The first batch of spicy strips is coming.
According to IFR, a subsidiary of Reuters, Wei Long Foods, which is famous for producing spicy strips all over the country, plans to raise $1 billion in Hong Kong IPO next year. At present, the company is cooperating with CICC, Morgan Stanley and UBS to discuss the listing in the second half of next year.
Previously, Weilong had frequently conducted changes in equity, which was regarded by the industry as paving the way for listing, and there were rumors of listing a few years ago.
It can be seen that Wei Long's ambition is getting bigger and bigger. Liu Weiping, the founder, once suggested that a larger production base and R&D costs are needed, which may be part of Wei Long's plan to raise 1 billion US dollars.
When it comes to Wei Long, it can be said that everyone knows it, but Wei Long has developed rapidly in recent years, and it is no longer the spicy brand you remember.
The birth of Wei Long started with a flood.
In 1998, Hunan was hit by a severe flood, and crops were seriously damaged. The production capacity of soybean, the main raw material of dried soy sauce, decreased, and the price rose sharply, which had a great impact on the original industry.
In order to reduce the cost, the three masters in the dried sauce workshop used gluten instead of dried beans, but they made a substitute with similar taste and much cheaper price, which is the embryonic form of spicy strips today.
Because of the simple production, the early production threshold of spicy strips was extremely low, and a large number of small workshop manufacturers emerged in the market. However, Pingjiang is a mountainous area, where flour is not produced, and local enterprises have neither raw material advantages nor sales advantages. If they want to sell their products, they still need suitable areas.
From 1997 to 1998, Liu Weiping, who graduated from high school, was still working in a Taiwan-funded enterprise in Guangdong. Seeing that he followed the advice of his fellow villagers, Liu Weiping decided to try his luck in Luohe.
Luohe is an important town in Henan food industry, with not only Shuanghui but also local leading food enterprises such as Nanjiecun, Aodeli and Beixu, and it has also attracted domestic and foreign heavyweight food enterprises such as Goldman Sachs, DuPont, Japan Ham Co., Ltd., Lotte Korea, COFCO, Want Want Group and Zhengda Group to invest in the local area.
So in August 1999, Liu Weiping boarded the No.2153 train and arrived at Luohe at 3 am.
Facts have proved that his last stand was right.
In 2, Liu Weiping ate with his fellow villagers and found a kind of food called beef tendon noodles. Later, Liu Weiping found the production place of beef tendon noodles, which was also a small workshop with only a simple bulking machine.
Liu Weiping paid a deposit to let the shopkeeper improve the mold, and the product came out a week later. He added some caramel and Chili noodles to make a brown product, a bit like eel, so he named it "eel strips".
Later, it was called "spicy strips" and "spicy silk" by more and more people. Liu Weiping's chili strips were made several times with the spirit of food death, and finally a satisfactory product was obtained.
Similarly, Zhang Hongchao, who lives in Mi Xue Ice City, first figured out several recipes based on his own understanding of cold drinks. However, the taste of the first few trial-produced ice creams was not ideal, and Zhang Hongchao didn't give up. One pot didn't work, so he adjusted the formula and cooked another pot for several days, and kept trying, which made the guys who tried it almost throw up.
Back to Wei Long, at first, in order to promote spicy silk, Liu Weiping began to stay in schools near the factory. Whenever school is over, he stands at the school gate and even invites students to try it for free.
One small detail is that in order to facilitate students to put spicy strips directly into their clothes pockets, Liu Weiping also changed the original 12 cm large package into a smaller size, which also shows Liu Weiping's extraordinary business acumen.
The school's initial water test was very successful, which made Liu Weiping's spicy shredded noodles get a flood of praise. Therefore, since 22, the production of beef tendon noodles in Liu Weiping has soared, from one machine to dozens. By 23, Liu Weiping registered the trademark "Wei Long" for his spicy strips. It is said that Wei Long's invention was still in the names of Liu Weiping and Jackie Chan.
The company was registered in the following year, and production bases were successively put in Luohe, Zhumadian and Fugou in Henan.
It is said that Wei Long adheres to the "mass line" in order to promote spicy strips. Promote your own spicy strips through small advertisements on the street, writing soft reports and giving lectures on health knowledge.
It is rumored that in the early days, Liu Weiping hired a large number of farmers to push around, and spread around 1 kilometers and 2 kilometers around the Luohe River, from Carrefour and Wal-Mart to small shops in schools and communities, and posted posters and flags everywhere.
According to Liu Weiping, the "Wei Long" spicy strips first took root in Luohe, so we must first open the Luohe market, then expand to Zhengzhou, and then to Henan province and the whole country.
At the beginning of opening up the market, Wei Long Spicy Bar set an order quantity standard of "6 pieces per day" for dealers. If the order quantity of 6 pieces is not reached in one day, it will not open up the next customer. For Weilong, this can not only ensure that the sales volume of products can keep up, but also provide a basis for customers to pay more and more attention.
Everything comes to him who waits, and small spicy strips capture people's hearts, and Wei Long's business is booming.
Wei Long's ambition goes far beyond Luohe.
With more and more popularity in many places, Wei Long also faces a long-standing problem: the brand image is too sinking.
Just like many people subconsciously think that spicy strips are junk products, when they mention Wei Long, they will tacitly think that they are low-end products.
How to solve this long-standing pain point? Wei Long thought of a way, Apple Marketing.
"25g ultra-large capacity, chewy and kiss. It will go on sale on September 13th, with a limited edition of 5 copies.
"Weilong R&D Office has developed a brand-new spicy taste, and 21 spicy taste is closer to the tongue tip preference of the whole country, which makes spicy taste more warm."
This is close to Apple's delivery copy, simple product design, and strong black, white and gray tones, which was novel at that time and made consumers shine at the moment.
Wei Long played a beautiful battle for consumers' minds.
At the same time, Wei Long didn't spend less time offline.
The month after HotStrip 7. was released, Weilong Guanwei released a set of pictures, and spicy strips with different tastes were displayed as exhibits in glass display cabinets. Whether it is decoration style or product display, it is exactly the same as the offline store of iPhone.
Statistics show that in two days, the number of reposts of this Weibo exceeded 35,, and the number of comments exceeded 14,.
In the process of marketing touching the net, in 215, Wei Long's sales also began to March online. In a short time, Wei Long quickly settled in Tmall, JD.COM, No.1 Store, Taobao Mall and other major e-commerce platforms, and quickly accumulated a large number of fans, and the number of fans was in the order of one million.
In addition to marketing, Wei Long has been exploring diversification in categories in recent years.
According to the report of beijing business today in 219, Wei Long Food has established several production bases, such as Luohe Pingping, Zhumadian Pingping, Qinzui Dried Bean, Weilai Food, etc., which mainly produce seasoning flour products.
At present, in addition to spicy strips, Wei Long food products include konjac flour, potato chips, crispy rice, beef, chicken feet, braised eggs and spicy hot pot.
Wei Long's products have long been more than spicy strips, and its product line is constantly enriched and expanded. For example, in 214, Wei Long invested a lot of money to establish the third food production base, and the production line of crispy noodles and konjac was also built.
Around 217, the self-heating food craze broke out, and Wei Long actively followed up, and launched the self-heating hot pot brand "Back Pot Man" for people with heavy tastes in Sichuan, Hunan and Chongqing; In 218, Wei Long launched a "self-cooked" spicy hot pot product, which is convenient for the food market; In 219, Wei Long sold hot and sour powder and charcoal-roasted sausage on Tmall, and in 22, Weilong launched a brand-new series of stewed eggs.
According to official website's introduction, at present, Weilong has made dozens of products in four categories: flour products, bean products, konjac products and vegetable products. According to Liu Weiping, in 219 alone, Weilong used nearly 2, tons of agricultural and sideline products such as flour, kelp, soybeans, peppers and konjac.
In order to cope with the new changes, Wei Long has also begun to exert its efforts in research and development, and specially set up the Central Research Institute of spicy snack food. After professional R&D personnel have demonstrated the taste, ingredients and packaging of the products, they have developed new spicy strips.
At the beginning of this year, Liu Weiping also revealed to the media that he would build brand-new factories and workshops to create a more intelligent Wei Long.
Wei Long, which has been transformed from marketing to products, has grown rapidly in recent years.
At the partner conference in 22, Liu Weiping, the chairman of Wei Long, revealed that the overall revenue of Wei Long in 219 was 4.99 billion yuan, including 2.55 billion yuan from terminal direct sales, 1.8 billion yuan from distribution channels and 559 million yuan from e-commerce channels. Compared with the revenue of 3.5 billion yuan in 218, the growth rate is nearly 43%. Meanwhile, Liu Weiping said that the revenue target of Wei Long in 22 is 7.2 billion yuan, which is expected to increase by nearly 47% on the basis of 219.
Wei Long's listing this time is not unrelated to the growth potential of the company. How big is the whole market?
At present, according to the Report on the Development of Snack Industry under the Background of Consumption Upgrading issued by the Circulation Industry Promotion Center of the Ministry of Commerce, the total output value of snack industry will be close to 3 trillion yuan in 22, of which the annual output value of spicy strips alone will be nearly 6 billion yuan.
Spicy strips are a product with high profit rate. China food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng said that the average gross profit margin of spicy strips is close to 5%. However, there is no national leader in this industry. Even Wei Long, which accounts for the highest proportion, has a market share of less than 1% of the whole industry.
Wei Long has set a sales target of 1 billion yuan
But behind the seemingly rapid growth, Wei Long is not without hidden worries.
In fact, food safety has always been a heart disease for spicy strip enterprises seeking to go public. Even though Wei Long tried to prove that it was "clean and hygienic" by actions, it has repeatedly been listed on the black list of food safety sampling.
According to public information, among the judicial cases involving Pingping Food, which is controlled by Luohe Wei Long Trading Co., Ltd., the first cause of action is product liability disputes, with 39 cases.
In 215, the Quality Inspection Bureau of Luohe issued a penalty notice, saying that the mouth-to-mouth roast and gluten produced by Pingping Food passed off as unqualified products. It was ordered to stop producing and selling unqualified products and fined a total of 85,7 yuan.
After the "315" exposure of spicy strips, in 219, Wei Long showed three key points: deepening the terminal, focusing on the market, focusing on the display, and conveniently issued a notice on "Wei Long leisure customers are forbidden to compete on their behalf", stipulating that dealers are not allowed to compete on their behalf.
Second, there are more and more competitors.
The high gross profit of spicy strips naturally attracts capital to join. Online celebrity snack brands such as Three Squirrels, Liangpin Shop, Baicaowei and Yanjin Shop have also entered the spicy strip industry one after another. After all, people who love nuts do not conflict with those who love spicy strips.
As a matter of fact, three squirrels and good shops that have stood firm at the high end have already tried the sinking route, hoping to launch an impact on Weilong with the brand awareness, consumer acceptance and customer base superimposed by diehard powder.
Some of these brands are rising rapidly. For example, according to the statistics of FMCG.com, in 217, Wei Long ranked 5th and Yanjin Puzi ranked 1th in bulk snack food sales in Shanghai and surrounding areas. A year later, in 218, Wei Long maintained its ranking, while Yanjin Puzi was promoted to 7th place.
It can be seen that Wei Long, which is about to go public, also has a lot of embarrassment, and whether it can withstand the attack of many competing products for a long time still needs market test.