The 26-year-old old Hong Kong-style dessert “Man Kee Dessert” merged with the three-year-old “Xiao Man Cha Tian”, and wanted to create a new Man Kee.
On May 7, the Hong Kong-style dessert chain brand “Manji Dessert” announced the merger with the new tea drink “Xiaomanchatian”. The new group completed a new round of financing, which was jointly led by a well-known catering group and a new consumer unicorn company. Liu Zizheng, founder of Xiaoman Tea Field, will serve as the president of Zhigang Group (the parent company of Manji Dessert) and the co-CEO of Manji Dessert. Hu Fengchun, former head of Starbucks China supply chain and COO of Piye Coffee, and Song Xiaoli, former COO of Xiaomanchatian and former head of operations in East China of Starbucks China, will join together.
It is reported that after the merger, “Manji Dessert” and “Xiaoman Tea Field” will open new flagship stores, positioned as medium and large stores of about 200 square meters, and will launch a new dessert concept. New stores will be opened in Beijing and Shanghai in the second half of this year.
As a rare “two-way travel” in the consumer field, the merger of Manji Dessert and Xiaoman Tea Field is regarded as a move to complement each other’s “shortcomings”. Liu Zizheng, founder of Xiaoman Tea Field, also publicly stated that the merger of Manji Dessert and Xiaoman Tea Field is a “marriage of old and new” in the consumer field. In the past, new and old consumers encountered different problems: traditional consumer brand products, operating systems and costs The control is excellent, the “chassis is stable”, but the insight into the “front end” is insufficient, and the brand power is lacking. New consumer brands rush to the “front end”, but the back-end support capabilities are often insufficient. “Xinmanji” can make up for both ends.
The transformation of time-honored enterprises is not a new thing. The merger of Manji Dessert and Xiaoman Tea Field, who is only three years old, is a development trend that takes a fancy to the fusion of desserts and new-style teas and that new-style teas are healthier and higher-quality. However, will the merged Manji Dessert usher in a new life or become the next Xu Liushan? The 60-year-old “founder of Hong Kong-style desserts” Xu Liushan was bankrupt and liquidated last year.
A rare “marriage of old and new” in the field of consumption
According to public information, Manji Dessert was founded in Hong Kong in 1995. Around 2010, it relied on the dividends of shopping malls to create a “sweet rest area”. The number of stores in the mainland was close to 500. From 2008 to 2013, it was the period with the fastest growth in the number of Manji Dessert stores. More than 90 new stores were opened in one year. Double skin milk, jelly, and Yangzhi nectar are classic explosives that are well known to the post-80s and 90s.
Manji Dessert has a number of professional central kitchens, fruit processing warehouses and transportation fleets. The production capacity of one of the central kitchens can supply dozens of chain stores, and the central factory will uniformly distribute the products to all branches across the country, using professional insulation delivery. Store equipment, arrange product inspectors to inspect the store, and the food is fresh and hygienic. It has been open for a period of time to join, but the application for joining has been suspended since 2013. At present, all newly opened stores are directly operated stores.
However, with the recent two years of new teas such as Hey Tea, Nai Xue’s tea, and Shu Yi Shao Xiancao, new dessert and bakery brands such as Momo Dim Sum Bureau and Hutou Bureau have emerged one after another, and the Hong Kong-style and Cantonese-style dessert markets have gradually declined. In the past two years, Manji Desserts has also reduced its stores in major cities. From close to 500 stores in mainland China, it now has nearly 300 fully-operated stores in mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore, but it is still profitable. , the annual income is nearly 1 billion yuan.
The new tea brand in this marriage, Xiaoman Tea, was established in 2019. It is the pioneer of domestic cherries-themed teas, aiming at the younger generation’s continuous upgrading of high-value fresh fruit tea products in the tea market. The unit price of the product is about 30 yuan. The main product is based on the concept of “high-value cherries” and “dessert drinks”, covering a variety of high-value fruits such as cherries, Qingwangqingti, etc., with more than 20 products and diversified products. product matrix.
According to data from Tianyancha, Xiaoman Chatian, who is only three years old, has completed 4 rounds of financing since its establishment. The founder, Liu Zizheng, was responsible for investment in the consumer sector in the China team of Warburg Pincus. As the youngest investor in Warburg Pincus, he has led or participated in the investment of well-known projects such as Mobike and Geek+.
Under the fight of the gods of the new high-end and high-end tea brands, Xiaoman Tea Field entered the game from the concept of focusing on super categories. The founder Liu Zizheng once said that Xiaoman Tea Field is doing reverse thinking, “looking for those with unstable supply chains and low prices. Inexpensive, not easy to obtain but really valuable categories in the hearts of users.”
In 2020, the first store of Xiaoman Chatian opened in Joy City, Chaoyang, Beijing. The cherries tea series built around the core category of cherries have attracted a large number of consumers with the high-value concept of “cherry freedom” and their super high appearance. “sub-bomb” became an explosive item in the store.
In order to turn the usual 200-300 yuan per pound of cherries into a cup of beverages and ensure gross profit, Liu Zizheng, the founder of Xiaoman Tea Field, chose to set up barriers before opening the store. By investing in the upstream fresh fruit supply chain, he has a global supply chain of his own. Purchasing, the main focus is “365 days of supplying high-quality cherries throughout the year, 365 days and nights across three continents and seven seas”, reducing procurement costs and forming strong control over the supply of cherries. And his background as a consumer investor who worked in private equity institutions also provides him with an advantage in the upstream high-end fruit supply chain.
High-value fruit, once the supply chain barriers are established, it will form a higher and scarce product value. Relying on the advantages of cherries productization and supply chain capabilities, Xiaoman Tea Field has established industry barriers in the vast new tea beverage market. At present, no brand has followed up and imitated its super-category teas such as cherries.
It is understood that the current size of Xiaoman Tea Field is not large. With Beijing as the base camp, there are no more than 50 stores across the country, and the monthly efficiency of the store is 8,000 yuan. In an interview with the media last year, founder Liu Zizheng once said that the gross profit margin of the Xiaoman Chatian cherries series has reached more than 65%, and all stores have turned losses into profits.
Xinmanji or the next Xu Liushan?
The transformation of time-honored consumer companies is nothing new. In the field of Hong Kong-style desserts, a generation of “Dessert King” Xu Liushan used to be a strong opponent alongside Manji Desserts, but after several large-scale expansions, they changed hands three times. In 2009, Xu Liushan’s founding family shareholders will all The stake was sold to Naivs Capital, an investment firm in Malaysia. In 2015, Naivs Capital changed hands to Huang Jihuang’s parent company (Huangtian International Holdings) for HK$500 million. In 2019, KFC parent company Yum China acquired Huang Jihuang.
Xu Liushan, who has changed hands many times, has not escaped the impact of new tea drinks and Internet celebrity catering, and because of the excessive opening of franchise after the change of ownership, poor store management and revenue, he did not innovate and seek changes in products and stay in place. Xu Liushan’s business was unstable, and eventually fell behind and went bankrupt.
On May 26 last year, according to various media reports, four creditors of Xu Liushan filed a petition for winding up of Xu Liushan Food Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (referred to as: Xu Liushan). winding-up order.
Today, compared to Xu Liushan, the market still has time for desserts. The current level of operation and management of Manji Desserts is relatively good, and the fundamentals are stable. In June last year, ADV Capital Partner completed the mergers and acquisitions of Manji Hong Kong, South China and East China, and integrated its stores in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and mainland China and cross-regional functional management headquarters, realizing Manji for the first time. The unification of the brand has also achieved profitability in the third and fourth quarters of this year.
In the environment of the wave of new consumer brands, Manji Desserts, while maintaining the brand’s own sentimental culture, strives to meet the changing needs of consumers, and closely follows the development trend of new retail and digitalization: Opened takeaway channels on platforms such as Meituan and Ele.me; entered supermarkets and launched the “Honeymoon Express” store with Hema Fresh; in 2019, built a private domain operation platform with Youzan, and launched the “light meal + dessert” marketing model. In 2020, the track of Yituo stores will open the city’s taste buds, innovate product categories with urban stores as the background, and launch IP co-branding and co-creation attempts.
From the current sales of Manji Desserts, it can be seen that Manji Dessert’s products have expanded from Hong Kong-style sugar water that pays attention to health care to “drinkable taro puree double-skin milk” and “persimmon, your lucky cheese bobo cup” Wait for new products, coffee and cakes with the shadow of new tea drinks.
However, in the past two years, Manji Desserts has been reported to close the store many times, indicating that the product taste and innovation are still slightly less competitive in the current consumer market dominated by young people. According to industry analysts, it is not the dessert baking brands that have emerged in the past two years that “beat” traditional Hong Kong-style desserts, but may be new milk tea brands.
Compared with new-style milk tea, traditional Hong Kong-style dessert shops have higher product costs, and are easily affected by seasonality, and the source of customers is also declining. New-style tea brands are generally more accurate in product positioning, and they understand Douyin, Xiaohongshu, etc. The flow of brand marketing is closer to the needs and pain points of the younger generation.
According to media reports, Liu Zizheng, the new CEO of Manji Desserts, has his own new plans for the development of the dessert market and new stores: First, desserts are “snacked”. The usage scenarios of desserts should be unlimited, not limited to space and utensils; second, desserts are “gifted”. Drive the transformation of catering from traditional ready-to-sell to a higher-dimensional retail format; the “full-day” of desserts promotes the quiet transformation of desserts to light meal replacements; and finally, return to basic models for reconstruction. The traffic brought by compounding and dazzling skills is not sustainable, and the gross profit margin and repurchase rate are not supported.
With the consumption upgrade of the younger generation of consumers, traditional dessert brands are gradually declining. Brand aging and limited consumption scenarios are not problems that a time-honored company needs to face. From cups of burning fairy grass, sago dew to fresh fruit poplar nectar, traditional desserts and tea drinks are constantly being integrated, and dessert tea drinks have become a new trend in the development of the new tea industry. Dessert tea drinks are sugar-free, low-fat and low-fat. Cards and light meals are also expected to become the future development direction.
Many people in the industry believe that the 26-year-old traditional dessert brand Manji Dessert has the advantages of brand power, central kitchen factory and large-scale stores, and the young and new fresh fruit tea drink Xiaoman Tea Field is more in consumer demand insight and marketing. Precisely, after the two join forces, if they can seize the new trend of dessert tea and light meal replacement, it is expected that a new full record will be born and run in both directions.
(This article was first published on Titanium Media APP, author | Liu Dafang, editor | Tianpeng)
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