1970-01-01 08:33:28
By Zhang Xue
At the salon for fast food and leisure food entrepreneurs held a few days ago, a relevant person in charge of China Cuisine Association stated that leisure fast food industry had great developmental potential and were creating a new life style consistently, which will become a key point of the development of China's catering industry.
Fashion drives consumptive demands
What is leisure fast food? As there is no clear definition in the industry, relevant experts of China Cuisine Association describe it as a form of food and beverage between such types like dinner and fast food. The dishes of leisure fast food are not so many, but they are delicate. Matched with small cake, coffee and other desserts, they can meet the consumers' demands both for dinner and afternoon tea.
Walking into Daiguanshan, a leisure restaurant located in Xidan, Beijing, we find every detail here, from sofas to chandeliers, from adornment in windows to waiters' clothing, is creating a comfortable environment for consumers to have dinners. Different from the crowdedness in regular fast food restaurants in rush hours, guests here are sitting in corners in twos and threes here and there and talking with friends in low voices at lunchtime.
Same with Daiguanshan, leisure restaurants are usually provided with elegant and comfortable environment, complete service facilities, and quickly-made products, which are their basic features. In addition, experts of China Cuisine Association said that leisure fast food well demonstrated different diet cultures of various countries, and it can depict different cultural ideas by distinctive themes made up of environment, services, dishes, etc. "As to dishes, there are many ingredients in Chinese cuisine, which can match many dishes and show the flavor of Chinese food." said the manager of Beijing Daishanguan Restaurant, "We launch 10 to 15 new dishes every half a year."
It has become a consumptive fashion for many people to enjoy food in leisure restaurant and satisfy their multiple needs for relaxation and emotional communications, which has evolved into a consumptive need.
It has promising future in development
With the development of national economy, the enhancement of people's income level and the speeding of living rhythm, the socialization level of family labor became higher and higher, and the catering industry, especially the fast food industry obtained consistent and rapid development.
According to incomplete statistics, at present, there are over one million outlets of chained fast food restaurants in China, and the scale of the fast food industry and enterprises is enlarging steadily. In China Top 100 catering enterprises, the number of fast food restaurants is increasing year by year, and the number of today has reached 15. They possess 4375 chained storefronts and a turnover of RMB23.171 billion yuan, accounting for 27.81 percent of the total business volume of China Top 100 catering enterprises.
Compared with regular fast food, leisure fast food has bigger soft strength, for which consumers are willing to pay higher price, so the average gross profit of leisure fast food is higher than regular restaurants. Besides, the leisure fast food can make up for the vacant hours except dinnertime, so it is more advantageous in source utilization and profitability.
What's more, leisure fast food industry has many links with other industries. It has relatively strong demands for agricultural byproducts, information system, culture and artwork, thus can drive the development of related industries like food industry, culture industry and decoration and adornment industry.
At present, leisure fast food demonstrates a strong growth trend and profitability in the stream of global urbanization. Till the end of 2005, there are 12400 leisure restaurants in the United States with a total turnover of US$63 billion. In China, more and more leisure restaurants opened up in recent years. Experts predict that leisure fast food will become the key point in the development of China's catering economy. The development of leisure fast food will boost the catering industry to a direction of brand, chain store, diversification, internationalization and standardization, and speed the structure optimization and industry upgrade of the traditional catering industry.
Source:CE.cn