in the case of helping franchisees improve their management capabilities, the average annual performance growth rate of a single store can reach 30%. “The franchisee is the biggest influencer in the store. If you don’t help them improve their management ability, the brand will be a dead end.”
This feeling is related to Xuehang’s entrepreneurial experience. In the early days, Ma Zaw Claw tried to open technology to join, but found that the management problems at the store side were almost impossible to solve. There must be a large and middle stage to break down all the work, and then conduct repeated training.
Increasing the density of stores in regional cities is an important strategy for Ma Zaw Zaw’s store expansion. Yu Xuehang told 36Kr that regional density means higher distribution and operational efficiency, and from the market side, consumer awareness will also improve, “We have a ‘7th law’. That is, consumers see 7 After the first time, I thought it was a brand, which led to repurchase.” Yu Xuehang said.
As of 2021, Mazuocuo has opened 286 stores in Chongqing within two years, and almost zero stores have been closed, with an overall survival rate of 97%. The return cycle for a single store ranges from March to 12 months. In addition, Ma Zaw Claw also entered the Chengdu market in October last year, and plans to complete the coverage of 150 stores in the Chengdu area by the end of 2022.
According to Yu Xuehang, there are three major problems for the community lo-mei chain business to go nationwide. One is supply chain management , which requires building factories and distribution networks . The reason why many brands cannot go out to a single area is that they are stuck here; Site , community business also chooses the site to determine the life and death. In addition, it is the normalized management of store operations .
“The solution is management innovation, which is a slow job and an inescapable hurdle.” Yu Xuehang told 36氪 that this has high requirements for refined management and requires a lot of energy, but once it is overcome, it will become a A moat for brand expansion.
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