August 27 morning news - It has been learned that Meituan's "Raccoon Kitchen" has recently launched partner recruitment. According to a source, the first batch of cities open for "Raccoon Kitchen" franchising is limited to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou, focusing primarily on single-store partnerships without regional agency arrangements for now.

After more than six months of trial operations, Meituan officially launched its centralized delivery kitchen brand "Raccoon Kitchen" in early July this year. Official data shows that as of early July, "Raccoon Kitchen" has been operating 10 stores in Beijing, Hangzhou and other cities, with over 100 food and beverage merchants settled in. Over the next three years, Meituan plans to invest in building 1,200 "Raccoon Kitchen" locations nationwide.

It is understood that Meituan has two main hard requirements for partners: First, funding requirements - initial investment of approximately 1.5 million yuan per store, with partners needing to provide cash or asset proof of over 1 million yuan; Second, location requirements - partners must have secured properties in popular delivery commercial areas with building areas of 500-1,000 square meters and remaining lease terms of no less than 8 years.

Additionally, Meituan recommends partners allocate approximately 1 million yuan in additional dynamic operational funds. It is learned that besides upfront renovation investments, partners also need to pay brand security deposits as well as various cooperation initiation and support fees including cooperation service fees and brand management fees. However, during the initial franchise opening period, Meituan has introduced full or limited exemption preferential policies for certain fees.

Meituan has repeatedly emphasized publicly that it "will never operate directly and will never compete with merchants." In terms of the division of responsibilities between the brand and partners, the "Raccoon Kitchen" franchise model differs slightly from traditional franchise models. "Raccoon Kitchen" partners are only responsible for securing locations, renovation construction, and assisting settled delivery merchants with licensing procedures when necessary. Meituan handles merchant recruitment, pricing, marketing, on-site management, store manager recruitment, training and evaluation, though partners bear the basic salary costs for store managers.