On the day of 315, 7-11 convenience stores were exposed to food safety issues such as oden ingredients being placed on trash cans, and date labels for expired hot drinks being replaced. After being exposed, the incident quickly rushed to the top of Weibo’s hot search list. Many netizens expressed their experiences through Weibo.
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“I saw this situation when I worked part-time at 7-11 in Guangzhou when I was just graduating. The sauce package of the curry fish balls opened and it smelled bad. The freezer where the oden was kept was dirty and there were cockroaches. It’s also dirty. The things delivered by the delivery truck in the early morning are all thawed and dripping. After a week of doing it, my nausea went away”, “I still remember that last time I ate a short meal in 7-11 mashed potatoes and vegetable salad. That kind of black and thick fur”, “Forget it, I won’t buy cooked food in the future”…
It is worth noting that the 7-11 incident has once again triggered netizens’ concerns about the food safety of franchise stores: Are there any convincing franchisees?
Previously, both Family Mart and Burger King have turned over their cars in franchise stores. According to media reports, the 7-11 store is a franchise store. Ensuring food safety seems to be something that franchise stores can never implement.
Frequent food safety issues
7-11 and other well-known enterprises “dump the pot” franchisee
On March 15, the BRTV program “This Moment of Life” exposed the video taken by the reporter during the undercover period of the 7-11 Liangmaqiao store. In the video, the store clerk randomly placed oden ingredients on the trash can, changed the storage date of hot drinks at will, did not clean the lunch box according to the regulations, and placed the disposable cup lid next to the cockroach sticker… The degree of dirtiness is staggering.
Soon, the incident was pushed to the top of Weibo’s hot search list. In the face of expanding public opinion and angry consumers, 7-11 issued an apology letter at 5 pm that day, saying: “The media reports that the store has violations are true, and the store has not strictly followed our operational standards. At the same time, it also stated that the follow-up rectification of the stores involved will be strictly implemented, and all 7-11 stores in Beijing will be self-inspected to ensure that the same or similar situation will not occur in other stores.
It is also “throwing the pot” to the head of a single store, without indicating whether it is a franchise or direct sales.
In fact, when food safety issues are exposed, it is not uncommon for the brand to dump the pot on the franchisee. This is also the main reason why netizens talk about joining memes.
Take 7-11 as an example. As early as April last year, some media visited and found that many 7-11 stores in Beijing had hygiene and environmental problems. On Lincui East Road, you can see that the hot food table is covered with oil, rust and food residues. This phenomenon is not accidental, but has been the case for several days in a row. Some 7-Eleven convenience stores in Chaoyang and Haidian also have problems such as hardware aging and unclean food countertops to varying degrees. When the media reported the above problems to 7-11 Beijing, the other party said that the Lincui East Road store was a D-type franchise store.
Not just a convenience store, franchise has become a common excuse in the catering industry. For example, Burger King, which was named by 315, and Xiaolongkan, a well-known chain hotpot brand, have all tried to push the crisis to franchisees in order to clear their responsibilities.
Franchise mechanism: hurt consumers, beautify the brand
According to the statistics of the China Chain Store & Franchise Association: at present, the proportion of franchise stores in mainland China of 7-Eleven and Lawson is 40.4% and 49.6% respectively, and the Family Mart convenience store is more than 80%.
By sorting out the news in the past two years, we can see that, including 7-11, Family Mart, which is mainly based on the franchise model, and Lawson, who implements the “big franchisee system”, have also been exposed by the media that there is food safety. question.
Joining seems to be an opposing factor to ensure food safety. No matter what kind of franchise, when the business is good, because everyone makes money, the contradiction between the franchisee and the brand will not be obvious, but once there is fierce competition and market turmoil, such as the current epidemic period, the franchise model is unstable. Sex will appear, and when both parties protect their own interests, there will be a problem of illegally selling expired food. The operating rules agreed by the two parties may not be binding.
Why are the drawbacks of joining the problem obvious, but the brand is still reluctant to give up? The deepest level, of course, is that joining can help brands quickly expand stores without financial pressure.
Before the emergence of new convenience stores such as the Internet, domestic convenience stores maintained the situation of regional kings for a long time. For example, Dali Convenience Store is in Zhejiang, Meiyijia is in Guangdong, and every day convenience store in Xi’an, and FamilyMart is in Shanghai, and 7-11 in North China and South China’s in-depth expansion. However, when big data and other technical means were introduced into the traditional industry of convenience stores, many convenience store brands broke the restrictions of regional differences and went nationwide.
In the convenience store industry that seems to be the Red Sea, in order to resist the back waves and competition in the industry, the rapid expansion of territory by joining has become the preferred strategy for brands such as 7-11 and Rosen.
The pursuit of speed has led brands to ignore the quality of a single store. After a problem occurs, many brands can throw the blame on the franchisee. This is the fastest, most convenient, and the “least” way to respond. Therefore, for the brand side, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
So, for consumers, is a direct store more reliable than a franchise? Under the direct sales model, the headquarters has strong control over the stores, and strictly implements the standards from product selection, procurement, logistics and service, so that consumers can obtain the same quality of consumption experience in different stores.
Food safety should be the bottom line of an enterprise. Brands have such and other problems every year. Why can’t they be avoided?