DayDayCook is still expanding its brand image.
This company, which mainly focuses on instant cooking products, recently announced the acquisition of the American instant noodle brand Omsom. The transaction will be conducted in cash and stock, with payment within the next four years, further expanding the Asian food product line of daily cooking in the US market.
Seeking expansion through acquisitions is a consistent route of daily cooking.
In 2021, Ri Ri Cui acquired self heating and fast food "Mengwei", as well as instant flavored fish mince snacks "Fisherman". From 2023 to 2024, Nissin has completed acquisitions including Nona Lim, Yuli, Yais Thai, and Italian instant food manufacturer G L. 51% stake in Industry S.p.A ("GLI").
As of the latest release of Omsom, RiRiRi Cooking has included six brands, including "RiRiRi Cooking", "Yais Thai", "Nona Lim", "Omsom", "Mengwei", and "Fisherman's Weng".
Overall, overseas markets have become the focus of daily cooking business.
Among the brands acquired by RiRiRi Chou mentioned above, except for "Mengwei" and "Fisherman" mainly targeting the mainland Chinese market, most of the other brands are local Asian food brands in the United States. Among them, Nona Lim mainly sells Southeast Asian pasta, while YaiThai mainly sells Thai cuisine. The two are distributed through major retailers in the United States such as Whole Foods Market, Target, Kroger, and Costco.
The acquisition of GLI shares, as stated by Zhu Jiaying, founder of Nippon Brewery, in an interview, will help to officially enter the European market.
In contrast to the frequent actions of overseas markets, the mainland market is currently experiencing a period of silence.
The earliest positioning of this company was to "teach you how to cook", and in the early days, it was a website focused on video recipe teaching and recipe communication. In 2015, Ri Ri Pao officially entered the mainland Chinese market. In 2017, RiRiRi Cui Shanghai K11 opened the first offline food experience hall in mainland China, providing catering education and selling kitchenware, tableware, and semi-finished ingredient packages. In 2019, it launched its own brand business. In the fourth quarter of last year, Nikko was successfully listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
However, due to the rapid increase of competitors entering the mainland market and the decline in the popularity of self heating food consumption, the main business of the mainland market is the daily cooking of pre made vegetables and fast food, facing more uncertainty.
At the time of listing, according to the prospectus of Ri Ri Cooking, its three major brands in mainland China were "Ri Ri Cooking", "Fisherman's Weng", and "Mengwei". As the flagship brand, "RiRiRi Kuo" has developed over 100 SKUs. The channel has covered domestic mainstream e-commerce platforms and content platforms such as Tmall, JD, Pinduoduo, Tiktok, Bilibili, Weibo, Xiaohongshu, Kwai, Meituan, and offline channels such as 7-11, Rosen, Carrefour, Hema, Ole, G-Super.
But as of now, the channels for daily cooking in mainland China have significantly shrunk. Among them, the "daily cooking" products have not been sold on Tmall, JD, Pinduoduo and other platforms, and the products in the official stores of Tiktok have been emptied. According to Dianping, there are only two offline experience stores left, Chongqing and Chengdu.
In fact, the pre packaged food market in Asia overseas is seen as the second curve by the daily cooking industry. "Chinese cuisine, Indian cuisine, Thai cuisine, and Korean cuisine are all popular in the United States, and one opportunity to introduce these Asian style pre made dishes is that the process for home kitchens to produce these authentic flavors is very complex." Zhu Jiaying once said in an interview with industry self media "FBIF Food and Beverage Innovation".
Specifically, RiRiRi's strategy is to optimize and enhance its brand acquisition through the developed food supply chain in mainland China, and to launch products overseas through international brand capabilities for differentiated competition.
For example, Nona Lim has leveraged its domestic supply chain to upgrade its products to meet US food safety standards and meet the demand for "cleaning labels" at room temperature, expanding its channels. Previously, the company restricted its channels offline due to only producing frozen collectibles.
Perhaps in terms of the American and Asian food products that are being targeted daily, this is indeed a relatively blue ocean market. According to market research firm Circana, sales in the "Asia/Traditional Food" section of American supermarkets increased fourfold from April 2023 to April this year.
But the multi brand layout of daily cooking has more urgent issues to be solved.
On April 30th and May 21st, Nippon Paint issued two consecutive announcements stating that the 2023 performance report will not be disclosed before the prescribed deadline and an additional 15 days, citing the lack of accounting personnel with knowledge of US Generally Accepted Accounting Standards (GAAP) to prepare financial statements in accordance with regulatory requirements.
As a result, RiRiRi Kuo directly triggered the regulatory procedures of the US SEC and the delisting process of the New York Stock Exchange. Companies with overdue annual reports need to submit them as soon as possible within 6 months. If they violate the rules again, the exchange can decide to grant a maximum of 6 months of grace or directly allow the company to enter the delisting process. And it has only been six months since the daily cooking was launched.
In terms of performance, RiRiRi Cooking is still experiencing losses, with losses of 114 million, 459 million, 122 million, and 15.77 million for the first three quarters of 2020-2022 and 2023, respectively. The cumulative losses over the past three years have reached 710 million yuan. The narrowing of losses mainly comes from cost reduction. In the first three quarters of 2023, its sales expenses, management expenses, and performance expenses contracted by 6.5%, 35.2%, and 46.5% compared to the same period in 2022.
Frequent spending on acquisitions has also tightened the company's financial situation. As of the end of the third quarter report, the daily cash and cash equivalents were less than 7.5 million yuan, while this figure was still 22.28 million yuan in the first half of the year, and the asset liability ratio exceeded 155%.
Whether the richness of the brand matrix can bring dawn to daily cooking remains to be seen.
According to the financial report, the revenue and gross profit of Nippon Paint in the first three quarters of 2023 have both increased compared to the same period last year. The total revenue increased by 25.5% in the nine months before September 30, 2023, reaching 23.7 million US dollars; The gross profit increased by 48.4% compared to the same period last year, and the gross profit margin increased from 22.3% to 26.4%. In addition, EBITDA profit has been achieved.