Semi-finished products, the "sweet pastry" of online catering (Online China)
How hard is it to cook a table by yourself?
The answer may be as simple as ordering takeout.
In the "semi-finished product area" in the fresh food e-commerce APP, there are all kinds of pre-processed refrigerated dishes such as washing, cutting, and preparation of accessories - from home-cooked dishes such as shredded potatoes with sharp peppers, celery and shrimp, to Buddha jumping over the wall, fish maw chicken, etc." "hard dishes", and then to exotic dishes such as sukiyaki pot and tom yum soup, after the order is delivered, it only needs to be simply heated, and a table of sumptuous dishes is ready.
"Pre-made dishes" have become a new opportunity for the "home economy" and have quietly become popular online, attracting netizens to place orders frequently.
From "meal for one person" to "feast for the whole family"
Zhang Fan, who lives in Beijing, told this reporter that pre-made dishes can allow novice "Xiao Bai" to experience the joy of being a chef.
"I tried to learn cooking and baking from short videos before, but it was easy to 'overturn'." Zhang Fan admitted that he had wasted a lot of ingredients in the process of learning to cook, and later "planted" pre-made dishes.
"Dishes that are difficult to master, such as steak and pork belly chicken, can be made simply by heating, which is very suitable for 'lazy people' like me."
Zhang Fan's roommate Yiqing works for an Internet company.
Although the company offers three free meals on weekdays, for her, pre-cooked meals are associated with "self-rewarding."
"I'm usually busy with work, so I basically don't have time to buy vegetables and cook. I can make a delicious meal for myself in time for the weekend. I feel that this week has not been in vain." Yiqing told reporters that she usually buys washing machines. Cut the packaged clean vegetables, stir-fry them in the pot and eat them.
This time-saving and labor-saving way of cooking helps her balance her busy work schedule with her ideal life.
The portraits of consumers of pre-made dishes released by the online platform show that consumers between the ages of 22 and 31 account for more than 43%, and consumers in first- and second-tier cities account for more than 80%. time" and "delicious".
It can be seen that in the fast pace of work and the pursuit of good food in urban life, solving the kitchen problems of "can't cook, taste bad, and have no time" is an important reason why pre-made dishes are favored by netizens.
The high acceptance of pre-made dishes by young consumers has also quietly triggered new changes on the New Year's Eve dinner table.
For example, the overall sales of JD Fresh’s pre-made dishes in January this year exceeded 10 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 94%.
According to iiMedia Research, the scale of China's pre-made vegetables market in 2021 will be 345.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.8%. By 2025, the scale of China's pre-made vegetables market may exceed 800 billion yuan.
Industry insiders pointed out that pre-made dishes need to use good ingredients and technology to attract consumers, and the public's habit and demand for pre-made dishes are still developing, and improving the quality will help more consumers see the advantages of pre-made dishes.
"Small farmers" connect with "big markets"
The popular prefabricated vegetables have opened up a new market space for agricultural products, and promoted agriculture to catch up on the express train of industrialization.
In Luoding, Guangdong, the epidemic once made it difficult to sell live chickens.
According to local farmers, when live chickens are released, the cost of feed, water, electricity, farm rent, and labor is increasing every day.
Zhang Jianguo, general manager of Fudi Tempeh Chicken Industrial Park, believes that only by selling live chickens as deep-processed products can farmers increase their income and recover their losses.
Under the liaison of local village cadres, the farmers tried to deliver more than 1,000 live chickens to Zhang Jianguo to make vacuum-packed three-yellow chicken pre-products, which were sold out within a few days.
"The average selling price of a live chicken is about 120 yuan. After making a prefabricated dish, the output value of each chicken can reach about 300 yuan." Zhang Jianguo's trial-produced Sanhuang chicken prefabricated dish was a great success, which not only broadened the sales of local poultry products , and the company's original production line has been further expanded.
As a new form of deep processing of agricultural products, prefabricated vegetables have attracted the attention of many enterprises.
At Guolian Aquatic Headquarters, one of the daily tasks of R&D manager Huang Yong is to collect opinions on ingredients, tastes and cooking techniques of pre-made dishes through product tasting meetings, and launch pre-made dishes that meet the public's taste.
Huang Yong believes that the industrialized cooking equipment is completely different from the chef's cooking on the spot. The difficulty in the research and development of pre-made dishes is to use industrialized equipment to make the product as close as possible to the chef's taste and restore the chef's flavor.
The grilled fish with green peppercorns developed by Guolian Aquatic Products has now achieved mass production.
After a piece of tilapia has been slaughtered, marinated, pre-heated, seasoned and quick-frozen, it can enter the supermarket container and become a ready-to-eat grilled fish dish.
According to the relevant person in charge of Guolian Aquatic Products, the grilled fish with green peppercorns was welcomed by the market as soon as it was launched, and now it has been exported to Canada, India and other places.
The success of this prefabricated vegetable product not only benefits the company, but also drives tilapia farming in the upstream of the industrial chain.
Pre-made vegetables have built a bridge for "small farmers" to connect with "big markets", allowing consumers to eat fast and well, and can also accelerate the standardization and scale of agricultural product processing, increasing farmers' income.
From "small and scattered" to "standardized"
Prepared dishes are not a new concept.
The explosive growth of the takeaway market has expanded the demand for cooking kits and prepared dishes.
During the epidemic prevention period, "home consumption" has increased, and agricultural product processing enterprises, fresh e-commerce, and offline catering brands have entered the pre-prepared vegetable industry.
At the same time, the "heating up" of pre-made dishes has also been accompanied by controversy.
Some netizens commented that pre-made dishes can only be made into standardized single items. Compared with Chinese food with various cuisines and different tastes, pre-made dishes cannot solve the problem of difficult adjustment.
The reporter learned that although more than 74% of chain catering companies in China have built their own central kitchens and distribute pre-made dishes to stores for production, the proportion of leading companies such as Xibei, Zhen Kung Fu, Xiao Nan Guo, etc. using pre-made dishes exceeds 80%, However, nearly 70% of prefabricated vegetables in China are still small, weak and scattered, and there is no unified standard for product safety and quality.
Therefore, although the prepared vegetable industry contains unlimited business opportunities, it still needs to form a synergy on the supply side to achieve high-quality development.
Fresh food e-commerce has a stable user base and mature cold chain logistics and distribution advantages. The secret of launching "popular" pre-made dishes is to cooperate with high-quality enterprises and develop self-operated products.
For the offline catering industry, it is necessary to realize that pre-made dishes have the attributes of both food and catering.
The food industry sells products, and the catering industry sells services. If offline stores blindly pursue efficiency and try to reduce labor costs with pre-made dishes, it will be difficult for consumers to buy it.
On the premise of ensuring the taste and dining experience, the standardization of the production of dishes can be improved, so that the business of pre-made dishes can do better.
Zhu Jinyi