What are you going to eat this noon? Do you want to order takeout, eat in the cafeteria, go to a restaurant, or go to a nearby chain store for fast food?
Fast food, in the eyes of the previous generation, often represents cheap, deceitful, and “eating poorly.”. However, on the internet, whether it’s a strong follower of Maimen or a crazy replica of hot spots and various patterns on Thursday, it seems to be telling one thing – contemporary people are actively choosing fast food.
What is the attitude of young people towards fast food? What fast food restaurants do they want to have at Amway? In order to obtain an answer, DT Finance recently conducted a fast food survey. The following content is from 1068 valid questionnaires.
Among the friends who participated in the survey, the ratio of male to female was about 1:1, and more than half of the post 95 and post 00 people living in first-tier cities accounted for. Therefore, this report to some extent reflects the attitude of urban young people towards fast food.
1、 Fast food to dinner
For many people, fast food is becoming a high frequency demand.
When you bite into the office with a steamed stuffed bun bought from a convenience store, start deciding what to order before noon, and make an appointment with colleagues at McDonald’s after work in the evening. The fast food index seems to have reached its maximum on the most common day.
According to the results of a DT financial survey, nearly 6 adults eat fast food several times a week or even every day, of which less than 1/6 occasionally eat one meal. In other words, modern people may eat fast food just as commonly as when your mother asks you to go home for dinner.
When it comes to what to eat, there are more and more varieties of fast food restaurants, and the boundary between fast food and dinner is becoming increasingly blurred.
From a category perspective, China’s stomach has not lost in the face of the powerful Macquarie and the crazy marketing of KFC on Thursday. Three quarters of the people most often eat Chinese fast food such as Congee, noodles and soup, while more than 60% of the adults most often eat foreign fast food such as hamburgers and French fries. People who don’t eat all kinds of fast food are rare, accounting for only 4%.
Chinese fast food is so popular that many of them have three dishes and one soup with rice, which looks like home cooked dishes and seems to convey the message that the boundaries between fast food and dinner are closing.
Imagine this scenario. When we order a shrimp scrambled egg rice or a bowl of winter melon tea Braised pork belly in brown sauce in a Chinese fast food restaurant, we move the scene of eating from the fast food restaurant to our own table. There seems to be nothing wrong. Fast food is no longer just a mouthful of rice during busy times. Dinner is getting closer and closer.
At the same time, people’s budgets for fast food also prove that fast food is dinner. Only two adults have a fast food budget of only 20 yuan, and more than half of them are willing to spend 40 yuan on fast food. Some even accept that each fast food meal costs more than 80 yuan.
In the past, people’s impression of fast food was often affordable, convenient, and simple. However, according to the survey results, there was a significant difference in the price between people eating fast food and going out to buy it. Hot pot and barbecue are shrinking.
2、 Fast food is not Plan B, diners and fast food are two-way
When we make up our minds to cook a meal ourselves, everything from purchasing ingredients to washing dishes, selecting dishes, peeling garlic, and chopping meat requires time and effort, not to mention cooking for 2 hours, eating for half an hour and 30 minutes, and then washing the pots and dishes.
The pace of life in cities is getting faster and faster. The rare break time for cooking is too difficult. Ready made and easily available fast food can save a lot of time.
When asked about the reasons for eating fast food, laziness and reluctance to cook were the main reasons. After all, all you need to do is order and pay on your phone, and the fast food you want will be delivered to your home. “After eating, you can throw it away without cleaning, which meets the needs of most people to save time, worry, and effort.”.
However, eating fast food does not mean muddling through and not eating anything. Less than a quarter of people hold this view. As fast food deepens into people’s lives, it is no longer a plan B, but a proactive choice for many people.
According to Datong Financial Survey data, more than 4 adults will choose fast food because it is “delicious.”. Especially after 00, the number of people rushing into fast food due to gluttony accounted for nearly 60%, ranking first among all options. For many young people, eating fast food is not so much to save time as to satisfy their appetite.
From the perspective of the scene, lunch and dinner on weekdays are still the most common scenes for eating fast food, while on weekends, more than four adults are required to eat fast food alone. For them, eating fast food is not only a way to quickly fill their stomachs, but also a part of enjoying life on weekends.
More specifically, those who also want to eat fast food on weekends are mainly the post 95s and post 90s who live in Shanghai and Beijing. Although they are too lazy to cook, they are not willing to make do with their meals. Fast food can just satisfy the taste buds, so I’m also willing to eat fast food on weekends.
3、 Eating fast food is more important for young people than eating fast food
With fast food becoming an active choice for people, what do you care most about when you enter a fast food restaurant?
Nearly half chose “fast”. After all, the most significant difference between fast food and dinner is “fast”. But speed, distance, and convenience are no longer the things people value most when eating fast food. In addition to the bottom line of cleanliness and hygiene, the most important thing for people is delicious – even if it’s slower, you can’t fool their taste buds.
From the perspective of different age groups, young customers tend to be more concerned about the taste of fast food, rather than the speed of fast food. “People don’t let young people take the initiative to come to a store because serving food quickly falls in love with it, because it can make them forget the wonderful taste of worry while chewing.”.
When fast food restaurants can not only meet people’s functional needs – quickly filling their stomachs – but also bring people the enjoyment of delicious food, more than six adults will be attracted by the food and try new restaurants, followed by a change in taste.
Therefore, for fast food restaurants, rather than using coupons and giveaways to attract consumers, it is better to use food and flavors to retain diners. Tie their stomachs and legs.
In fact, improving the taste of fast food is not a new topic. As early as around 2008, Domino’s pizza was questioned as inedible. At that time, there were many negative reviews of Domino’s on the US internet, with people commenting on it as “the sauce tastes like tomato sauce” and “the skin tastes like cardboard.”.
Amid criticism, Delta’s stock price fell to a record low of $2.83 on November 20th, 2008. Later, Patrick Doyle, who served as Domino’s CEO, also said, “We’ve been discussing distribution issues for half an hour or less, but it’s no use. We realize that everyone in the world who wants to eat pizza quickly and easily is already our customer, but anyone who wants a delicious pizza won’t come here.”
Faced with criticism, Domino’s redesigned its pizza recipe, tried various combinations of dozens of sauces and dozens of cheeses, and developed new products in an attempt to keep up with customers by improving their taste.
More than a decade later, when American fast food eating habits are deeply ingrained in Chinese society, people may become more picky about the taste of fast food. No restaurant can become the first with its fast delivery rate. Consumers will use their tongues to decide whether to come back or never again.
4、 List of the most popular fast food brands
With fast food becoming more and more important, which fast food restaurants do you often patronize?
According to the survey results, McDonald’s and KFC have become the top two fast food brands that people often eat. More than 7 adults chose McDonald’s and nearly 60% chose KFC. In the competition for the king of fast food, McDonald’s easily won.
In addition, Burger King, Lanzhou Lamian Noodles, Shaxian snacks and other fast food brands also received a high number of votes. In local catering, Lanzhou Lamian Noodles and Shaxian snacks, which are popular throughout the country, have become two giants. A reader in Jiangsu said that Shaxian snacks are the staple food in China. “There are staple foods, meat and vegetables, rice is freely added, and free drinking of purified water in the store does not exceed 20.”.
The previous article mentioned that under the question “What fast food do you often eat?”, 75% of people often eat Chinese fast food, which is higher than the proportion who often eat Western fast food, indicating that people are willing to eat Chinese fast food. However, from a brand perspective, there is no major brand of Chinese fast food that can compete with McDonald’s and KFC. This to some extent indicates that there are many gaps in the Chinese fast food market and the branding of catering is insufficient.
However, this is also related to the wide variety and obvious regional characteristics of Chinese food. In the comment area where Datong Finance and Economics released this survey, many readers mentioned local flavors such as Longjiang pig’s feet rice, braised chicken rice, Chaoshan beef Rice noodles, Cantonese barbecue, etc. The message of Longjiang pig’s feet rice even became the first hot comment. However, this dish, which can be eaten at any store in Guangdong, has not gone out of the local market and formed a national brand.
Therefore, when referring to fast food restaurants that are often eaten, some readers feedback that “I like the takeout food from restaurants that are not under the Dalian Lock brand most.”.
From a city perspective, popular fast food brands vary from place to place, but the most popular fast food brands are mainly McDonald’s and KFC.
Some local catering brands have a strong development momentum in their birthplace and surrounding areas, with Chongqing Rural Restaurant ranking second in popularity compared to KFC; Hefei Brand Laoxiang Chicken even surpassed two ocean fast food brands to become the first in the region; In Xiamen, the fast food people often eat is not hamburgers and chips, but Shaxian snacks.
In addition, brands such as Shanghai fast food restaurant Xiaoyang Shengjian, Beijing brand Nanchengxiang, Jinan’s Yang Mingyu Huangbraised chicken rice, Chongqing’s Mr. Mi, Dongguan’s Mengziyuan, and Zhengong have all expanded their markets in the local market. Some readers have reported that the super Yixing in Jinan and the Beijing fast food in Guangzhou also have many supporters among local diners, but most of them have not formed a national brand.
In addition, we asked about your favorite fast food brand. Not surprisingly, McDonald’s and KFC widened the gap with enough votes to become the king of popular fast food, followed by Burger King, Shaxian Snacks, and Native Chicken.
Apart from many chain brands, some people prefer small restaurants without names. The Hot dry noodles and egg cakes at the subway entrance, any small fried dishes, various fast food restaurants with three meat dishes and one vegetable dish, and the dirty stalls downstairs all attract diners to explore and discover.
“There are many anonymous couples’ shops in Guangzhou, and the steaming meals are mostly less than 20 yuan per meal, which is the most direct, ordinary, and frequent consolation for urban migrant workers.” An Internet worker after 95 told us.
5、 The city that likes fast food most is not Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou
A fast food that can be solved in 10 minutes under the high pressure environment of 996 and continuous rotation is equivalent to a compressed biscuit and a bottle of glucose drops. However, with the transformation of the role of fast food in people’s lives, it is not necessarily “social animals” who eat fast food, and more and more young people want to eat delicious, relaxed, and simple food.
In this context, we would like to know which cities and industries prefer fast food? To find out, DT Finance has calculated the proportion of “high-frequency fast food enthusiasts” in various cities and analyzed the penetration rate of fast food in various regions.
The results show that Xiamen is a base camp for fast food enthusiasts. At least 9 out of 10 people often eat fast food, far exceeding other cities. The prevalence of fast food in Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, and Wuhan is also relatively high, with over 60% of people liking fast food.
In contrast, the proportion of people in Beijing and Shanghai who often eat fast food is not that high, only about half. This has to some extent broken the stereotype that the faster the pace of life, the more people eat fast food.
When fast food restaurants are welcomed by diners because of their delicious taste, they also break away from the single mission of quickly satisfying hunger. “People are not forced to eat fast food, but rather the result of fast food restaurants winning in competition through comprehensive strengths such as taste, price, quality, and speed.”.
Then, we also calculated the proportion of high-frequency fast food enthusiasts in various industries, and found that advertising/exhibition/public relations became the top industry that often eats fast food, with over 80% of practitioners often eating fast food. In the IT services and professional services/consulting industries, fast food enthusiasts also account for over 70%.
Relatively speaking, the demand for fast food among people entering academic research and government institutions is not high, with only over 30% of high frequency fast food enthusiasts.
It should also be noted that the above data only reflect the situation of the population participating in the survey. Since the questionnaire itself excludes some friends who are not interested in fast food, the actual data may be lower.
6、 Write at the end
This is the entire content of this fast food research report. Finally, DT Finance attempted to summarize five insights into the Chinese fast food market based on research data:
First, fast food is marching towards dinner;
Second, a large number of young people will take the initiative to eat fast food;
Third, it is increasingly important for young people to eat fast food;
Fourth, people like Chinese fast food, but the leading brand of Chinese fast food has not yet appeared;
Fifth, the demand for fast food in the professional service industry has increased.
Since the first KFC opened in Beijing in 1987, the choice of fast food chains has emerged in Chinese life. For more than 30 years, fast food restaurants have blossomed all over the country, spreading all over the streets. The life of shopping and cooking after work is getting further and further away from us. The images of eating fast food and ordering takeout food piece together the lives of young people.
When fast food becomes a choice that people actively pursue, people also put forward higher requirements for it. Convenient fast food can only pass the exam, and delicious food can retain customers. After all, fast
