Chinanews client, Beijing, June 16 (Zuo Yukun) Buying vegetables, washing vegetables, cutting vegetables to cooking, the entire process takes as little as tens of minutes to as many as several hours-this is traditional cooking Process.
Tear open the package and put it directly in the pot. It only takes a few minutes at the shortest. The seemingly complicated dishes can be served on the table-this is a cooking process with the blessing of "artifacts".
When the fast-paced life speed meets the exquisite life needs, it ran out of the "prefabricated dishes".
Is it reliable to make it fast and eat well?
The popular "small family New Year's Eve dinner" during the Spring Festival in 2021.
Photo courtesy of Hema Fresh
"Xiaobai" becomes "God of Cooking" overnight?
The Spring Festival in 2021 is special for Xiaolin. In response to the call to celebrate the Chinese New Year on the spot, she and a few friends have a New Year's Eve dinner together.
"It was agreed that one person would serve two special dishes, and the result was a bunch of takeaways."
But this "takeaway" is not another "takeaway."
It is not a steaming finished product that you can eat, but a semi-finished product that still needs to be processed.
Some of them were temporarily ordered from the takeaway app before departure, and some were stocked in major live broadcast rooms a long time ago.
Take Kobayashi’s "final dish" lotus leaf chicken as an example. You only need to thaw the ingredients in advance, poke a few holes in the lotus leaf when cooking, put it in the pot and cook for 40 minutes. dish.
Kobayashi's prefabricated vegetable lotus leaf chicken.
Photo courtesy of the interviewee
"First of all, it is convenient. Fresh ingredients and condiments are troublesome from buying to processing; secondly, if you make meat dishes yourself, it takes a longer time to prepare, and the efficiency of semi-finished products is much higher. Finally, the taste of pre-made dishes is more stable. My friends and I I seldom fire, and I don't feel comfortable with my own craftsmanship." Xiaolin said that he and his friends were very satisfied with this "semi-buffet" New Year's Eve dinner.
Many young people like Kobayashi have made pre-made dishes a new favorite on the New Year’s Eve dinner table.
Among the top ten new year goods data released by Tmall, the sales volume of pre-made vegetables has increased 16 times year-on-year.
According to JD.com's big data, since January 20, the turnover of semi-finished vegetables in small packages for 1 to 2 people has increased by 3.5 times year-on-year.
The main consumer groups of prepared dishes are mainly young consumers born in the 80s and 90s.
According to data from Hema Xiansheng, the proportion of post-95 consumers buying semi-finished vegetables has reached twice that of post-65s.
So many young people who are not good at cooking can step into the ranks of "Cooking God" in one fell swoop, and pre-made dishes have also gained the titles of "quick dishes" and "lazy dishes".
On April 27th, Weizhixiang, which focuses on the research and development, production and sales of pre-prepared vegetables, was successfully listed and became the "first share of pre-prepared vegetables"; Haidilao’s “open meal” series products have been launched on major official channels; Hema Xiansheng upgraded Hema The workshop is the 3R (Ready to cook, Ready to heat, Ready to eat) business unit; Daily Youxian launches the "Famous Dishes and Famous Stores" channel, and signature dishes from famous restaurants such as Xibei and Dongpo in Meizhou are firmly established; Dingdong Shopping In the category of "Quick Hand Dishes", the crayfish product "Boxing Shrimp" went online for one and a half months, achieving sales exceeding 100 million yuan...
The pre-made dishes that could only be used as a reason for the elders in family group chats not to let you go out have been completely "put on the table."
Behind the scenes and in front of the stage, the controversy is going hot
"The epidemic has brought opportunities to the industry," Mr. Sun, who is engaged in the pre-prepared vegetable industry, told Chinanews.com that his business grew by nearly 300% year-on-year during the epidemic.
Braised pork, sweet and sour short ribs, lion head and other dishes that require a lot of time and cost, and stews such as chicken soup, pork ribs soup, and Buddha jumping over the wall are the best sellers.
Nowadays, the pre-made dishes that are blooming everywhere are actually not a new thing.
To put it bluntly, it is an "advanced version" of quick-frozen processed products.
The so-called pre-prepared dishes and semi-finished dishes refer to the dishes that have been washed, cut, matched, or even prepared in the factory, and then stored in frozen or vacuum packaging. After the consumer buys them, they only need to heat it or pass the pre-made dishes. The combination of materials in the package is simple cooking, and the dishes can be made in a short time.
"In a broad sense, pre-made dishes are exactly the same as the'cooking buns' that have been fried in previous years. From the perspective of the market, they are currently used more in restaurants and hotels, and less in families." Sun Said the sir.
Data map: Villagers are eating running water seats.
Image source: Visual China
Mr. Sun gave an example: "For example, when we go to a wedding banquet, so many tables and so many dishes are exactly the same, are they all made in the same way as the kitchen? That is definitely not possible, because the serving time will be very long and the experience will be rather uneven. , This kind of occasion basically depends on the prepared pre-made dishes."
According to the research report of China Sea Securities, the ratio of B-end to C-end in China's pre-prepared vegetable market is about 8:2, and restaurants and other businesses still account for the majority of pre-prepared vegetable consumption.
Another scenario where pre-made dishes are widely used is takeaway.
An insider revealed to Chinanews.com in the early years: "Some takeaway shops sell almost 3,000 takeaways per month, but there are only two employees. What they have to do every day is to steam a large pot of rice and blanch some green leafy vegetables. Then match it with the hot quick-cooked dishes, so that a takeaway can be quickly made without much effort."
These quick-cooked dishes are almost all purchased from major e-commerce platforms, and they are not "fresh fried" as customers think.
Calculated at the price at the time, the gross profit of the take-out business for reheating food can be up to 300%.
The controversy about pre-prepared dishes has not stopped since then. Some people think that it is convenient to have no difference, and more people think that it is difficult to achieve the level of color, flavor and taste after pre-prepared dishes are processed.
But the controversy did not stop the development of pre-made dishes.
"Now, in addition to large-scale dinners, we rarely eat freshly cooked dishes when we go to restaurants. About 60% of them are frozen pre-made dishes, especially in some small-scale chain stores and home-cooked restaurants." Mr. Sun said.
What is the difference between today's pre-made dishes?
Many people's criticisms of pre-prepared dishes are focused on the lack of guarantee for their freshness.
Chinanews.com searches for fast food commercial food packages on the e-commerce platform. Most of them are frozen and stored, and the shelf life can reach 365 days.
The cooked food can only be "reappeared" after one year. Does it have the taste of "zombie dishes"?
The shelf life of take-out food packages sold on e-commerce platforms is mostly around 365 days.
Screenshots
“The current preservation methods in the pre-prepared vegetable industry are scientific packaging and rapid freezing technology (minus 18°C), and transportation will also require full cold chain logistics. Without the use of preservatives and additives, low temperature is currently the best way to preserve food. Nutrition and the main way to inhibit the reproduction of microorganisms." In this regard, Mr. Sun introduced.
"To what extent has the food industry and restaurant supply chain developed now? A live fish is frozen and is still alive after thawing." According to Mr. Sun, the current technology is inseparable from low temperature, but low temperature technology is also constantly being developed. Developmental.
For example, in the current market, for the transportation of fresh hairy belly, some merchants use 0-5°C refrigeration instead of freezing in order to ensure its crispy taste.
This requires suppliers to apply liquid nitrogen refrigeration technology more accurately, and upgrade the packaging.
In addition, "unsafe" and "not nutritious" often make people distrust pre-made dishes.
Liu Xiaoling, a doctoral tutor of Guangxi University and an expert of the Guangxi Food Safety Expert Committee, once pointed out that from the perspective of nutrition, the nutritional content of food is related to the source of raw materials and processing methods. The changing laws of different foods and different nutrients are not consistent. Said fresh fried is more nutritious.
“Traditional catering’s methods of buying, cooking and processing have high costs and difficult to control risks.” Liu Xiaoling also believes that producers adopt food production license access models and market supervision methods to make meals in central kitchens. , Centralized distribution is a way and trend to achieve standardization of catering or canteens, improve product safety, and improve efficiency.
"In fact, it is not just pre-made dishes, but also the categories related to the food industry will have food safety hazards." In response to the food safety problem, Mr. Sun also said that real-made pre-made dishes are definitely healthier than most takeaways, but he himself No one can guarantee the safety of the entire industry. "As practitioners, my colleagues and I still have to do business with conscience, so that the industry can go further."
Will this small step of pre-made dishes become a big step for young people to "say goodbye to takeaways and walk into the kitchen"?
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