You're tuned in to Roundtable.
I'm Steve Hatherly together today with Yushan and Yushun.
Coming up.
The familiar pang of hunger in the supermarket is meeting a new reality as supermarkets are evolving into multifaceted food destinations.
The once clear distinction between restaurant dining and grocery shopping is dissolving.
Are these hybrid grocer-aunts, if we can call them that, a transient trend?
Or do they represent the next chapter in how we eat?
After that, we'll share with you our favorite moments from the last week or so.
Stay tuned for Roundtable's Happy Place.
Our podcast listeners can find us at Roundtable China on Apple Podcasts.
And don't forget that we love hearing your voice as well.
So send us an email.
That's wonderful.
But if you could include your voice, we'd love you even more.
Send your thoughts our way to roundtablepodcast at qq.com.
Once again, roundtablepodcast at qq.com.
And now...
We've all been there.
You're pushing your cart past the freezer section or perhaps down the meat aisle, and the cold air is hitting your face, but all of a sudden your stomach lets out that dramatic growl.
And to be fair, it happens on the radio sometimes as well.
The frozen pizza seems to call your name, does it not?
But what if there were a better option right there in the store?
What if you could just pick up a handcrafted meal ready to eat, or grab the perfect ingredients to whip up something fresh?
Well, this isn't a fantasy.
Today we're digging into this phenomenon and we'll explore whether this one-stop food shop idea is just a flash in the pan or a change to our food landscapes.
This is a pretty cool concept.
It happens in other parts of the world, but it's becoming really more popular in China now.
So what's going on?
Yeah, so recently more and more supermarkets and also restaurants are breaking down their traditional boundaries and exhibiting a two-way integration trend.
This phenomenon is often referred to as supermarket plus catering integration or 餐超一体化, which means the core observation is that retail shelves and dining areas, once distinct, are gradually merging into an organic whole.
And this has led to Some shifts.
Supermarkets are becoming more like canteens, because they're launching affordable fast food services and dining areas.
You can buy fresh produces and cook in the supermarkets and get that meal.
Or some of the restaurants are also trying to become more like supermarkets, like adopting open displays, warehouse style layouts and retail packaging, and utilizing extreme cost effectiveness as a key selling point.
Yeah, it's kind of a hybrid model, isn't it?
It's a restaurant and a market at the same time.
I've seen this kind of thing before, where you have kind of a small shopping area, for the place I saw was for some organic foods or upscale or high-end cheeses and things like that.
It was kind of a fancy place.
That area is quite small, but then you had your open kitchen where you could order meals.
The thing that you couldn't do there though, is you couldn't pick out your own ingredients and then have those cooked here.
Or there.
But that is an option in some places here, yes?
Yeah.
You can totally buy something that you like.
And some of them are quite famous chefs.
They can cook it there for you.
That's cool.
That I've never seen before.
Yeah.
The case near the community where me and my parents used to stay is that in that supermarket... very close to the cashier point there is this dining area where there are cooked food semi-cooked food that you can select that's already ready to go or you can request the back kitchen to help you process or heat it up for you and then with the fresh grocery or snacks you just bought even without returning the cart back to the supermarket you can all the way roll your stuff to the canteen area and just sit down and eat what you just got yeah that's cool so that's something that as uh say nine to six working uh office worker i would imagine if it if it's you know kind of right next to your office that would be ideal place yeah yeah to go to after work sometimes dinner is a really special slow experience where you sit down and you enjoy every bite every morsel of your food and sometimes it's i don't want to think about it i just want to get it over with as quickly as possible but i still want to eat something delicious So what are some examples?
And do you have any specific examples of restaurant and supermarket integration?
I want to get a better idea of what this looks like.
Yeah.
Some of the major modern supermarkets.
They're all establishing internal canteens, let's say, or dining areas, to attract and serve customers.
One would be Da Run Fa or RT Mart.
It has nothing to do with Roundtable, but it's named RT Mart.
Maybe we should open our own.
Yeah.
But in full name.
It's called Artie Mart Grand Canteen, and in some stores in Beijing they offer a self-service buffet for 199 yuan.
Oh, that's pretty cheap.
Yeah, around 28 US dollars covering over 60 dishes attracting just customers to dine after shopping.
That's that same kind of mechanism. similar to the one that's located very close to my community.
And then another very big major franchise here in China is Hema, who offers a one-stop experience of ingredient purchase plus immediate consumption.
And I guess by immediate consumption it means to provide customers with a popular seafood area That's also under the umbrella of Hema, where they select products to be cooked on site in front of you.
I've seen that before as well, but not in a supermarket, at a fish market.
Well, you go and you can pick out your fish, and then you can eat it there and they'll prepare it for you.
But I've not heard of that being available.
That sounds smelly.
It is.
It's part of the atmosphere, though, I guess.
It's kind of what you're going for.
Yeah, so lots of different supermarkets.
You mentioned a couple, RT Mart and Huma, but there are many more examples, too.
Yeah, one that's kind of nearby.
We've got around our office area is called Yonghui Supermarket.
It piloted a canteen model in cities like Wuhan, Fuzhou, and Guangzhou, focusing on just affordable and freshly cooked meals, such as three dishes for... to 12 yuan that's less than two dollars u.s dollars and four dishes for 15 yuan so it's all about making it quick um fast delivered and affordable and delicious and delicious too hopefully why is this happening why now Yeah, some of these actions are key drivers for a lot of these supermarkets.
They are using this as a way to attract food traffic, right?
Traditional retailers face some of the challenges from e-commerce and group purchasing.
And they may struggle with food traffic and customer retention and also repeat visits.
So introducing these kind of canteen services is a kind of crucial strategy to explore their offline traffic generation.
And one example is what we mentioned.
RT Mart canteen increased daily store traffic by 15 after opening their canteen service.
Really successful then, right?
Yeah.
I mean, if you compare the traditional thought of what a supermarket is, that's a maybe once a week visit for many people, where you do your weeks shopping um, you get your stuff and you go home and you don't, you don't even think about going back again until you run out of milk or what have you right?
And one big say advantage for the supermarket to open these canteens inside their say, shopping area is in the fact that they have such ingredients food ingredients and seasonings already ready and also can be sourced directly through their own existing supply chain.
And that just helped them to effectively control the cost on, say, from the supplier side.
So this also enables many of them to offer high value and affordable catering, so we speak.
That explains why many of these say set meals, especially with one rice as staple food, and several say dishes as a whole set.
It can be so affordable.
Yeah, and I think from a customer's point of view, this is just from my point of view as a customer, But I love the transparency.
I love being able to see those two concepts integrated, because the displays are always really pretty.
Right.
The vegetables always look great.
The seafood always looks great.
The meats always look great.
And then having the restaurant right there, it just feels like that kind of that farm fresh feeling.
It feels like you're picking the vegetables out of the garden.
Yeah, you get what you see.
Right?
And it makes you feel comfortable about that.
So there's a lot of advantages here.
So where is it going then?
What's next for this type of trend, I wonder?
Of course, getting more localization and strategic positioning.
This kind of exploration of this new model must be tailored to local consumer habits and market characteristics.
Let's say, strategies must be accurate and also down to earth, avoiding overly high positioning or heavy costs because, as we mentioned, cost effectiveness is important, something that a lot of consumers are looking for through these kind of models.
So maybe when you're looking at a very high-end supermarket and they're going for a very, very cheap meal, maybe that would not be very successful.
Matching the brand image, I guess, is what you're talking about.
And also the point of getting these functions merged together in one site is to provide convenience right.
So if there can be just further matching, say functions or facilities attached to it, such as parking, or just adjusting your parking fees, if you plan, let's say, to have more customers to spend a decent amount of time, let's say, to shop and dine at the same place, then how about getting free parks, parking or expanding your parking lot for that purpose, since people are are parking and staying longer for that reason?
The only reason I'm saying is because I'm skipping a lot of these major I was going to say sounds like someone had to pay for a parking lot recently.
Yeah, I know, right?
These major supermarkets.
You still have to pay it.
They still have, say, room for improving improvements on that notion.
I think one of the smart ideas.
I remember going shopping in Korea many many many, many years ago and the supermarkets at that time.
You know, if you wanted to buy onions, you could only buy onions.
12 onions.
Oh yeah, you know what i mean.
I'm like a 28 year old single guy.
I don't need 12 onions, i need one.
Um, but then there was a shift in the supermarkets and you know, i guess they recognized the rise of single households and then, all of a sudden, you could buy one onion and that onion would be peeled and i thought oh, this is great, and this was the shift and i i think i'm reminded of that now because people are so busy in the big cities office workers nine to six, as you say.
There's a huge demand for this type of fresh delicious fast, quick food.
Right.
Which is why this totally makes sense.
There you go.
So the next time you're in your local supermarket, have a look around.
Maybe this will be one in your neighborhood too.
Stay with us.
Roundtable Tappy Place is on the way.
Delivery.
Delivery.
Delivery.
What is it?
Happiness from Roundtable.
You're listening to Roundtable.
I'm Steve with Yushin and Yushan today, and it's time for Happy Place.
So let's get to it.
Who wants to go first today?
I'll go first.
All right.
Just a very simple and quick share of my happy place, which happened on October the 2nd, during the holiday.
That's the only time I went out of my home during the entire holiday, let's say.
That is to meet up with friends during... at a camping site.
Oh, cool.
And the unique thing about that camping site is that they have two dogs under that breed called Border Collie.
Uh-huh.
Very smart.
Very smart.
Type of dog.
Yeah.
One is called Mickey.
The other one is Liangzai.
Translated into English can be handsome boy.
Okay.
Uh-huh.
So, yeah, they were like playing around with us and asking for barbecue when ours was done.
And so I think it was Mickey who peed on my tent, but it was fine.
It was so cute and so nice.
And one of our friends even brought her a cat.
Oh.
And that poor thing was hugging my friend this whole time saying, Mom, can we go home?
Scared of the dogs.
He even hissed the dog like, I'm going.
Loser.
But either way, that was a fun and very interesting encounter for someone who hasn't been living with a dog for so many years.
Now it feels like the best season for a camping.
I think it's kind of past that because now it's so cold in Beijing at least.
But I heard that you had quite an experience during the holiday too, Yusheng.
Oh, yeah.
I went to the Universal Studios in Beijing.
And you know, as a not so hardcore Harry Potter fan, stepping into that Hogwarts experience was honestly a dream come true.
Yeah, I've been.
You know, my wife and I have been thinking well, we've been talking about going there for quite some time, but from where we live to get to the studios would be quite a trip, I would say.
But it's something that's been on our list of things to do.
So I'm curious to find out your impressions.
Absolutely, you should absolutely go.
And I would say the castle, the moving portraits, the Forbidden Journey ride, and also not only Harry Potter Transformers, the Minions.
For a while I felt like really lost the track of time when I was getting in there.
But what really stuck with me was this thought you know, experiences like this aren't just about fun.
They show how, in our increasingly globalized world, you know, the things we can access and enjoy are expanding so wildly.
You can totally get into a Hollywood set here in Beijing or try some traditional Chinese food in New York right.
So the cultural boundaries are really blurry and it means we all get to experience more than ever before.
Did your smartphone tell you that your overall step exceeded 20,000?
Absolutely.
I probably the first ranking during that day.
Okay.
There's something great as an adult about going to a theme park.
Because, of course, if you go to a theme park when you're a kid, it's like the greatest day of your life.
Yeah.
Nothing can beat it.
But you won't forget.
Well, you might remember, but I think the perspective is different, though.
Because when you go as an adult, you're kind of whisked backwards. to your childhood.
Did you feel like a kid when you were there?
And I mean that in a very positive way, by the way.
I do.
And I think that is also the good part.
When you're seeing that parade and going through roller coasters...
That feels good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Going can get to the days back.
Yeah.
Get to engage with those cartoons, say figures.
And they they wave at you and you wave back at them as if it's you're interacting with animation.
Feel the pure joy.
Yeah.
Did you have a butter beer?
Which is which is not beer, by the way.
No, no alcohol at all.
Yeah.
It's a candy.
It's it tastes like pure sugar, right?
Yeah, buttery bubbly uh, cream soda type of thing.
That's like the number one beverage that you have, quote unquote, have to buy when you go to the little harry potter world.
Apparently, people wait for two hours to get one.
Well, speaking of which, how were?
Because you went during the holiday time.
How, how were the waits for the for the rides that uh, that was packed and you gotta uh wait for some of the famous and popular programs.
But um, if you want, if you like to sacrifice some of your like um time um, you can still get, i think, most of the programs that you want.
Yeah, i guess when you're visiting a place like that, it's to be expected and you have the whole day anyway.
Right, you plan through everything.
Yeah, did you spend a lot of money that day?
By the way, They can be quite expensive when you have to spend a day at the park, but it's money well spent.
Yeah.
Good stuff.
All right.
That will bring us closer to the end of Roundtable for today.
My happy place, I guess, just very quickly was my wife and I, we spent a really lovely holiday.
We thought about traveling to different parts of China during the break, but we were told no, don't do that.
Don't do that.
Don't do that.
So we just discovered more neighborhoods around Beijing and it made us feel closer to the city.
There you go.
So that will officially do it for today's roundtable.
Thank you for sharing your time with us today.
Thanks to Yushun and Yushan.
My name is Steve.
Enjoy your time and please do come back again.
