Thaw the ingredients package, unpack it, pour it into the pot, and heat it for more than 10 minutes. A delicious "Buddha Jumps Over the Wall" can be eaten immediately.
"With this hard dish, a big meal is complete." A few days ago, in a supermarket in Beijing, a post-85s white-collar worker who was selecting pre-made dishes told a reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily. In the mode, to make "Buddha Jumps over the Wall", 18 main ingredients and 12 auxiliary ingredients must be prepared, and then more than 40 processes such as cooking and frying. The whole process will take 10 days for a novice chef, but now you can eat a big dish in 10 minutes. .
"Saving time and effort" and "cooking cooks can also cook big meals"... Online platforms for pre-made dishes are also favored by consumers, many of which sell over 100,000 copies per month.
According to iiMedia Research, the scale of China's prefabricated vegetable industry will be 345.9 billion yuan in 2021, and it is expected that the prefabricated vegetable market will reach 1,072 billion yuan in 2026, which is the foreseeable next trillion-level market.
Behind the hot prefabricated vegetable market, the China Cuisine Association released the prefabricated food group standards in Beijing on June 2, and promptly made clear regulations on the raw materials, product standards, and production process hygiene of prefabricated dishes.
From "vegetable baskets" to "vegetable plates", while pre-made dishes have attracted attention, the existing problems have also attracted attention.
Industry insiders said that only when the pain points are cured can pre-made dishes become more and more fragrant.
Multi-party "grabbing the beach" pre-made dishes "new track"
In recent years, Chinese people's catering consumption forms and concepts have gradually diversified, and the "home economy" and "lazy economy" have become increasingly popular. Coupled with the further improvement of cold chain technology, prepared food has become a new choice for more people's diet.
According to the "2021 Analysis Report on China's Prepared Vegetables Industry" released by iiMedia Research, 80% of the surveyed users consume pre-made vegetables every week, mainly to save time.
On the other hand, the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic has also forced traditional catering companies to seek new growth points, and pre-made dishes have gradually become another dining option besides dine-in and take-out.
Taking Xibei, a traditional catering company as an example, as of the Spring Festival of 2022, its Jia Guolong Kung Fu cuisine, which focuses on pre-made dishes, does not include dine-in and takeaway, and its retail business sales will reach 300 million yuan in three years.
In addition to traditional catering companies, takeaway platforms, supermarkets, and fresh food e-commerce companies have also entered the market.
According to Huang Zhen, the head of Ele.me's pre-made dishes business, Ele.me has set up a special team to optimize the operation of sub-sectors, and cooperate with merchants to add options such as pre-made dishes and semi-finished dishes, and use the AI dish analysis system to explore and develop new products, new products, etc. Taste, as of May this year, the platform has launched more than 100 semi-finished dishes and pre-made dishes.
"Currently, there are about 200 SKUs (stock keeping units) for Hema's frozen pre-made vegetables." According to Zhang Qian, the purchasing director of Hema's 3R Commodity Center, Hema is developing pre-made vegetables suitable for cooking with various small appliances. kitchen.
According to statistics, in 2021, the sales of Hema's prepared vegetables will increase by more than 70% year-on-year.
Pre-made vegetables affect the field
Many regions are also actively deploying the prefabricated vegetable industry.
In March of this year, Guangdong Province issued the first provincial-level prefabricated food industry policy; Henan Province was led by the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs to study and formulate the "Green Food Industry Transformation and Upgrading Action Plan"; Fujian Catering and Cooking Industry Association established a prefabricated food committee...
According to the company’s data, as of now, there are 66,700 enterprises related to prefabricated vegetables in my country. Since 2017, the number of registrations has been on the rise. Companies related to prepared dishes swept the top 3.
"The central kitchen for the production of pre-made vegetables, one end is connected to the place of origin and the other end is connected to the market table, is an important carrier to promote the prosperity of the industry." According to Chen Rui'ai, a professor at South China Agricultural University, pre-prepared vegetables are the extension of the industrial chain, the promotion of the value chain, and the creation of a supply chain. effective means.
In Zhucheng, Shandong Province, the prefabricated vegetable industry has become an accelerator to promote the integrated development of primary, secondary and tertiary industries.
"From upstream raw materials and research and development, midstream processing and circulation, to downstream marketing and marketing, Zhucheng has built a complete industry chain." Xu Lanfang, secretary of the Party Group and director of Zhucheng Animal Husbandry Development Center, said that the production and processing of pre-made vegetables has become an agricultural An effective path for the conversion of old and new kinetic energy and the realization of high value-added development.
"We will focus on the prefabricated vegetable industry, use the three productions to push the first production, and rely on the interest linkage mechanism of 'industry alliance + leading enterprises + production parks + planting farmers' to promote the continuous increase of value-added income."
On the supply chain data platform of Shandong Huifa Food Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Huifa"), consumption big data from restaurants across the country is accurately analyzed, and the company produces what consumers eat.
"Using the big data of consumption to push back the planting and breeding of the agricultural end, we can realize the intensive, large-scale and customized planting and breeding of upstream agriculture, and solve the problem of agricultural product sales." Xie Peijin, deputy general manager of Huifa, said that Huifa's prefabricated vegetables 80% of the ingredients come from Zhucheng, which greatly improves the local agricultural production capacity.
At present, Zhucheng has established a pre-made vegetable industry system covering more than 400 types and more than 1,200 varieties of eight major cuisines across the country. In 2021, the operating income will be about 9 billion yuan, and the products are sold in more than 30 countries and regions and more than 120 domestic cities.
Consumers are more concerned about prepared dishes
Xu Lanfang said that the industry traditionally divides pre-made dishes into ready-to-eat, ready-to-heat, ready-to-cook and ready-to-serve foods according to the degree of processing.
According to this definition, as early as 1987, Zhucheng Foreign Trade Food Sales Company set foot in the field of prepared dishes with chicken breast meatballs (instant hot food).
However, "are steamed buns and pickles considered pre-made dishes?" Xu Lanfang believes that the traditional classification method is too broad, which is not conducive to planning and guiding the development of the industry, and consumers' definition of pre-made dishes is also vague.
According to several respondents, only cooked food preparations are pre-prepared dishes.
Consumers have little understanding of pre-made dishes, and it is naturally difficult to build brand awareness.
"We used to mainly connect with B-end catering companies, but the brand visibility and gross profit were very low." said Song Jingfeng, executive vice president of Shandong Delis Foods Co., Ltd. "It is difficult to understand consumption without directly facing the C-end. the real opinions and product needs of the users.”
According to the calculation of the China Hotel Industry Association, sample catering companies using pre-made dishes can effectively save labor costs, reduce the speed of meal delivery, and the profit margin is expected to increase by 7%. At the same time, the raw material procurement cost of restaurants can be reduced by 10%.
But compared with dine-in restaurants, are pre-made dishes slightly inferior in terms of taste and hygiene?
Many consumers have doubts.
The "Research Report on the Development Trend of China's Prepared Vegetable Industry in 2022" released by iiMedia Research shows that the main demands of C-end consumers for pre-made dishes are time-saving, healthy and cost-effective, while the degree of taste recovery of pre-made dishes is what consumers think. The biggest problem for the industry to improve.
Xie Peijin said that Chinese food is rich in flavors and exquisite in practice. In addition, it is affected by transportation time and storage temperature. It is indeed not easy to meet the needs of consumers with factory-like and standardized flavors of pre-made vegetables.
"Insufficient penetration rate is a major factor restricting the development of pre-made dishes." Xiao Lu, general manager of Hema Commodity Brand Purchasing and Marketing Center, believes that consumers need to gradually change and adapt to consumption scenarios and consumption habits, "Let consumers try first. "However, some people in the industry are worried that the lack of unified standards for a long time has led to a mixed market for pre-made vegetables. If consumers try pre-made dishes of poor quality, they will easily form a poor initial impression of this category, which will affect the people around them. Even the opinion of the industry.
Eradicating "pain points" can make pre-made dishes more "flavorful"
"Consumers are most concerned about the food safety of pre-made dishes, including the freshness of the ingredients and whether the production process is clean and hygienic," Song Jingfeng said.
According to the "Pre-made Vegetable Consumption Survey Report" released by the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Committee some time ago, over 80% of consumers encountered problems such as stale ingredients, foreign objects in the dishes, damaged packaging, and food deterioration caused by unrefrigerated food during the delivery process.
The person in charge of a prefabricated vegetable workshop told reporters that prefabricated dishes need cold chain transportation, which requires high temperature control, and some businesses add excessive preservatives to food to save costs, or transport prefabricated dishes at room temperature, resulting in poor quality of dishes. Hard to guarantee.
"The biggest problem is that there is no national standard." Xu Lanfang said.
The non-uniform standards of pre-made vegetables have resulted in frequent problems such as disorderly competition in the industry, large price differences, and inconsistency between pictures and texts. There are even price differences ranging from tens of yuan to hundreds of yuan for the same product on the e-commerce platform.
Regarding the group standard for prefabricated dishes released by the China Cuisine Association recently, some industry insiders said that the standard is not unique and mandatory, "not a national standard" and "just an industry standard", and can only play a guiding role in the industry.
"All kinds of enterprises rushed forward, leading to serious homogenization problems, and pre-made dishes were uniform and lacked innovation." Song Jingfeng said that the pre-made vegetable market is gradually becoming more standardized, but it is undeniable that the industry is still in its infancy. There are serious pain points such as serious homogenization, large talent gap and high cold chain cost.
In Zhang Qian's view, quality, taste and supply chain are the core barriers to succeed in this track. "Everyone will vote for brands with their taste buds, followed by product development, health and safety of materials, quick-freezing technology, and cold-chain transportation. management is indispensable.”
In addition, "prepared vegetable companies need compound talents with professional knowledge of food testing, cooking, nutrition, supply chain, etc. As an emerging industry, companies can only rely on self-cultivation at present, and the cost of human resources is high." Xie Peijin said .
It is understood that many places have issued relevant talent policies. At the same time, many vocational colleges are making overall plans for the cultivation of professionals in prefabricated dishes, such as Weifang Vocational College, Weifang Vocational College of Industry and Commerce, etc., laying a solid foundation for further strengthening the integration of schools, enterprises and industries. Base.
China Youth Daily, China Youth Daily reporter Wei Wan Source: China Youth Daily