Decoding Cantonese pre-made dishes①
opening sentence
Guangdong wants to "eat" the trillion-dollar prefabricated vegetable market.
At the end of March, Guangdong issued the "Ten Measures to Accelerate the High-quality Development of Guangdong's Prefabricated Vegetable Industry", taking prefabricated vegetables as a breakthrough to promote the integrated development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries in rural areas.
As a big economic province and a big catering province, why does Guangdong have a soft spot for pre-made dishes?
In the trillion-dollar track of the prefabricated food industry, how can Guangdong enterprises who are used to drinking "head soup" make efforts?
How can Guangdong pre-made dishes help "Eat in Guangdong" to start again and go to the whole world?
This newspaper will launch a series of reports on "decoding Guangdong pre-made dishes" from today. The reporter visited first-line markets and enterprises, interviewed relevant departments and industry insiders, and discussed how to cook the feast of Guangdong pre-made dishes.
Planning: Lin Yan
Text / Zeng Fanying, an all-media reporter of Guangzhou Daily
Image/Provided by respondents
Cooking Xiaobai can't cook?
Tired after get off work and don't want to start?
Go out to eat and find that you can't dine in?
Three words can be done - "pre-made dishes".
Warm it up at home, and you can easily eat fish maw chicken and Buddha jumps over the wall. It is no wonder that pre-made dishes have become popular in recent years.
Among them, Cantonese people are undoubtedly lucky, because Guangdong is not only the first in the country to develop the prefabricated vegetable industry in an organized and systematic manner, and has mastered the core technology, but will also accelerate the construction of an influential prefabricated vegetable industry highland in the country and the world. The high-quality development of Guangdong's prepared vegetable industry is at the forefront of the country.
The development level of Guangdong's prepared dish industry is closely related to Guangdong's resource advantages, consumption habits and the development of the catering industry.
Industry experts believe that "delicious and difficult to cook" pre-made dishes are a breakthrough for the development of Guangdong enterprises, and will continue to develop in the direction of segmentation in the future.
Outlet: The transformation and upgrading of enterprises in the prefabricated vegetable market are busy
At 4:30 p.m., Guangzhou girl Hu Ling opened the fresh food e-commerce app as usual, selected two or three pre-made dishes into the shopping cart, and made an appointment to deliver it to her home around 7 p.m. She just returned home at this time, after receiving the goods. Processing, about 20 minutes to cook.
For busy office workers like Hu Ling, pre-made dishes have helped her a lot, allowing her and her husband to eat hot home meals in the shortest time possible.
"Now major e-commerce platforms have put a lot of pre-made dishes on the shelves, and the choices are very rich. Even if you buy them 7 days a week, it will not be repeated." Hu Ling told reporters.
During the current round of the epidemic, she bought more pre-made dishes than usual, "the refrigerator is full for emergencies."
In fact, for the industry, pre-made dishes are not a new term, they have appeared in the B-end market for decades.
The booming development of the consumer end for the C-end is after the outbreak of the epidemic.
There is no doubt that today's C-side pre-made dishes have already stood on the air.
In recent years, the head brand of Chaoshan Luwei Food, Lue Group, has hatched a pre-made dish brand "Wumanxian" with Chaoshan flavor as a sub-category. Its brand director Zhang Yuanming told reporters that due to the impact of the epidemic in the early days, he tried pre-made dishes and opened up Another business growth pole has emerged. Today, they are "walking on two legs", and the monthly sales of C-end pre-made vegetables have reached 3 million yuan, and this amount is still rising.
Undoubtedly, the development of the prefabricated vegetable market has become the way out and direction for the transformation and upgrading of the catering industry.
Guolian Aquatic Products, a leading enterprise in China's aquatic products processing industry, has vigorously expanded pre-prepared dishes in recent years. Vice President Zhao Hongmei said that this is the inevitable result of social background drive, industrial change drive and internal enterprise change drive.
Hengxing Group, the leading prefabricated vegetable company, has developed more than 200 types of aquatic prefabricated dishes in recent years, with a production capacity of 30,000 tons and an output value of more than 1 billion yuan.
Not only major food companies and catering companies have joined in one after another, but even fresh food platforms are also running into this track.
The reporter learned that there are 350 SKUs (minimum stock-keeping unit) in the frozen and refrigerated categories of pre-made dishes sold in season by Hema, covering the needs of users for family dinners, friends dinners, seasonal solar terms and other dining scenarios, and 70% of the products are their own. development.
Lin Ke, head of the Guangzhou area of Hema Workshop, said that they are optimistic about the development prospects of pre-made dishes on the consumer side.
"After market research, we found that consumers have increased their awareness of pre-made dishes in the past two years, and more and more consumers are willing to experience pre-made dishes. At the same time, there are still most consumers who want to cook by themselves, but do not Enough time to buy, wash, cut, and garnish vegetables, so they are more willing to try pre-made dishes that have been matched. Many families with children prefer to use pre-made dishes to solve the problem of not having time to cook for their children. "Another fresh food platform Dingdong Maicai's prefabricated dishes also achieved good results in 2021. The sales of prefabricated dishes in Guangdong exceeded 200 million yuan, the sales of prefabricated dishes in Guangzhou exceeded 50 million yuan, and the SKU of prefabricated dishes in Guangzhou exceeded 320. indivual.
During the "Double Festival" of New Year's Day and Spring Festival in 2022, the sales volume of Guangdong pre-made vegetables increased by more than 100% year-on-year, becoming one of the most popular dishes for the New Year's Eve, helping farmers who grow and raise related products to increase their income by up to 50%.
Advantages: complete industrial chain, Guangdong's development of prefabricated dishes is full of confidence
Guangdong has seized the first opportunity in the prefabricated vegetable market, which has both innate advantages and acquired guidance and efforts.
Zhao Hongmei analyzed that Guangdong, which is at the forefront of reform and opening up, has always been praised by the outside world for being the first to try, and has the innovative courage to "dare to eat crabs".
With the Greater Bay Area as the core, a large number of people with strong spending power gather here, and their ability to accept new things is very strong. Coupled with the fast pace of urban life in Guangzhou, there is a good soil for the development of pre-made vegetables; Guangdong has the advantages of characteristic agriculture, and as a major maritime province, Guangdong has natural geographical advantages and industrial base advantages in the development of the aquatic industry, and the accumulation and innovation of enterprises are relatively strong.
Abundant agricultural and sideline products provide a steady stream of ingredients for pre-made dishes, which is an upstream advantage; as a major catering province, Guangdong has the advantage of Cantonese cuisine brands, and has gathered a large number of excellent Cantonese cuisine chefs, who can provide suggestions for the development of dishes; Guangdong is The economy is a large province, the business environment is strong, various business forms are fully developed, logistics and transportation are developed, and terminal channels such as Hema, Tmall, and JD.com are strong, which is conducive to promoting the last mile of pre-made dishes.
Zhang Yuanming believes that from the perspective of food supply chain, Guangdong has a strong food industry foundation.
In the past two decades, Taiwan-funded and Hong Kong-funded food companies have invested in factories in Dongguan, Foshan and other places, cultivated a group of professional management talents and technical talents, laid the foundation of the food industry, and provided talents for the transformation of prefabricated dishes. and technical strength.
In the past three years, Guangdong has set a precedent in the country, taking the lead in promoting pre-made dishes in an organized and systematic manner.
The government vigorously supports and actively guides the prefabricated vegetable industry.
Guangdong took the lead in holding the first national prefabricated food summit forum, established the first provincial industry alliance, held the first provincial prefabricated food industry development conference, released the key core technologies of prefabricated food, and organized the province's prefabricated food double It launched the national and provincial-level industrial policies.
Last month, the website of the Guangdong Provincial People's Government released "Ten Measures to Accelerate the High-Quality Development of Guangdong's Prefabricated Vegetable Industry", which brought new opportunities for the development of Guangdong's prefabricated vegetable industry, innovated the path and provided experience for the development of the national prefabricated vegetable industry.
Taste: Grilled fish, pickled cabbage fish, pre-made dishes with different local flavors are favored
Guangdong's pre-made dishes outperformed the whole country, not only because of the advantages in the industrial chain, but also because of the industry's insight into consumption.
The reporter's investigation found that in provinces dominated by Cantonese cuisine, the most popular pre-made dishes in the market are not "one cup and two pieces", but grilled fish and pickled fish with different flavors.
Zhao Hongmei, vice president of Guolian Aquatic Group, told reporters that from the comprehensive market performance in recent years, pre-made dishes with strong flavor are more popular with consumers because of their taste memory points. Therefore, their grilled fish pre-made dishes have achieved good results in Guangdong in recent years. .
And prefabricated vegetable products such as boiled shrimp and shrimp dumplings are opening up in East China, Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
In other words, "differentiation" is the "magic weapon" for Guangdong pre-made dishes to remain invincible in the market.
This law is also confirmed in terms of liqueur.
Hu Yuhan, deputy director of the production center of Likoufu Food Co., Ltd., said that the sales of prepared stewed soups in Beijing and Jiangsu and Zhejiang are better than those in Guangzhou.
On the other hand, roasted chicken chop and sauerkraut fish are popular in the Guangzhou market.
"Because Guangzhou people have the habit of stewing their own soup, they are more willing to try some products that they can't make at home."
Today, there are a wide range of Cantonese pre-made dishes on the market, ranging from soups, braised vegetables, steamed vegetables, stewed vegetables, small stir-fries, dim sum, sugar water, etc.
According to the reporter's observation, most of these dishes are classic dishes familiar to the public, but the varieties that are difficult to handle by hand or require high cooking skills and are not easy to reproduce at home, such as braised pork trotters, grilled fish, pigeons, etc., belong to "delicious and difficult to cook". "type.
Chen Yang, general manager of Guangzhou Restaurant Group Likoufu Food Co., Ltd., introduced that Guangdong pre-made dishes can be divided into three categories. Reunion and nourishing pre-made dishes, such as abalone, fish maw, chicken and other products; third, popular cross-regional dishes such as grilled fish and pickled fish.
Difficulty: Cantonese chefs develop and crack the delicious code
All companies developing pre-made dishes are faced with a common problem: how to turn the well-known table delicacies into pre-made dishes through industrial production?
The "chef + food engineer" model is the key to solving this problem in Guangdong pre-made dishes.
Hu Yuhan explained that the chef is responsible for the development of dishes, the finalization of flavors and the standardization of recipes.
According to the instructions, food engineers help industrialize large-scale and stable production of dishes through advanced production equipment and technology, while ensuring stable food quality.
At present, there is a shortage of talents who have both the basic skills of chefs and the principles of food industry production. Therefore, only the "chef + food engineer" model is adopted.
Freshness and flavor retention are the most important consumer concerns.
Zhang Yuanming said that to achieve "freshness", the key lies in new technology.
The aging treatment at the research and development level and the high-quality preservation technology are the passwords of "freshness".
"We will deal with the degree of maturation according to the characteristics of the food. Generally, the finished product will be sterilized and packaged after reaching 8 maturity. Because the prefabricated dishes need to be subjected to the last heat treatment when they reach the consumers, if they are overripe in advance, it will be greatly reduced if they are reheated. Affect the taste and flavor. There are also some tricks, such as lo-mei products, before vacuuming, we will apply a thin layer of oil to the surface of the product to form a protective film, so as to maintain the freshness." There are differences, but the goal is the same.
Hu Yuhan said that Likoufu will use nitrogen lock technology to prevent food from being oxidized and bacteria to grow, so as to preserve the quality.
Zhang Yuanming further said that preservation technology is the top priority for maintaining "freshness". Currently, there are three kinds of preservation technology for prefabricated vegetables on the market, namely quick freezing, high temperature sterilization and radiation technology.
High temperature sterilization is usually used for ready-to-eat products such as canned products, and its disadvantage is that it destroys the flavor and texture of the ingredients.
Radiation technology can change the color of meat and destroy its aesthetics.
Quick freezing is the best choice, it does not destroy the molecular structure of the ingredients and can restore the flavor to the greatest extent.
But this means that the entire cold chain is required from production to transportation, and its cost is also the highest.
How to make pre-made dishes more "Cantonese"?
One is to encourage local Cantonese chefs to invest in the development of pre-made dishes, and to use the superb cooking skills of Cantonese chefs to combine "craftsmanship" and "craftsmanship", highlighting the characteristics of Cantonese cuisine to cultivate and develop the pre-made food industry; the second is to encourage vocational colleges (including technical schools) and ordinary colleges and universities add relevant professional courses according to the content of prefabricated dishes, and cultivate and promote the construction of "production-university-research" bases for prefabricated dishes.
——Relevant person in charge of Guangzhou Restaurant
In the future, Guangdong pre-made dishes should be specialized in the direction of subdivision, and form a leading enterprise in each sub-category of pre-made dishes.
Only when a factory expands its subdivisions can it form barriers of technology, cost and brand, and the supply chain can be synergistic, thus producing the advantage of large-scale production.
Secondly, "delicious and difficult to cook" and high-value pre-made dishes are still an important breakthrough for the development of the next dishes. Only "delicious and difficult to cook" can set up technical barriers, and high value can cover the obstacles of pre-made dishes: cold chain Logistics costs.
——Zhang Yuanming, head of Wuzhi Braised Goose Brand
menu
One pot of beef offal has to try 32 times
The radish beef offal pot pre-made dish is not easy to make. In order to maintain the chewy taste of the beef offal, it must be three-pointed. The R&D team tried 32 times before and after to test the taste of the beef offal after different cooking times. In order to make the prefabricated dishes after mass production consistent with the research and development, the food engineer team made SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) for 16 processes, and guided the industrial production of prefabricated dishes with food science and technology. .