One U.S. Chain's Unlikely Goal: Pitching Chinese Food in China
Yum Brands, Owner of KFC,
Pegs Hopes on Efficiency;
No Room for Dumplings
Melding Eight Types of Cuisine
SHANGHAI -- Looking for a quick lunch, Zheng Li stopped in at East Dawning, a bright, clean fast-food restaurant in this bustling city. Scanning the menu board, she saw crispy pig ears, marinated egg with seaweed and shaved ice topped with corn, peanuts and red beans. The 26-year-old hotel receptionist chose spicy chicken and carried it to a table on a paper-lined tray. "The taste is so Chinese," she said.
But the company that created it is so American. Yum Brands Inc., which owns KFC and Pizza Hut, developed East Dawning from scratch two years ago. Just as with its other restaurants, Yum is betting that the efficiency and atmosphere of American-style chain restaurants will appeal to Chinese diners. Only this time, the Louisville, Ky., company wants to apply its formula to Chinese food. In China.
East Dawning operates just like a KFC except its menu and decor are Chinese. Its four restaurants -- all in Shanghai -- offer standardized versions of noodles, rice, soy milk and other favorites, including fried dough and plum juice. Yum wants East Dawning to be the biggest Chinese fast-food restaurant chain in China. If the concept works, Yum may also start a chain in India serving Indian food.
Janet Adamy
A Shanghai East Dawning restaurant is clean and brightly lit, with wooden tabletops and traditional Chinese touches in the décor.
Big multinational companies have tried treating China as a single, homogenous market before and many have failed. Beer maker Interbrew, now part of InBev SA, stumbled when it pushed into China in the 1990s, outmaneuvered by local brewers with a keener knowledge of their markets. Already, Yum has scrapped one version of East Dawning and is opening new branches at a slow rate.
Most companies have avoided tackling anything as complex as native cooking. Chinese tastes vary widely between regions; the country's cuisine doesn't have an easily preparable national staple, such as a hamburger. A handful of rival Chinese fast-food chains have attracted overseas funding and some say the American company is underestimating the complexity of Chinese food.
"KFC and McDonald's are so simple. You can hire high-school students to make the fried chicken and the hamburger," says Dennis Cheung, director of new projects and information technology for New Asia Snack, which runs a local chain called New Asia Dabao. "Chinese food is so complicated. It's very difficult to standardize because everything's controlled by the chef."
Yum says its advantage comes from how it runs restaurants, including providing fast, friendly service and keeping the bathrooms clean. Executives also note they're relying on a team that consists mostly of Chinese natives to develop East Dawning, not management in Louisville.
"I think we are as close as can be at being local," says Sam Su, president of Yum China, digging into a tray of rice on a recent lunch at a downtown East Dawning. Behind him, customers lined up to order while workers scurried behind a row of cash registers to assemble the meals.
Mr. Su is also aware of the magnitude of his challenge. "There are some very significant barriers," he says. "No one has done what we are doing."
Based largely on the growth of KFC, which first opened here in 1987, Yum has become one of the most successful American companies in China. About 16% of Yum's profit came from China last year. Those earnings have helped buoy the company's share price amid uneven results at U.S. restaurants. Yum operates almost 2,000 KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants in nearly 400 Chinese cities, almost three times as many as archrival McDonald's Corp. KFC is the largest chain in China.
Chinese take great pride in their cuisine, and social occasions often revolve around big meals at crowded, multistory restaurants, where guests share bowls of spicy beef, fried tofu and mushroom soup. Streets in Chinese cities are lined with vendors who fry dough and grill meat for breakfast and lunch.
Yum sees its opportunity in the rapid growth in China's economy and work force. A new generation of two-income families has less time for cooking and relies more on eating out. China has about four million restaurants, or about seven times as many as the U.S., and their sales are expected to grow at a double-digit rate through at least the end of the decade, according to Technomic Inc., a Chicago consulting firm. In this market, eating at KFC and East Dawning is considered a relative luxury.
Weaving itself into the Chinese culture while offering a standard American experience is an important part of Yum's success with its other brands. Most quick-service restaurants here have dated interiors, poor lighting and mediocre service. Chinese KFCs, by contrast, are brightly lit, with spotless booths and play areas for children. Last year, KFC hosted more than one million children's birthday parties in China and its hostesses visit schools to give manners classes.
Mr. Su, 54, a native of Taiwan, worked for Procter & Gamble Co. in Germany before joining KFC in 1989. He helped open one of Shanghai's first KFCs. It was a humbling experience. Mr. Su remembers the location threw away more chicken than it sold and eventually folded. A newspaper headline trumpeted KFC's failure in Shanghai with "a celebration piece," he says. "Like we Chinese had defeated the foreigner." At the time, KFC was owned by PepsiCo Inc.
During the following decade, KFC kept opening restaurants, tweaking flavors to appeal to local tastes. It helped that chicken already was popular in China. KFC added spicier chicken dishes and traditional items such as a soupy rice called congee. Store managers made sure workers served orders quickly and trained employees to clean toilets. KFC created its own distribution unit to secure a supply of everything from buns to uniforms.
In 1997, PepsiCo spun off KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell into a company that eventually became Yum. A few years later, the company's CEO, David Novak, asked Mr. Su whether Yum could start a Chinese chain. McDonald's founder "Ray Kroc had a lot of success launching the hamburger in the United States," Mr. Novak recalls saying. "Why don't we do the same thing with Chinese?"
According to surveys commissioned by the company, locals disliked the atmosphere at existing Chinese fast-food places, recalls Benjamin Koo, a Yum executive who helped Mr. Su create East Dawning. Customers said workers frowned at them. The restaurants were cramped, dirty and hot: "I work out a sweat eating in those places," Mr. Koo recalls one customer saying. Respondents also thought the food was inconsistent.
Offering a better environment was easy for Yum, which had already done that with KFC. Picking a menu with nationwide appeal that was also simple to prepare would be more difficult.
Chinese consumers demand more variety on restaurant menus than Americans. Dishes rely heavily on vegetables and noodles that quickly become soggy or soft. China's eight main regional styles of cuisine vary widely. Sichuan food, for instance, is spicy. In Southern China, people like longer rice while Northerners prefer a rounder variety.
Yum wanted a single national menu to avoid creating a new one for every region, which would complicate its plan to run a streamlined operation. Mr. Su says the chain may make some modifications for local tastes when it expands. Marketers picked seasoned ground pork from Taiwan and Cantonese chicken with black mushrooms. Both had broad appeal and were relatively simple to prepare.
In 2004, Yum opened a test restaurant in a quiet location outside Shanghai's center. Mr. Su decided to emulate Hong Kong fast-food outlets, which use a cafeteria-style format. Workers wearing shirts with Chinese collars spooned rice and meat onto large plates. The menu included soda.
The restaurant flopped. The rice cooled too much as workers dished it up. Workers couldn't cook the dumplings fast enough. Yum closed the location after less than a year.
Mr. Su concluded that customers wanted a speedy restaurant like KFC, with better Chinese food. He and his team designed a new East Dawning where the goal was to serve the food in 90 seconds, just like KFC. Yum scrapped dumplings because they took at least two minutes to prepare. Mr. Su knew some customers would be disappointed. Dumplings are a staple at other Chinese fast-food restaurants that put a smaller premium on speed.
The new format played up the restaurant's Chinese elements. Instead of soda, it offered traditional Chinese drinks including soy milk, tea and smoky-tasting plum juice.
Mr. Su and his team reopened East Dawning last year. At a two-story location in a Shanghai retail district, customers place orders with polo-shirt-clad workers at a long counter, just like a U.S. fast-food chain. Diners sit on chairs or benches below large pictures of rice bowls and sizzling meat dishes. Sesame balls that smell like donuts get folded into paper envelopes that look like french-fry sleeves.
East Dawning's menu has about 50 items covering breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Dishes include coconut-curry beef rice, hot-and-sour soup, cabbage with pork and noodles, and sweet purple rice.
The restaurants have integrated into their decor traditional Chinese design touches, such as those used in coins. Designers placed a long table in the middle of the restaurant to recall a spot in Chinese homes where families leave offerings for ancestors.
On a recent afternoon, Zheng Li Mei stopped at KFC to buy her 3-year-old son a children's meal before heading to a Shanghai East Dawning. The 33-year-old former teacher picked at a shaved-ice dessert. She said she prefers other Chinese chains because the dishes at East Dawning taste too similar to one another. "It's authentic but it's not that good," she said.
Other customers say East Dawning's atmosphere is enough to keep them coming back. "We like Chinese food but we don't see many restaurants like this," said Ying Jin, a 24-year-old who brought her boyfriend to East Dawning so they could sit by a window overlooking a shopping area.
Her boyfriend, Zhon Tong Chao, said they've eaten there so often he's tired of the food. On their visit, the 28-year-old accountant bought pork and dumplings at an outside vendor, which he ate while Ms. Ying dined on the chain's sweet-and-sour pork ribs.
Some Shanghai residents say they're not willing to pay East Dawning's prices. A typical meal, which includes an entree, soup and a vegetable, costs about $2.30, the same as a comparable meal at KFC. Similar meals at local chains can be less expensive by a third.
Mr. Su says average sales per store are lower than at KFC, but he won't give sales numbers or say how quickly Yum plans to open additional locations. A Yum official told the Shanghai Daily last year that the company planned to open nearly 10 East Dawning locations in Shanghai by the end of 2005; it currently has only four. Yum executives say they're not adding new locations slower than planned, but concede they've had a hard time finding sites.
"I think it's going to take us quite a few years to build this brand," Mr. Su says.
Yum faces competition from China's improving quick-service chains. Yonghe King, which opened in China in 1995, adorns many restaurants with a picture of a Chinese man resembling KFC's Colonel Sanders. At new locations, Yonghe King is displaying instead an image of a steaming bowl of food. Waley Lu, a company executive, says the chain wants to appear more contemporary.
In 2004, Yonghe King signed a deal with Jollibee Foods Corp., a Philippine fast-food company, which plans to invest up to $22.5 million over a three-year period. Yonghe King wants to have about 500 locations in China within the next six years, up from about 115 today.
The behind-the-scenes operations at Yonghe King are still a long way from those at East Dawning. Before Yonghe King launched a beef and vegetable dish in August, experts sampled at least 50 types of rice to determine which tasted best. But the beef dish takes about four minutes to produce, compared with about 90 seconds at East Dawning. Yonghe King also offers dumplings, despite the long preparation time.
Mr. Su says he isn't deterred by local competition. Yum hopes to run its first TV ads for East Dawning as soon as next year. Executives say they may expand East Dawning to other parts of Asia. They say it's too soon to tell, however, whether they will bring the restaurant to the U.S.
中国快餐，美式经营
午饭时间，26岁的酒店前台接待员郑丽（音）想吃点简单的快餐，于是她来到一家“东方既白”(East Dawning)。这是上海的一家整 、明亮的快餐馆。郑丽迅速扫了一眼收银台上方的食单，看到有脆猪耳条、卤蛋和刨冰（有玉米粒、花生和赤豆）等。她点了一份辣子鸡，用带衬纸的托盘端到餐桌上。“正宗的中餐，”她说。
不过，“东方既白”的母公司百胜餐饮(Yum Brands Inc.)可是纯美国公司。旗下拥有肯德基(KFC)和必胜客(Pizza Hut)的百胜餐饮两年前从零开始创建了东方既白。百胜相信，美式餐厅的高效率和就餐环境对中国人会很有吸引力，百胜在中国经营其他餐馆时就是这么认为的。不过，那些餐馆经营的都是美式食品，只有在东方既白，百胜才第一次尝试供应中式饭菜──在中国的地盘上。
东方既白在很多方面跟肯德基都很像，除了菜单和装修风格之外。目前它的4家店面都在上海，店里供应用标准程序制作的面条、米饭、豆浆、油条、酸梅汤等很受欢迎的中式餐饮。百胜希望东方既白能成为中国最大的中式快餐连锁店。如果这个模式最终能成功，百胜将在印度如法泡制，创办供应印度餐饮的连锁店。
以前，大型跨国公司都将中国视为单一的同质化市场，但许多公司都因此栽了跟头。比如啤酒酿造商Interbrew（现在被收入InBev SA旗下）九十年代进军中国市场的时候就遇到了大问题，最后败在更熟悉当地市场的本土啤酒商手下。
大多数外国公司都不愿沾手中国餐饮这样的复杂业务。中国不同地方的人口味差异很大，各种食物很难像汉堡包那样用一个全国通行的配方统一制作。已有一些中国快餐连锁企业吸引到了海外资金，一些人表示，百胜低估了中国食品的复杂程度。
香港大家乐(Cafe de Coral)新项目及信息技术部门主管Dennis Cheung说，肯德基和麦当劳的食物太简单了。炸鸡和汉堡找个高中生都能做。大家乐旗下在上海经营新亚大包(New Asia Dabao)连锁店。他说，中式饭菜要复杂多了，很难标准化，所有过程都取决于每个厨师的操作。
百胜说，它的优势来自经营方式，这其中包括提供快速友好的服务、保持卫生间整 等。公司管理人士还表示，他们依靠一批主要由中国当地人组成的团队而非远在路易斯维尔总部的人来负责东方既白的发展。
百胜中国区总裁苏敬轼(Sam Su)说，他认为，百胜在中国已最大可能地做到本土化。说这话时正是午餐时间，他坐在位于上海市中心的一家东方既白店里，吃着托盘里的米饭和菜。在他身后，等待点餐的人在收银台前排着长队，收银员身后，负责备餐的员工正来回穿梭着。
苏敬轼也意识到了公司面临的挑战。他说，还有一些很大的障碍。我们正在做的事以前从没有人做过。
自从1987年在上海开设第一家肯德基餐厅以来，百胜已成为中国市场上最成功的美国餐饮企业之一。去年，百胜的利润总额中有16%来自中国。在其美国业务欠佳的情况下，来自中国市场的盈利帮助其股价实现了上涨。现在，百胜在中国近400个城市开设了差不多2,000家肯德基和必胜客餐厅，这个数字几乎是其竞争对手麦当劳(McDonald's Corp.)的三倍。肯德基也是中国最大的连锁餐厅。
中国人对他们的烹饪技艺一向非常自豪，各种社交活动通常都少不了在拥挤、喧闹的餐厅里来一顿大餐。他们习惯合餐，吃饭时，不论是黑椒牛柳、炸豆腐还是蘑菇汤都盛在公共容器里大家共享。早餐或中饭时间，城市的大街小巷经常可以见到炸油条或烤肉的小贩。
随着中国经济的迅速增长及劳动队伍的迅速壮大，百胜也看到了摆在面前的巨大商机。这一代中国家庭大多是夫妇两人都就业，很多人没有时间自己做饭，只能在外就餐。据芝加哥咨询公司Technomic Inc.的数字，中国目前有大约400万家餐馆，大约是美国的7倍，预计到2010年之前的这段时间，他们的营业额将以每年两位数的速度增长。对普通中国人来说，在肯德基或东方既白就餐都还是比较奢侈的消费。
而百胜的成功之处在于，在运用美式餐饮标准化经验的同时，将中国文化融入其中。中国许多快餐馆内部装修陈旧、过时，光线昏暗、服务态度恶劣。而肯德基的店里窗明几净，座位整 ，还辟有专门的儿童游乐区。去年，中国的肯德基餐厅为超过100万小朋友举办了生日聚会，他们的女服务员还到学校参观，并给孩子们作礼仪示范。
现年54岁的苏敬轼是台湾人，1989年加盟肯德基之前，他在德国为宝洁公司(Procter & Gamble Co., PG, 又名:宝硷公司)工作。他协助开设了上海的首家肯德基快餐店。这是一段令人不愉快的经历。苏敬轼回忆说，这家快餐店扔掉的鸡肉比卖掉的还多，最终只能关门了事。他说，当时一家报纸曾以'大快人心'为题报导了肯德基败走上海滩一事，就像是中国人打败了外国入侵者。肯德基当时隶属于百事公司(PepsiCo Inc.)。
在接下来的10年中，肯德基坚持在中国不断开设快餐店，努力迎合中国人的餐饮口味。而鸡肉在中国人餐桌上的日益普及也助了肯德基一臂之力。肯德基在自己的经营品种中增加了风味鸡套餐以及中国传统的粥类食品。快餐店经理们确保店员能迅速招呼顾客并教会他们如何正确清洁洗手间。肯德基还创办了自己的分销子公司，以确保从小圆面包到制服等各类物品的及时供应。
百事公司于1997年将肯德基、必胜客和塔可钟(Taco Bell)这三项快餐业务分拆出来成立了一家公司，这就是后来的百胜餐饮集团。几年后的一天，该公司首席执行长诺瓦克(David Novak)问苏敬轼，百胜能否创办一家中餐连锁店。诺瓦克记得他当时说，麦当劳(McDonald's )的创始人克洛克(Ray Kroc)因在美国推出汉堡包而大获成功，我们为什么就不能在中餐上取得同样的成功呢？
百胜餐饮集团协助苏敬轼创办东方既白的Benjamin Koo回忆说，该公司委托进行的一项调查显示，中国人不喜欢现有中餐快餐店的店内氛围。受访者说，中餐快餐店员工常常对人没有好脸色。这类快餐店往往拥挤、 脏且不够凉快。Benjamin Koo记得一位受访顾客曾说：“我在这些地方吃饭能吃出一身汗。”受访者还说这些快餐店的食品不能保持同一质量水平。
提供一个更好的环境对百胜餐饮来说并不是难事，正如它在肯德基做的那样。真正的难题是挑选一个在全国都具有吸引力、同时又容易加工的菜单。
中国消费者对饭店菜单的要求比美国人要复杂。中国人的饮食中有大量的蔬菜和面条，这些食物很容易变软、变粘。中国的八大菜系差别很大。比如，川菜就以麻辣为主。在中国，南方人更喜欢外观较长、粘性较小的籼米，而北方人则更喜欢相对椭圆、粘性较大的粳米。
百胜餐饮希望能有一个全国统一的菜单，避免每个地区的菜单各不相同，因为这会让目前高效的运作结构变得更为复杂。苏敬轼说，连锁店在扩张时可能会根据本地口味做些调整。营销人员选择了台湾口味的调味猪肉末和广东口味的香菇鸡肉。这两个品种在各地都具有吸引力，而且相对容易加工。
2004年，百胜餐饮在远离上海市中心的一处安静地点开设了一家东方既白进行试营业，当时苏敬轼决定提供港式快餐，采用自助模式。身穿中式立领衬衣的服务员依次往顾客们的大盘子里盛着米饭和肉菜，菜单中也包括碳酸饮料。
但餐馆不久就门庭冷落。盛在盘子里的米饭凉得很快。工人们煮馄饨的速度也总是跟不上。不到一年，百胜就关闭了这家餐馆。
苏敬轼后来总结道，顾客喜欢肯德基的模式，而且希望能在这里吃到中餐。他带领他的团队重新设计了一套东方既白方案，像肯德基一样，力争在90秒内供餐。由于馄饨的准备时间至少要两分钟，百胜在菜单中将其取消。苏敬轼知道，有些顾客可能会感到失望。在其他不太追求速度的中餐快餐店中馄饨是必不可少的。
新方案突出了中国元素。它取消了碳酸饮料，取而代之的是豆浆、茶和酸梅汤等传统中国饮料。
去年，东方既白重张开业。在上海繁华的商业区徐家汇，两层的东方既白非常醒目，服务员身穿马球衫站在长长的柜台后面为顾客点餐，其风格与美式快餐店别无二致。顾客们坐在长凳、椅子上，一抬头就可以看到一幅幅米饭和让人垂涎欲滴的肉菜的图片。麻团闻起来就像甜甜圈，包裹在纸筒里。
餐馆将一些中国传统的图案和设计融入到装饰中。设计者在餐馆中间摆了一张长桌子，让人不禁想起中国家庭中供奉祖先牌位的案桌。
最近的一个下午，郑礼梅（音）在肯德基停下来，为她3岁的儿子买了一份儿童餐，然后就走进东方既白。她点了一份刨冰甜点。她说，她更喜欢其他中式快餐，因为东方既白的各种菜肴口味非常接近。她说，味道很正宗，但还是没有想像的那么好。
也有一些顾客说，东方既白的环境已经足以吸引他们光顾。“我们喜欢中餐，但是很少能找到这样的餐馆，”24岁的金颍（音）把她的男朋友也带到了这里，他们坐在窗口看看购物街的街景，很是惬意。
金颍的男朋友周童超（音）说，他们经常来这里，他已经吃腻了。这位28岁、从事会计工作的小伙子从外面买来了肉菜和馄饨，女朋友则买了这里的甜酸猪排。
一些上海本地居民觉得东方既白的价格有些贵。一份包括主菜、汤和蔬菜的套餐要花上2.30美元，和肯德基差不多。而在当地的中餐连锁店里这样的套餐会便宜三分之一左右。
苏敬轼说，东方既白的每店平均销售额低于肯德基，但他拒绝透露具体数据，也没有表示百胜餐饮将以多快的速度推广东方既白。百胜餐饮的一位管理人士在去年接受《上海日报》采访时曾表示，公司计划在2005年年底前在上海新开近10家东方既白；不过目前它只开了4家，百胜餐饮的管理人士称，他们很难找到合适的开店地点。
苏敬轼说，“我认为树立这个品牌还需要几年的时间。”
随着中国快餐连锁店的逐渐改进，百胜餐饮开始面临日益激烈的竞争。创建于1995年的永和大王(Yonghe King)就模仿肯德基挂上了一位酷似肯德基创始人山德士上校(Sanders)的中国人的头像。在一些新开的店面，永和大王还采用了热腾腾的饭菜作标识。公司管理人士Waley Lu表示，他们希望这个连锁店看上去更现代。
2004年，永和大王与菲律宾快餐企业快乐峰餐饮集团(Jollibee Foods Corp.)达成协议，由快乐峰在三年时间内对永和注入2,250万美元投资。永和计划在未来6年内在中国开店500家，其现有店面为115家。
永和在饭菜制作方面与东方既白有很大的差别。在永和8月份推出一款牛肉蔬菜饭之前，专家们至少对50种大米进行了测试，以确定哪一种味道最好。不过这款牛肉饭要花上4分钟才能端上来，而东方既白的饭菜只需90秒钟即可准备好。永和还提供馄饨，不过蒸煮时间比较长。
苏敬轼说，他不惧怕本地的竞争。百胜餐饮打算最早在明年推出东方既白的电视广告。管理人士称，他们打算将东方既白推广到亚洲其他地区。但他们说，目前尚未决定是否会推广到美国。
JANET ADAMY
