Do beef balls and fish eggs count? Should we use "cooking package" instead of "freshly cooked"?
Prepared dishes need to make consumers “eat clearly”
Our reporter Zhang Nan and Wang Qipeng
"I ordered a bowl of beef balls and beef offal noodles. I thought I was eating beef balls and beef offal made on site, but when I served it, I found that they were all pre-made dishes." "I went to the restaurant because I was too lazy to cook, but I didn't expect that restaurants were too lazy to cook. …” On March 15, which just passed, the topic of prepared dishes once again attracted attention.
Some consumers reported that although many dishes are "freshly made", the ingredients are not necessarily "freshly made".
Are beef balls considered a prepared dish?
Are McDonald’s and KFC considered pre-made dishes?
The reporter's investigation found that since there is no national standard, the concept of pre-made dishes is relatively vague.
Representatives of the National People's Congress and industry insiders have proposed that there is an urgent need to unify standards for prepared dishes so that consumers can "eat clearly."
The "semi-finished" menu is not reflected
Because the use of fire is restricted, restaurants located in shopping malls often use "semi-finished products" when cooking.
The reporter found that even if many restaurants use "semi-finished products", they will not proactively inform customers or mark them on their menus.
The "Putian" restaurant located on Chang Ying Tian Street has a beautifully printed menu.
When asked by reporters, the clerk said that a small number of dishes in the store are pre-made dishes.
"The pre-prepared dishes are all made by the company's central kitchen and then delivered to each branch." Dishes that require a long stew, such as pig's trotters and Buddha jumping over the wall, will be pre-made into semi-finished products in advance. After the guests order, they only need to Just process it again.
The store clerk said that all the store staff have learned the knowledge of secondary processing of pre-prepared dishes and "we talked about it during the kitchen training."
In a restaurant called "Tai Xi Shao Beef Zao Dong", the kitchen clerk is taking fish eggs out of a green commercial bag and putting them into a pot to heat.
Soon, a bowl of beef balls and fish egg noodles was placed on the table.
"Are all fish eggs packed in bags?" the reporter asked.
"How can it be transported from such a far away place without bagging?" the clerk said. Raw materials such as fish eggs are purchased and delivered to the store by the company. "If you search, they should be sold online." According to the clerk, the reporter did search The same fish egg arrived.
The reporter learned that there are also a large number of "cooking packages" such as beef curry and fish in sour soup for sale online. By putting them in hot water or heating them in a microwave, you can make a meal relatively easily.
Restaurants make promises, but customers still doubt them
As the topic of pre-prepared dishes has been widely discussed, some restaurants have also advertised "freshly fried" and "no pre-prepared dishes" to attract customers.
At the "Beili Mama Cuisine" Xitieying Wanda store, the slogan "Say NO to pre-made dishes" is very conspicuous at the door.
The clerk said that their store's philosophy is that "good ingredients are more important than good craftsmanship" and they insist on "cooking to order" and do not use pre-made dishes.
On Dianping, many customers expressed deep praise for businesses that dare to make it clear that they do not use pre-prepared dishes. However, some customers said after experiencing one of the stores that "the dishes were all served in 5 minutes." expressed doubt.
The reporter found that without the merchant informing them, it is actually difficult for consumers to tell whether a dish is a pre-made dish simply based on its appearance.
Especially when ordering takeout, coupled with factors such as transportation bumps and changes in taste, it is more difficult for consumers to distinguish.
"I'm afraid that after spending money on 'freshly made' dishes, what I end up eating are pre-prepared dishes." Some consumers said that pre-prepared dishes cannot be "what the merchant says", but there should be a standard that is clearly written. come out.
Can you specify what pre-made dishes are?
Should businesses clearly inform consumers if they use pre-prepared dishes?
The group standard "Standardized Menu Guide for the Catering Industry" issued by the China Business Technicians Association proposes that in addition to describing the main raw materials and auxiliary materials used in the processing of dishes, menus should also be marked with information such as "prepared products" or "semi-finished products".
In order to strengthen the food safety supervision of prepared vegetables, the Haidian District Market Supervision Bureau has also issued a food safety initiative for prepared vegetables.
The initiative proposes to encourage catering service operators and take-out platforms to disclose the use information of prepared dishes, and also encourages third-party take-out platforms to disclose the names of dishes and the use of prepared dishes on their web pages.
Regarding "active publicity", there are very few responders in the industry.
During the interview, the reporter found that almost no restaurants marked their use of pre-prepared dishes on their menus, or actively informed customers.
An Shaoning, secretary-general of the Beijing Catering Industry Association, said, "The current definition of pre-prepared dishes is not standard." He said that the catering industry is facing recruitment difficulties, and in the context of the rapid development of standardized production, pre-prepared dishes have also emerged.
He believes that before focusing on menu labeling issues, we must first clarify what prepared dishes are.
According to the currently widely used group standard of "Prepared Dishes" of the China Cuisine Association, prepared dishes are defined as using one or more agricultural products as the main raw materials, using standardized assembly lines, pre-processed or pre-cooked, and pre-packaged of finished or semi-finished dishes.
According to this standard, prepared dishes are divided into ready-to-eat (such as eight-treasure porridge, ready-to-eat canned food); ready-to-heat (such as quick-frozen glutinous rice balls, self-heating hot pot); ready-to-cook (semi-finished dishes that require heating and cooking); ready-to-eat (such as no-wash and no-cut dishes). Clean vegetables) four categories.
Opinions in the industry are not unified regarding this concept.
Some people in the industry said that the concept of "prepared dishes" should not be generalized.
"If we follow this concept, do ham sausages and instant noodles count as pre-made dishes? Do McDonald's and KFC count?" Industry insiders said that what consumers are most concerned about is whether merchants use "cooking kits" instead of "freshly made".
From this perspective, the "prepared dishes" that consumers care about are not canned food, glutinous rice balls, clean vegetables, etc., but "cooking packages."
More than 190 standards but no national standard
The reporter found that the entire prepared vegetable industry currently lacks production standards, food safety standards and quality control procedures. The processing techniques of companies in different regions and sizes are uneven, resulting in large differences in the quality of prepared vegetable products.
Not only that, the current definition, product classification and food safety indicators of prepared dishes are also vague and lack unified standards.
The reporter used "prepared dishes" as the keyword and searched on the National Standard Information Public Service Platform. The system immediately retrieved 21 different standards for prepared dishes, such as "Category of prepared dishes", "Technical specifications for processing of prepared dishes", "Cold chain of prepared dishes" Delivery Specifications" etc.
The reporter also searched for "quick-frozen prepared foods" and "prepared meat food quality and safety requirements" and many other standards related to prepared dishes. However, these standards are mostly local standards or industry standards, not national standards.
At this year’s National Two Sessions, Gao Zicheng, a representative of the National People’s Congress and president of the All-China Lawyers Association, proposed that unified national standards in the field of prepared dishes should be introduced as soon as possible.
He said that there are currently 164 group standards and local standards for prepared dishes issued by local governments and industry organizations. Including some corporate standards, the total number exceeds 190.
"If there are no unified standards, the raw materials and production methods of prepared vegetables on the market will be different, and there will be some hidden food safety risks." (Beijing Daily)