More than 60% of consumers complained about poor taste, unknown logo, and wrong goods——
The popular pre-made dishes are "good to sell" but also "delicious"
With the popularity of "lazy economy" and "home economy", "pre-made" dishes in the preparation of ingredients and seasonings have become popular this Spring Festival.
While bringing convenience to people, problems such as cutting corners in processing, stale ingredients, and poor taste have also caused many consumers to complain.
On February 18, the Consumer Protection Committee of Jiangsu Province released the "Investigation Report on the Consumption of Prefabricated Vegetables" (hereinafter referred to as the "Investigation Report").
The survey report shows that more than 60% of consumers said that the taste of the dishes is not good, the label information of pre-made dishes is not clear, and there are many problems in logistics, distribution and delivery.
New Year's Eve dinner, pre-made dishes C debut
"During the Chinese New Year, I bought a gift box of 'Twelve Golden Hairpins' from a well-known restaurant online. It cost less than 500 yuan, enough for 5 people in my family. In the Lantern Festival that just passed, she who can't cook, actually brought out a table of dishes such as beef in oyster sauce, beef in sour soup, kung pao chicken, steamed yellow croaker with pickled vegetables, and shredded pork with fish flavor.
Quick and easy pre-cooked dishes that allow people to taste delicious food from all over the world at home.
Not only during the Spring Festival, semi-finished pre-made dishes "C debut", more and more people choose pre-made dishes in daily life.
"I'm busy with get off work during the day, and I just want to lie down early after work. I worry about heavy oil and salt when ordering take-out, but pre-made dishes can be eaten in a few minutes after simple processing, which is clean and affordable, and saves time." 90 who worked hard in Nanjing Zhang Jiaqi, a post-white-collar worker, told reporters that she usually buys pre-made dishes through platforms such as Hema, community group purchases, and hotel WeChat public accounts, and chooses dishes recommended by well-known brands or friends, and the quality is relatively guaranteed.
Pre-made dishes have also appeared in some small chain stores in supermarkets.
On February 18, the reporter came to the Hema Xiansheng in Nanjing Huacai Tiandi shopping mall, a small shop of about 10 square meters "Harmony First Year", which provided many hot dishes: Sichuan Restaurant Mapo Tofu 18.8 yuan / serving, Jiangsu Restaurant Thai-style curry shrimp is 39.9 yuan/unit, Ma Xiangxing Bantang Beef Sauce is 39.9 yuan/unit... The person in charge of the store introduced that "The First Year of Harmony" is a brand of Gunandu. In other links, directly heated after arriving at the store, the taste reduction degree can reach 90%, which is very popular.
Ma Hong, deputy general manager of Gunandu Hotel, introduced that the "nine mature" pre-made dishes are selected from many time-honored classic dishes, fully integrating the century-old traditional craftsmanship of the time-honored brand with modern food technology, and quickly locking in freshness in the shortest time.
During the Spring Festival of the Year of the Tiger, Gunandu sold nearly 400,000 pre-made dishes.
Relevant data show that in 2021, China's total consumption of prefabricated vegetables will reach 1.7472 million tons, and the market size is expected to exceed 830 billion yuan by 2025.
Data from Dingdong Shopping showed that during the Spring Festival, the sales of pre-made vegetables more than tripled year-on-year, 3 million copies were sold in 7 days, and the unit price of customers more than doubled.
Alibaba announced that during the Spring Festival, the sales of pre-made vegetables on Taobao increased by more than 100% year-on-year, and the sales of pre-made vegetables on Hema increased by 345%.
Why are pre-made dishes so popular?
"At first, pre-made dishes were mainly supplied to catering operators. After the outbreak, the home economy drove the expansion of pre-made dishes from supplying restaurants to supplying families and individual consumers." Zhu Xinhua, a professor at the School of Public Administration of Hohai University, believes that the popularity of pre-made dishes is due to the population. The general trend of the evolution of structure and consumption upgrading.
With the aging of China's population and the increasingly prominent miniaturization of families, the lazy approach of pre-made dishes allows cooks Xiaobai to come up with a few hard dishes, so pre-made dishes ushered in explosive growth.
"Jiangsu is a very important market for Dingdong grocery shopping. At present, our services have covered 11 cities in Jiangsu, and there are more than 200 front-end warehouses." Ou Houxi, the person in charge of Dingdong grocery shopping, told reporters that Dingdong grocery shopping There are many prefabricated vegetable processing factories in Jiangsu.
For example, the very popular “Cai Changqing Pickled Cabbage Black Fish Fillet”, “Cai Changqing Braised Pork” and “Cai Changqing Malantou Fragrant Dried”, which are very popular on the platform, are all in Jiangsu.
There are many bad reviews, and there are really many problems with pre-made dishes
Feng Han, 31, is the hostess of a family of three and is in charge of the family New Year's Eve dinner for the Year of the Tiger.
"I started paying attention to pre-made dishes during the Spring Festival last year, but all the restaurants offered were gift boxes. The price of 8 dishes and 10 dishes was over a thousand yuan, which was too expensive. I opened the e-commerce platform and live broadcast room during the Spring Festival this year and found that there are many brands. It was dazzling, but there were only a few dishes, most of which were Buddha Jumps over the Wall, pickled fish, sweet and sour pork loin, and various types of chicken soup, so the choices were not enough." Finally, she placed an order for lion head, braised fish, Buddha jumps over the wall, and pork belly chicken soup4 A pre-made dish.
"I didn't expect 4 dishes, but two 'overturned'. After the lion's head was placed in the pot, it scattered, and the soup and meat residue were mixed into a pot; Buddha jumped over the wall was sparse, and there was basically nothing in it." Feng Han said, "I asked customer service, The other party said that the broken lion head may be caused by improper transportation or excessive heat. The pictures of Buddha Jumping over the Wall are for reference only. "
According to Tianyancha data, as of now, there are more than 68,000 pre-prepared vegetables-related companies in China, and 146 companies have received financing.
The influx of a large number of enterprises has brought about the problem of non-standard production.
Data from the Jiangsu Consumer Network Public Opinion Monitoring System shows that from January 1 to February 10, 2022, there were a total of 56,948 public opinions about pre-made dishes for New Year's Eve in the province.
The survey report also shows that the current problems in the pre-prepared vegetable market include: uneven quality of dishes, need to improve the taste of dishes, unclear labeling of dishes, single variety of dishes, and many problems in logistics, distribution and delivery.
Among them, 27.54% of consumers said that the name and main ingredients of the prepared dishes were not marked, and 23.61% of the consumers said that the weight of the dishes was not marked.
For pre-made dishes, consumers are most concerned about safety issues, accounting for nearly 30%, including the freshness of ingredients and the cleanliness of the production process.
Some consumers reported that the pre-made dishes they bought were spoiled, the ingredients were not fresh, the dishes contained foreign objects, and they had expired.
Consumers are also less satisfied with the taste of pre-made dishes, with 62.32% of consumers saying that the taste of pre-made dishes is average.
The weight of pre-made dishes is also the focus of everyone's attention.
"On the fifth day of the first lunar month, during a small family gathering, I spent 400 yuan to buy a 10-course 'family banquet gift box' online in advance, but it was not enough." Zhang Min, a native of Taizhou, told reporters that when he opened the gift box, he was dumbfounded. The dish of fragrant ribs, only a few ribs are placed in the middle of the plate alone, "one person is not enough", the real "goods are not on the plate", which is too different from the promotional photos of the online store.
New business formats, urgent need to "standard"
As a new product and new service on the tip of the tongue, how can prepared dishes be safe and delicious?
"Whether pre-made dishes are hygienic and fresh is the most concerned issue for consumers." Zhao Xin, director of the Supervision Department of the Provincial Consumer Protection Committee, told reporters that enterprises should formulate a set of special food safety standards for the characteristics of "twice cooking" of pre-made dishes. In particular, it is necessary to make it clear that the whole process of ingredients can be traced back.
Merchants must also do a good job of "testing", and can introduce third-party testing agencies or use Internet technology to achieve online "bright kitchens and bright stoves".
It is understood that the state has not yet issued relevant industry standards for pre-made dishes, but some companies have already planned to make efforts in the standardized production of pre-made dishes.
"At present, we have built a technology research institute to provide strong guarantee for the research and development of pre-made dishes, time-honored brands, intangible cultural heritage and innovative products." Ma Hong said that the technology research institute has a professional kitchen and inspection room for photography. On the basis of close cooperation with China Hotel Association, the institute will undertake "training and certification of new technologies and new formats for time-honored intangible cultural heritage food, standard research on time-honored intangible cultural heritage products", etc., and jointly shape the industry standard of time-honored pre-made dishes and drive pre-made dishes. New developments in the industry.
How to ensure the freshness of dishes?
From research and development to production, to logistics and transportation, warehousing and preservation, and even the "last mile" of pre-made vegetables, the whole process needs to be checked.
Ou Houxi said that, at present, when the business volume develops to a certain scale, and the production and sales are seamlessly connected, it will not be a problem to keep pre-made vegetables fresh.
As for the weight of the dishes, the reporter learned that each pre-made dish of Dingdong Shopping is not only marked with the weight on the details page, but also marked with the content of solids, the number of pieces, and the percentage of meat.
In the design of the pre-made dishes in Gunandu, the weight of each dish is similar to that consumed by consumers in the store, and information such as weight, ingredients, and processing methods are clearly marked on the packaging.
In addition to safety issues in the production process, pick-up and delivery are also difficult problems in the pre-prepared vegetable industry.
During the Spring Festival this year, some pre-made dishes for New Year's Eve ordered by consumers were not received until after New Year's Eve.
In this regard, Zhao Xin suggested that the "last mile" of prefabricated dishes should be both convenient and effective for consumers to obtain, and prefabricated food companies should find more suitable channels to reach them, such as fresh supermarkets, convenience stores, communities Group buying, etc., to provide consumers with better services.
Pre-prepared vegetables involve all aspects of food production and processing. Industry insiders pointed out that the fast-growing pre-prepared vegetables market requires regulatory authorities, platforms, and merchants to work together to strengthen management.
Relevant departments should promptly release the illegal sales found in the supervision process, establish a risk assessment level, and strengthen the supervision of the prefabricated vegetable market.
The platform should also strengthen the management of platform merchants by establishing an evaluation mechanism, tracking user complaints, and paying attention to market feedback to protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.