In the first half of the year, convenience food companies above designated size achieved a profit of 8.75 billion yuan, an increase of 12.8%
-why did convenience food rise against the trend?
The noodles are sharp and springy, the skewered incense and oden are tumbling in the rich soup, the snail noodles exude a unique "smelly" smell, and the various ingredients in the rich spicy incense pot are very attractive... this is not in any restaurant. The scene is not a food festival, but the scene of the "2020 Most Popular Convenience Food Tasting Activity" hosted by the Chinese Society of Food Science and Technology.
When it comes to convenience foods, many people’s first impression is instant noodles—it's just convenient for emergencies, not nutrition, let alone delicious.
In fact, in the past two years, the big family of convenience foods has flourished, and more and more convenient foods with reliable taste, convenient eating, and rich nutrition have accelerated their occupation of shelves and tables, and have developed towards “food-oriented” and “dinner-oriented”.
Under the impact of the epidemic, the convenience food industry has achieved growth against the trend.
Which characteristics of convenience food are most favored by consumers?
What is the future development direction of the industry?
The reporter conducted an interview.
Good sale
—— Consumption of convenience food increased by 1.5 times from January to May, and sales of instant noodle market in the first half of the year increased by 11.5% year-on-year
"Home isolation and convenience food have solved my eating problem!" After the company resumed work, Beijing white-collar Wang Wei returned to his residence in Beijing from his hometown and stayed at home in the community for another 14 days.
In Wang Wei's view, during this period of time, it is better to order takeaways, go to restaurants, and cook for yourself than to eat convenience food to save worry and rest assured. It just so happened that community workers sent a lot of frozen dumplings, glutinous rice balls, spring rolls, etc. The taste is as good as the outside restaurants, and the price is affordable."
During the epidemic, convenience foods that are storage-resistant, taste good, and can be eaten without leaving the house have played an important role in ensuring supply and protecting people's livelihood.
Convenience food has also become one of the first industries to resume work and production. Related companies have ensured that consumers and medical staff can eat well during the epidemic prevention and control period.
The Ministry of Commerce lists key commodities such as convenience foods as key monitoring objects, and establishes a daily report monitoring and abnormal situation reporting system to keep abreast of the supply of convenience foods in various markets.
Relying on the nine-province joint guarantee and supply cooperation mechanism, various provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have transferred a large amount of convenience food to Hubei.
Food companies such as Sanquan, Si Nian, Shuanghui transported large amounts of ham sausage, quick-frozen glutinous rice balls, and quick-frozen dumplings to Wuhan's anti-epidemic line by rail.
“Affected by home isolation during the epidemic, consumption of convenience foods increased by 1.5 times from January to May 2020. The functions of convenience foods as emergency and disaster relief supplies have been highlighted, and the industry’s vitality has emerged.” said Meng Suhe, director of the Chinese Society of Food Science and Technology. Under the epidemic, the market has released a huge demand for convenience food, and the advantages of the convenience food industry have rapidly changed, forming a well-accumulated emergency response capability and strong production capacity.
The "Innovation Trends of China's Convenience Food Industry in 2019-2020" released by the Convenience Food Conference 2020 pointed out that China's convenience food innovation as a whole presents a general trend of health, safety and characteristics, and the convenience food industry has become one of the few unaffected by the epidemic. One of the food industry.
According to statistics, in the first half of this year, convenience food manufacturing enterprises above designated size achieved operating income of 137.15 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.7%; realized total profits of 8.75 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.8%.
In the field of traditional instant noodles, various indicators have performed well.
Data show that the main business revenue of 22 major instant noodle companies in 2019 increased by 7.01% year-on-year; output increased by 3.18% year-on-year.
In the first half of 2020, China's instant noodle market sales increased by 11.5% year-on-year, and overall sales increased by 5.6% year-on-year.
“The instant food industry is an important civilian production industry and a traditional advantageous industry in my country. After the outbreak, instant noodle manufacturers resumed work as soon as possible and organized production at full capacity. During the epidemic, they achieved outstanding development results, and gave full play to protecting the basic needs of the people. The role of life." said Li Tangbing, deputy director of the Consumer Goods Industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
Become delicious
—— Docking consumption upgrades, convenience food pays more attention to real materials, authentic flavors, and application in multiple scenarios
Once upon a time, when consumers saw attractive patterns such as "mushroom stewed chicken" and "broiled beef" on the outer packaging of instant noodles, they couldn't help but mumble: These patterns are just "for reference only".
Nowadays, with the addition of original and real materials, some convenience foods are "worthy of the name".
Jinmailang’s "Lao Fanjia Cup Noodles" series combines freeze-drying technology to restore family delicacy with rich ingredients such as meatballs and shrimps; Tianjin Chunsheng Biotechnology Group develops hot water to enjoy the "flavor" "Golden Soup Paste" truly restores the original flavor of Hua Maw Chicken Soup, allowing consumers to taste what they see from the outer packaging on the tip of their tongue.
In addition to traditional instant noodles, there are also hand-rolled noodles presented as instant noodles, instant chicken soup bibimbap that can be carried around, fried and ready-to-eat puff pastry pies, chicken noodles for direct consumption, and Sydney soup for brewing and drinking... instant noodles Various edible methods such as fast-frozen, refrigerated, and room temperature preservation, etc., provide consumers with diversified convenience foods. The restaurant is moved to the kitchen, allowing each Families can produce exquisite and delicious dishes in a short time and with less effort.
Lu Shi is a senior travel companion. Whenever he embarks on a self-driving tour, there is a large amount of self-heating convenience food in the trunk.
"The cold water soaking hot pack can provide sufficient heat. Even in high-altitude areas like Qinghai and Tibet, you can eat ten mature rice with side dishes such as fish-flavored shredded pork and steamed pork. The journey is exhausting. Swept away."
Using the principle that quicklime meets water to dissipate heat, a wide variety of self-heating foods such as self-heating rice, self-heating noodles, and self-heating hot pot have emerged, and have shown a spurt of growth since the outbreak.
In addition to the self-heating bag heating, heating methods such as boiling and boiling water are not troublesome, and consumers can eat hot meals within 5 minutes.
Some people are optimistic about the convenience of heating convenience food, and some people look for the taste of hometown in convenience food.
The Chongqing girl Zhang Yuxuan is “spicy like life”. Speaking of self-heating butter hot pot, spicy fragrant pot, and Chuan Chuanxiang, she is familiar with her: "Every time I travel or go on business, I have to bring self-heating hot pot and have a meal on the road. , The other travelers followed the fragrance with admiring eyes."
In addition to the hot pot popular in Sichuan and Chongqing, there are also oily noodles in Shaanxi, Guilin rice noodles and Liuzhou snail noodles in Guangxi, Mala cakes in Guangdong, Jian rotten pork in Jiaozuo, Henan, and duck blood vermicelli soup in Nanjing. Local specialty snacks that can only be seen when they are made on-site by skilled masters have now become simple and authentic convenience foods, allowing people to taste the taste of their hometown even if they are in the world.
Industry insiders pointed out that the purchase and consumption of convenience food by consumers has far exceeded the demand for pure fruit belly.
Digging from the fertile soil of traditional cuisine and returning to traditional flavors, more and more foods are labeled "convenience", reflecting the innovation of convenience food.
"The entire convenience food is undergoing a healthy transition from a'price war' to a'value war'." Meng Suhe said.
High-end
——More scientific and technological innovations to accelerate the development of convenience foods towards the "delicious, nutritious and healthy" dinner positioning
In the future, where will the convenience food industry make efforts to provide consumers with better products?
"The key and core of China's convenience food industry to seize opportunities and maintain steady development is scientific and technological innovation to accurately track the rapid development of the industry." said Shao Wei, vice chairman and secretary-general of the Chinese Society of Food Science and Technology.
Innovative products are the driving force behind the breakthrough of convenience food.
The golden hot dog stick with the cake texture, the popped salad flavor ball wrapped with flying fish roe, the matcha crispy fried milk, the purple cabbage corn plant meat dumplings...the new technology and new ingredients make the convenient products fashionable and satisfying. People's pleasure when eating.
The application of healthy ingredients such as steamed yellow rice into the skin, fine seafood as fillings, and collocation of flower maw and chicken soup has also greatly improved the nutritional value of convenient products and added new vitality and health elements to the products.
The "2020 National Health Insight Report" issued by the Dingxiang Doctor Data Research Institute shows that the public's definition of health has changed from "not getting sick" to "eat well, sleep well, and feel good." The national health concept has undergone a fundamental change.
Convenience food companies have also continued their efforts to the high-end market.
The tendency of the instant noodle industry to become "food ingredients" has become more and more obvious. It has shifted from being ready to eat in a single bubble to more diversified self-service eating methods, accelerating its development towards a "delicious, nutritious and healthy" dinner positioning.
In response to diversified consumer needs, many convenience food companies have chosen the path of differentiation and innovation to provide consumers with more quality choices.
Master Kong has successively launched high-end healthy and nutritious noodles such as "Express Suda Noodles", "Suda Cooked Noodles" and "Suda Self-heating Noodles". The sales of high-priced bag noodles in the first half of this year increased by 47.8% year-on-year; Uni-President instant noodles continued to improve product materials and use broth to create health With fresh ridgeline noodles, the revenue of "Tang Daren" products in the first half of the year increased by 29.7% year-on-year; Jinmailang's "cooked" non-fried instant noodles, and Baixiang "Fresh Noodles" using aviation-grade food technology FD fresh lock technology "Scent of wine" has also brought a new trend to the convenience food market.
Tian Jianxin, deputy director of the Food Safety Standards and Monitoring and Evaluation Department of the National Health Commission, pointed out that the next step is to accelerate the nutrition of convenience foods. “People’s consumer demand for convenience foods not only requires good color, fragrance, and food safety, nutrition and health”. Attention. How to meet these needs is a common challenge facing the development of the industry."
Practitioners also have a lot to do in creating more environmentally friendly and resource-efficient convenience foods.
In recent years, the design of convenience food equipment has paid more attention to energy conservation, environmental protection and reduction of material loss, and product packaging has begun to change from pursuing luxurious appearance to green environmental protection and respecting consumer demands.
"The convenience food industry is one of the key industries that promote the development of international and domestic dual cycles. In the future, the convenience food industry will make efforts to increase varieties, improve quality, and create brands, continuously improve brand influence and recognition, and strive to form a "Hundred Flowers" Brand competition pattern.” Li Tangbing said.
Wang Wenzheng
Wang Wenzheng