The Danger And Opportunity Of "Top Stream" Crayfish Feast

In the TV series "forensic Qin Ming", Qin Ming is sitting on a roadside stall in full dress, holding a scalpel in one hand, perfectly peeling off the shrimp meat and shell, while questioning the crayfish. This is the epitome of crayfish consumption implanted in China's film and television industry. There is a saying: in the summer of China, crayfish can live with dignity! The crayfish named "the king of the night snack" has also bred a large industry with a scale of 100 billion. The industrial chain has driven more than 5 million jobs. China has become the world's largest crayfish producer and consumer.

According to the data of qixinbao, there are more than 17000 crayfish related enterprises with the status of being in operation, existing, moving in and moving out, of which about 90% of them were established within five years. In the past five years, the number of crayfish related enterprises (all enterprises) in China has continued to rise. Among them, more than 5000 crayfish related enterprises will be added in 2018 and 2019.

From the perspective of regional distribution, crayfish related enterprises in China are mainly distributed in Hubei Province, with a number of nearly 4000, accounting for 23.3% of the national total, followed by Guangdong Province, with more than 2000 related enterprises, accounting for 12%. In addition, Sichuan, Henan and Hunan have more than 1000 related enterprises.

In terms of the scale of output value, in 2020, the total output value of China's crayfish industry has reached 349.07 billion yuan, covering the primary, secondary and tertiary industries. It has leapt into an industry with hundreds of billion yuan, leaving a strong mark in the history of China's agricultural development.

From the perspective of regional economy, crayfish consumption has even promoted Qianjiang City, a county-level city with a population of less than one million, to become a world-famous "crayfish town". The per capita GDP of the city ranks among the top five in Hubei Province, and the contribution value of crayfish related industries accounts for about 30% of the GDP of the whole city. However, as a non rigid consumption driven industry, after nearly 10 years of development, whether China's crayfish industry is facing overcapacity, and the sustainable development of the industry has become a hot topic both inside and outside the industry.

In 2020, the total output value of China's crayfish industry has reached 349.07 billion yuan, leaping to a hundreds of billion yuan industry. Visual China

Surplus crisis behind peak season

At 4:00 a.m. on June 17, at a crayfish breeding base in Longwan town, Qianjiang City, Hubei Province, Laoxiao, a farmer, and four workers he employed went down to the net of the shrimp pond at night to catch them one by one. On the stone road built in the base, a transport vehicle was already waiting. After Lao Xiao's shrimp was weighed, it was directly sent to the crayfish trading center in Qianjiang City, They are then sent to vegetable farms, fresh supermarkets or wholesale markets all over the country. These fresh crayfish will be delicious in various restaurants at night.

With this consumption power, crayfish has become an important emerging industry in China's agriculture. According to the survey and analysis report on China's crayfish industry (2020) released by China aquatic products circulation and Processing Association, the total output value of China's crayfish industry will be about 349.07 billion yuan in 2020, with a year-on-year decrease of 15.06%. Among them, the output value of crayfish breeding industry was about 79.062 billion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 10.19%. The output value of the secondary industry dominated by processing industry was about 48.08 billion yuan, up 10% year on year. Affected by the epidemic situation, the output value of the tertiary industry dominated by catering industry was about 222 billion yuan, down 25% year on year, but still accounted for 63.59% of the total output value.

However, in the grass-roots survey in 2021, the scale of crayfish farming in China is still expanding, and the consumption of the tertiary industry is obviously warming up.

However, the price of crayfish is no longer "unique", only up and down. Lao Xiao said that in the field price, due to the small overall supply of shrimp in March, the price of shrimp was relatively considerable, ranging from 8 to 35 yuan, but the daily sales volume was only about 800 Jin. However, after entering may, due to the large increase in production, the purchase price of Xiaoqing dropped to one or two yuan a catty, and the prawns were only 14 yuan a catty“ The market has been fluctuating in recent years, especially during the epidemic period. Although there was a high price in March, no one can guarantee how long it will last. Now the price plunge is also expected. Many farmers around me are not optimistic, and dare not act rashly. " Old Xiao said with a long sigh, he said that now the price of crayfish is not profitable for farmers, even feed money is not enough.

Boss Hu, who had been collecting shrimp from Tangkou for a long time, sighed: "if we go on like this, we can't do business any more! Our middlemen used to make a profit of 2-3 yuan per kilogram, but now they only have 50 cents to one yuan. Today, the boss of Tangkou made a joke to me. He said that when he first came to buy lobster, he brought Chinese cigarettes to us. Later, he became big Su and then became little su. Today, he just came to buy a pack of plum cigarettes for five yuan. "

At the retail end, Xiaoli, a retail merchant engaged in crayfish wholesale and retail in a wholesale market in Wuhan, thinks that the sales situation this year is a little better than last year. Although the price is down, the sales volume is up. According to him, since May, the price of crayfish has been in the range of 10-25 yuan, with a profit of 1 yuan per kilogram, which fluctuates around 5 yuan compared with the price in previous years.

"In those years when crayfish were most popular, there was basically no off-season, and the supply was in short supply." But now, with the expansion of production scale, crayfish production capacity has, to a certain extent, structural surplus, Xiao said. In 2020, the total breeding area of crayfish in 16 provinces, autonomous regions and cities will be about 23.0777 million mu, of which the aquaculture area of Hubei Province will reach 7.9 million mu, with an annual output of 980000 tons, accounting for 38.76% of the total output.

It is worth noting that the development of crayfish industry is inefficient. In the whole industry chain, crayfish farming has the highest cost, the lowest profit and the highest risk, but the threshold is low. After the price of crayfish reached the peak in 2018, it attracted a large number of farmers to join the board. In 2019, the crayfish farming area increased significantly, but not every farmer could get a share of it, and even most of the new farmers fell into deficit management. Especially during the epidemic period, some crayfish production areas even appeared "abandoned pond" phenomenon. A person in the aquaculture industry pointed out that this was mainly due to the price cliff drop caused by the oversupply, and the lag of aquaculture mode and technology on the other hand.

Before that, Wang Xujun, vice mayor of Qianjiang City, said in an interview: "these are some problems that the industry will inevitably face when it develops to a certain stage, and it is the result of the industry's transition from a period of rapid expansion to a period of transformation and adjustment. I am full of confidence in the future of the crayfish industry. Since 2017, China's crayfish farming area has grown rapidly, and the market demand has gradually become saturated. It has entered the buyer's market and put forward higher requirements for the products provided by farmers. In this process, some unqualified practitioners will be eliminated. In the long run, this is not a bad thing. " It is reported that in 2020, Qianjiang will promote the large-scale commercial shrimp culture mode of 7000 mu, and the farmers who carry out this mode have achieved good benefits.

The market of prefabricated dishes and leisure food has become a new blue ocean

In the process of the development of the primary industry, it is easy to see "swarms" of cultivation and breeding. The decline of crayfish price in peak season is enough to prove this. It is difficult to control the output in the breeding end, so we can only start from the consumption side. In this case, it is a new idea to extend the industry chain as far as possible.

Structurally, the proportion of crayfish's primary and secondary industries increased, but the growth rate slowed down, and the tertiary industry was still the main consumption scenario. With the development of the upstream aquaculture industry, crayfish processing based secondary industry is also stepping up the layout, processing scale is constantly improving, and regional clusters are obvious.

According to the public data, there will be 124 crayfish processing enterprises above designated scale in 2020, 11 more than that of the previous year. In 2020, China's crayfish processing industry will still focus on the primary processing of whole shrimp, shrimp meat and shrimp tail, and the processing capacity of seasoned shrimp with different tastes favored by domestic consumers will increase rapidly. KFC has previously launched a variety of red crayfish products, such as the online Red Crayfish co branded with the liquor brand "YeGe", and the dumplings of crayfish stuffing.

In addition, crayfish, as a raw material, is making up for the slack season in various ways. On the one hand, with the improvement of culture technology, crayfish varieties have been improved, and the breeding area has also been expanded to Hainan and other places, while shrimp production in warm areas can partly solve the supply problem of winter shrimp and prolong the time for shrimp sales. On the other hand, with the improvement of cold chain logistics technology, it not only improves the storage capacity of crayfish, but also ensures the taste after freezing to a certain extent. For farmers, although the price of frozen shrimp is greatly reduced, it is also a way to consume inventory.

More importantly, in the field of crayfish processing, the trend from dinner food to prepared dishes and leisure food is increasing.

The so-called prefabricated vegetables refer to the finished products or semi-finished products made of agricultural, livestock, poultry and aquatic products as raw materials and with various auxiliary materials after pre-processing (such as cutting, mixing, pickling, rolling, molding, seasoning). Behind the rise of prefabricated dishes is the requirement of b-end kitchen industrialization to reduce costs and improve efficiency, and the change of C-end lifestyle - the real demand of becoming busier and lazier. In terms of Japan's 60% penetration rate, China's Prefabricated vegetable industry is currently in a huge blue ocean market, and its scale may grow rapidly to over trillion yuan in five years and exceed 3 trillion yuan in a long term.

Since 2019, wenheyou, Guolian aquatic products, Daxidi, Liangren and other brand products have been launched on the e-commerce platform, and the prepared crayfish dishes have gradually entered the mainstream catering market and are welcomed by end consumers. In July 2019, in Weiya Lobster Festival, hundreds of thousands of boxes of crayfish sold out in 3 seconds; On April 1, in Luo Yonghao's live broadcasting room, the sales volume of spicy crayfish in xinliangji reached 171805 copies, with a sales volume of 20.445 million yuan, ranking the first in the commodity sales list. In his one-year live broadcast activities this year, the sales volume of this product is still in the top three. Today, the sales of crayfish prefabricated dishes are stable on the e-commerce platform, and the anchor carries goods frequently. As far as Taobao is concerned, there are not a few products with monthly sales of 200000 + and 100000 +.

"At lunch time, the little girl in our office doesn't go out to eat. She takes a box of crayfish to the microwave oven for a heat, and three or two people eat around. It's lively! It's a paradise to eat crayfish at 39.9 yuan per capita. It's the gospel of "lazy cancer patients." Mr. Zhao, a Wuhan citizen, said.

According to tan ye, an expert in the catering industry, the reason why such prefabricated dishes as crayfish can occupy the market lies in the fact that the improvement of cold storage technology and processing technology has preserved the taste of crayfish, and the reduction of price is also a major driving force to increase the consumption frequency.

In response to the problem of whether prefabricated dishes will squeeze the catering industry, Tan ye said: "crayfish can become the" group pet "of the whole country not only because of its delicious taste, but also because it has the interactivity of eating hot pot and barbecue, that is, the social attribute will be stronger. Whether it is semi-finished products or ready to eat food, it is a kind of personal consumption, The experience for consumers is totally different. Therefore, prefabricated dishes and restaurants can complement each other, and the popularity of prefabricated dishes even provides support for consumption in stores. "

In fact, in order to reduce operating costs and improve the efficiency of dishes, some restaurants have begun to use crayfish to prepare dishes. This has become a secret that restaurants can not tell consumers. Consumers need to improve their discrimination in the process of consumption.

Some people in the industry pointed out that semi-finished products, pre products and high-quality retail snacks are the main driving force of future catering and retail. However, the real national crayfish enterprises are likely to appear in the food retail industry, just like the popularity of duck neck. Both of them enhance the catering and retail attributes due to the single raw materials and single product line.

Now, after 90, 00 gradually become the main consumer of crayfish, consumer consumption patterns, eating habits are also changing. From this point of view, the processing transformation of prefabricated dishes and leisure food is not only conducive to digestion of crayfish inventory, but also can cultivate the consumption habits of the public and enrich the consumption scene of crayfish. In the future, the demand for crayfish primary processing products is expected to continue to increase, and the primary processing industry is expected to achieve great development.

On the other hand, in addition to food processing, the comprehensive utilization of crayfish shell and other by-products and the intensive processing of chitin extraction account for a relatively small proportion. The intensive processing capacity is about 30000 tons, mainly concentrated in Hubei and Jiangsu provinces. There is still a great development space for the further processing of crayfish in the future.

Build high value brand and break through

Shipailing road is a popular place for night snack in Wuhan, and it is also one of the old famous places for shrimps in Wuhan. The whole street stalls, can eat authentic Wuhan flavor of crayfish. Jiqing street is also a good place to eat crayfish. These places are the birthplace of Wuhan's characteristic steamed shrimp. Feifei shrimp village, Bali lobster, Xiaoliang steamed shrimp and shrimp emperor have been old shops for more than ten years.

Take Qianjiang stewed prawns as the main dish. The public information shows that it has more than 150 stores across the country. According to the 21st century economic report, the reporter's investigation found that the whole shrimp banquet promoted this year has attracted many shrimp fans and repeat customers“ The whole shrimp banquet is mainly for the company's group building and birthday party. The photos before eating are especially suitable for sending to social media. In May, our store sold more than 160 copies, more than twice as much as usual. Among them, the most popular one is the large-scale shrimp feast with 2388 yuan. " National Road shrimp King chef Chen Shifu said.

With the continuous improvement of the epidemic situation, night markets in many parts of China have gradually recovered their vitality. According to relevant data, only three days before May Day, Shanghai ate 240000 crayfish. At the same time, in the three days before May 1, the offline payment amount of an e-commerce platform increased by 447% month on month. In addition, although the price of crayfish plummeted after May 1, the price of food and beverage did not have much impact on the cost of food and beverage.

"The development of crayfish can be divided into three stages. In the first stage, as the king of supper, crayfish is a single product with high single rate in many big stalls and night markets; The second stage is that after the entry of capital, there are many crayfish shops like spicy temptation, forming an independent category like hotpot; The third stage is the transition to leisure food, and the scene is gradually transformed into home, office, etc Tan ye said.

It is worth noting that the span from night snack items to category monopoly not only requires more capital intervention, but also means the change of business concept.

In 2019 and before, crayfish consumption was mainly conducted in offline professional crayfish stores and various small and medium-sized restaurants, large stalls, night markets, etc., and there were about 41600 stores specializing in crayfish in China. After years of development and the influx of capital, the industry has gradually transformed into the operation mode of branding. Crayfish catering enterprises are gradually emerging all over the country, among which there are no less than eight with sales of hundreds of millions《 According to the report, steamed shrimp is the best reputation among crayfish catering enterprises. There are 40 stores in China, which are distributed in Hubei, Henan and Guangzhou. Depraved crayfish has 746 outlets, far more than other established catering companies, with a sales volume of 154 million. The two companies, red armor and Shanghai xiaopang, achieved more than 500 million sales by their excellent geographical location.

It is worth mentioning that although shrimp king is highly praised in taste and is a popular online popular choice for many people to eat crayfish, the sales volume is at the lowest value among ten enterprises. Mr. Chen explained: "shrimp made by shrimp king has a long spicy aftertaste, which forms a taste difference with other brands. However, due to the short time, small advertising, weak brand competitiveness, and the poor location of some stores, sales are limited. "

In this regard, some people in the industry also pointed out that in the post competitive era, what we are fighting for is no longer resources and brands, but "brand competitiveness".

In recent years, Qianjiang has also realized this problem. It pays attention to make use of the reputation of "China's crayfish town" to further build its brand and make agricultural products into city cards, which is very rare in China. By the end of 2020, a total of 7 provinces in China have created 24 regional public brands of crayfish, an increase of 60% compared with that in 2019“ In March 2020, the Research Institute of quality development strategy of Wuhan University, together with China Trademark Association and Beijing Xiyu brand consulting Co., Ltd., developed regional public brand value evaluation index of crayfish, calculated and released the brand value of "Qianjiang lobster" in 2020 to 22.79 billion yuan, The brand value of "local Qianjiang lobster" ranks the first in China's crayfish regional public brand again.

Wang Xujun said: Qianjiang has built the crayfish industry into a national famous brand through four aspects. The first is top-level design, which provides a blueprint and action guide for brand building; Secondly, it paid attention to brand identification, and registered the geographical indication certification trademarks of Qianjiang lobster (living), Qianjiang lobster (non living) and Qianjiang shrimp rice; The third is to pay attention to the standard guidance and constantly improve the Qianjiang shrimp rice industry standard system around all links of the shrimp rice industry chain; Fourth, pay attention to publicity and promotion, set up special funds to promote the brand of "Qianjiang lobster", so that Qianjiang lobster can go abroad and go to the world.

It is reported that Qianjiang lobster industry started in 2001. After more than 20 years of exploration, innovation and development, it has formed an industrial pattern integrating scientific research demonstration, improved seed selection, seedling breeding, healthy breeding, processing and export, catering services, cold chain logistics, intensive processing, festival culture, etc. the industrial chain is very complete, and has become the pillar industry of agriculture, local characteristic industry and farmers' wealth industry. In the local popular slogan "it's better to go home to work, and it's better to raise shrimp at home". In 2020, the comprehensive output value of the whole Qianjiang lobster industry chain will reach 52 billion yuan, accounting for 67.9% of the GDP. It will drive 200000 people to obtain jobs and increase their income, and help 20000 poor people get rid of poverty and become rich. With the target of 100 billion yuan, Qianjiang is upgrading the whole industry chain of crayfish from the fields of breeding, logistics and processing.

In the future, Qianjiang will continue to strengthen the development toughness of lobster industry, make progress towards the goal of building a national crayfish primary, secondary and tertiary industries integrated development demonstration area, plan to integrate the upstream and downstream resources of shrimp rice industry, establish industrial groups through asset merger, merger and transfer, realize professional production, group operation and scale competition, and further promote the opening of industrial chain, and orderly, standardized and Scientifically promote the listing of the group on the main board.

Wu Li, an analyst at Tianfeng securities, pointed out that the crayfish industry started from the initial "fishing + catering" and gradually formed an industrial chain integrating seedling breeding, healthy breeding, processing and export, intensive processing, logistics and catering, and cultural festivals. In 2021, various kinds of crayfish Festival, crayfish eco-tourism, shrimp King competition, crayfish food evaluation meeting and other festival activities will be actively held. Leisure tourism activities with the theme of crayfish culture will be organized to boost local economy and promote market consumption.

According to incomplete statistics, more than 82 million people directly participate in the crayfish festival every year, and 160 million pieces of relevant information are transmitted through microblogs, wechat and other network platforms. "The world crayfish looks at China" has aroused the keen attention and praise of consumers at home and abroad. Qianjiang, Hubei Province, has successfully held "China Qianjiang Lobster Festival" for seven consecutive years, creating a cultural brand integrating "gourmet feast, cultural festival, and economic and trade event". In 2020 Qianjiang Lobster Festival, crayfish products printed with the words "grateful for Shanxi" will be sold in limited quantity. Thanks to the medical team of Shanxi Province for aiding Hubei Province, Qianjiang City will help Qianjiang. In addition, all kinds of live broadcast of crayfish consumption are also gradually rising. Xiao Zhan's first public welfare live broadcast with goods introduced the practice of crayfish and tasted crayfish to recommend this delicacy to netizens.

At present, China's crayfish industry maintains a rapid development, with the cultivation area and output reaching new heights, the processing capacity and varieties continue to expand. With the expansion of consumption scenarios, the industry has gradually matured. The linkage of primary, secondary and tertiary industries presents a sustainable development trend. Like other agricultural industries, it forms its own "shrimp" cycle.