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Does Hou Yi, the founder of Hema, still have the strength to fight again?

Five months after retiring from HEMA, Hou Yi officially announced on his WeChat Moments on August 7 that a seafood barbecue restaurant called "Golden Night Oyster Bistro" had opened, "a low-priced restaurant in trial operation, with an average meal costing 60 yuan per person."

Hou Yi’s Moments content image source: WeChat screenshot

The official WeChat account of Jinxiaoyike shows that the operating entity behind it is "Shanghai Jinxiaoyike Supply Chain Co., Ltd." and the Tianyancha App shows that Hou Yi's name does not appear in the company's equity and related structural relationships.

However, on August 8, a reporter from the Daily Economic News confirmed with Hou Yi that he was starting a new business. Hou Yi replied, "It's just a small shop, just for fun."

Entering the affordable seafood restaurant business, is Hou Yi, who seems to be nonchalant, really just “for fun”?

On August 8, the reporter visited the "Golden Night Shop" store on Luban Road in Huangpu District. The store is open from 5pm to midnight. The reporter saw that just after 5pm, the entrance of the store was already crowded. The staff on site told the reporter that all seats indoors had been reserved, and outdoor seating was an option.

The store menu shows that most items are sold at affordable prices. Just as Hou Yi announced in his circle of friends, steamed swimming crabs are only 9.9 yuan each, tiger prawns are 38 yuan for about 250 grams, and oyster sashimi is 58 yuan for 6 pieces.

Hou Yi also revealed the next store opening plan to reporters on WeChat. One new store will be in "Dahua Hucheng" and one will be in "Pudong Chengshan Road". These stores "are under preparation and will take several months."

With the experience and accumulated abilities in running Hema, can Hou Yi create a new species in the catering industry?

The "Golden Night" store in Huangpu District, Shanghai. Photo credit: Photo by reporter Chen Ting of China Business Network

A look at what Hou Yi called "a small shop": close to residential areas, focusing on affordable prices

As a new store, there are many flower baskets placed at the entrance of "Golden Night" store, which is filled with the joy of the new store opening. On the big red sign, in addition to the store name "Golden Night", there are also words such as "oysters", "draft beer" and "barbecue".

At 2 p.m. on the 8th, when the reporter of Daily Economic News arrived at the Jinxiao Yike store in Huangpu District, it was not yet open. Just after 5 p.m., the situation was very different. Customers were constantly coming to the store door. Customers who did not make reservations in advance could only choose to sit in the open air outside the store or queue up for a seat. The level of liveliness was completely different from the surrounding restaurants.

The staff told the reporter that if he wanted to make an appointment, he needed to do it one day in advance, and asked the reporter to scan the QR code to join the appointment group.

The full house may be related to Hou Yi's personal influence. At the entrance of Jinxiao Yike, the reporter would occasionally hear the staff mention "Laocai" (Hou Yi's nickname when he was in Alibaba) when talking to customers.

After on-site observation, the reporter found that the store uses passionate red as the main decorative color, with both indoor and outdoor seating. It is close to the community, and not far from the front of the store are men, women, and children who are exercising in the public fitness area.

Inside the store, the reporter saw that Jinxiao Yike has set up a craft beer bar, which can provide a lot of drinks and craft beer. In general, the decoration inside the store is relatively simple, the food is served on stainless steel plates, and the table is also covered with plastic tablecloths for easy cleaning. In addition to food, most customers also have a large glass of beer on the table.

In addition, Jinxiao Yike only uses glass to separate the kitchen and the customer seating area. Customers can see most of the scenes in the kitchen, which is open and transparent.

In terms of the most important food, Jinxiao Yike also takes the affordable route, and even the menu has the slogans of "every item is low-priced" and "every item is a hot product". In Hou Yi's circle of friends, the slogan "60 yuan per person to eat happily" was also used.

From the menu, we can see that Jinxiao Yike's dishes are divided into grilled, fried, steamed, desserts, staple food, braised cold dishes and drinks, with prices ranging from 6 to 129 yuan. Among them, the main dishes include grilled oysters for 38.8 yuan for 6 pieces and steamed swimming crabs for 9.9 yuan per piece. From the overall menu, the proportion of seafood products is not too large.

The reporter saw on fresh food e-commerce platforms such as Dingdong Maicai that the price of fresh swimming crab products at a lower price is about 10 yuan per crab. Taking Dingdong Maicai as an example, 3 to 5 fresh swimming crabs (about 500 grams) are sold for 49.9 yuan. In common restaurants, swimming crabs are not sold individually.

Taking grilled oysters as an example, the reporter saw on Dianping that some group purchases offered a price of 19.8 yuan for three grilled oysters, but this was a preferential price, while it was the regular price on Golden Night.

The staff at the store told the reporter that the supply of Jinxiao Yike comes from its supply chain. In addition, it is reported that Hou Yi has been looking for ingredients in high-quality fresh food origins across the country since April. For example, the large oysters that can be eaten raw come from Zhuanghe City, Liaoning Province, a well-known oyster producing area in China. In this regard, the reporter of "Daily Economic News" verified with Hou Yi himself, and he confirmed it.

It is worth mentioning that at the Jinxiao Yike store, the reporter also saw fruit popsicles provided to customers for free. The packaging of these popsicles had the HEMA logo on them.

The scene inside the Jinxiao Yike store. Photo source: Photo taken by reporter Chen Ting of Meijing.com

Affordable seafood is not simple. Is Hou Yi really just “playing around”?

There is considerable attention in the industry about Hou Yi's re-entrepreneurship.

Regarding Hou Yi's choice of affordable seafood catering, Lingyan Management Consulting Chief Consultant Lin Yue told the Daily Economic News reporter that affordable seafood barbecue has a chance to become popular, and it is attractive in terms of categories and dishes. "This is a different approach to Hema's supply chain, and it provides another idea for inventory turnover in the seafood retail business," said Lin Yue.

Lin Yue also told reporters that compared with other categories, seafood requires cold chain and central kitchen processing. Such advantages do not apply to all types of restaurants because seafood has its own inventory cycle and cannot be kept for too long. If it is not sold out, it can be put in the barbecue restaurant for digestion, killing two birds with one stone.

It is worth mentioning that Hou Yi can be regarded as a serial entrepreneur. In 2016, the first Hema Fresh store opened in Jinqiao, Shanghai. As a "new species" in retail, Hema Fresh has left the impression of "eating while shopping" and "30-minute delivery" online.

As the founder of Hema, Hou Yi has accumulated many years of experience in the retail industry. After the emergence of Hema, it has stirred and changed the entire industry as a pioneer. At the beginning of its birth, Hema was defined as a new retail product that redefines supermarkets through data-driven, complete integration of online, offline and modern logistics.

Over the years, Hou Yi has been known for his love of innovation and his ever-changing approach. Now that Hou Yi has started a new business, is it possible for him to create a new species in the catering industry?

In this regard, Lin Yue believes that affordable seafood barbecue is not a new species. Roadside seafood barbecue is available in many cities, but the dining atmosphere is relatively poor. Seafood barbecue is also well integrated with the late-night snack economy, and is a good stress relief channel for high-pressure people in the modern workplace. "The overall business prospects are good, but whether it can open stores on a large scale, how to manage operating costs and how to control the quality of dishes, these still need to be waited and seen." Lin Yue said.

Chinese food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng told the reporter of "Daily Economic News" that the business model of Jinxiao Yike has already appeared on the market. Overall, it tests the integrity of the entire supply chain, the convenience and premium ability of the entire system, as well as the upgrading of the service system and the maintenance of the customer system.

It should be noted that Hou Yi has been paying attention to the catering-related route for many years. If he can inject the supply chain resources and retail experience accumulated over the years into the future development of Jinxiao Yike, there may be a breakthrough.

At a forum in 2021, Hou Yi said that since the first Hema store, he has been actively trying to integrate catering and supermarkets.

When Hema Fresh was first launched, fresh food was its main product category. Hema Fresh once advertised: "Lobsters, groupers, and king crabs are all alive and kicking, freshly caught and cooked, and all kinds of vegetables are not left overnight."

As of September 2023, when HEMA innovated its store formats, it also paid close attention to catering. For example, it expanded the baking area and set up a "light meal island" to facilitate dining for office workers; it also added semi-finished dishes and fresh frozen products to be more suitable for fast-paced urban people, etc.

When tasting the "Jinxiao Yike" dishes, the reporter also found that Jinxiao Yike retains more of the flavor of the food itself when cooking fresh meals and has higher requirements for ingredients. This may also be the advantage of Hou Yi, who has worked in the retail industry for many years.

In addition, Hou Yi had previously tried to explore low prices.

In October 2023, Hema announced that it would begin to implement a new purchasing model and initiate a "discount" transformation, reducing the prices of more than 5,000 products in Hema Fresh's offline stores.

In 2023, Hou Yi said that in the future, Hema will implement a "753" price system, that is, KA (key customer) products are 70% off the market price, private brands are 50% off the market price, and near-expiry products are 30% off the market price. At that time, he also said that new retail has entered the 2.0 era, and the focus has shifted to improving the price competitiveness of goods.

It can be found that the design of "Golden Night" basically implements Hou Yi's personal business philosophy and tries to highlight the value brought by his personal advantages, such as clearly marking prices and selling swimming crabs by the piece, which reveals a little taste of retail-oriented catering. However, the competition in the catering industry is fierce, and whether Golden Night can find another way to shine more brilliantly is still unknown.

Daily Economic News