Epidemic boosts online and offline sales of hot food safety, causing widespread concern

  Prefabricated dishes urgently need to introduce industry norms

  Our reporter Ma Jing Yang Tianyue

  Since the outbreak of the epidemic, staying at home has become the norm.

For kitchen "whites" and busy office workers, the time-saving and labor-saving pre-made dishes solve many "pain points" of eating at home. Simply make the ingredients and seasoning prepared by the merchant, and you can eat the same food in the restaurant. Chef's dish.

But behind the "everyone can be a chef", the food safety of pre-made dishes has also attracted widespread attention.

With the rapid expansion of the market, the standardization and standardization of production and transportation are imminent.

  Pre-made dishes become a new frontier for merchants to compete

  Since Beijing restaurants suspended dine-in, online and offline sales of pre-made dishes have been hot.

In a pre-made vegetable store in Daxing District, the store manager enthusiastically promotes the dishes in the store to customers.

"Our platform has just started this year, specializing in pre-made dishes." According to the store manager, she just joined the platform to open this small store last month. Unlike the previous restaurants, now only one person needs to take care of the store, and customers can When you go to the store to buy, you can also place an order through the APP, and it will be delivered to your door within half an hour.

  The reporter noticed that there was a menu on the cashier counter, with more than 100 dishes densely printed, including fish-flavored shredded pork, braised fat sausage, spicy bamboo shoots and mushrooms and roasted chicken nuggets.

There is also a QR code on the package of the pre-made dish, and you can watch the recipe of the corresponding dish after scanning the code.

  In addition to stores specializing in pre-made dishes, chain restaurant companies are also expanding.

Open the applet of Xibei Mall, in addition to the same classic dishes of the store, such as noodle fish and fish, grassland sheep scorpion, Mongolian beef big bone, etc., there are also famous dishes from various places such as Xinjiang pepper chicken, Thai curry beef brisket, Fujian sand tea beef balls and so on. .

The relevant person in charge of Xibei revealed that the sales of pre-made vegetables have been rising recently.

  On major e-commerce platforms, pre-made dishes have also become a new frontier to attract users.

Dingdong Maicai has launched 18 new pre-made dishes for the Beijing area. Data from the platform shows that since April 25, the sales of pre-made vegetables in Beijing has increased by more than 50% month-on-month.

  Commodity packaging and cold chain logistics problems occur frequently

  In fact, while consumers enjoy convenience, they are also concerned about the food safety of prepared dishes.

  Cold chain transportation is particularly important for pre-made dishes, but when citizen Chen Qing recently received pre-made dishes purchased online, she found that many frozen ingredients were already in a semi-thawed state.

"I thought about buying a few more packs and putting them in the refrigerator to eat slowly, but now it seems that it is best to buy as you eat, otherwise the product will have to be repeatedly frozen and thawed, which will affect the taste." Chen Qing is also worried that once the food is in transit Thaw, there is a risk of bacterial growth.

When Ms. Tu, a citizen, received a Hunan specialty pre-made dish from the merchant, she found that not only did the merchant not use cold chain transportation, but also two packages were damaged, and a box of seasonings was spilled.

  In the Tmall flagship store of Xibei Youmian Village, the pre-made dish with the highest sales volume is a "prairie sheep scorpion".

The reporter noticed that most consumers in the comment area praised the taste and taste of pre-made dishes that are comparable to those of dine-in food, but recently there have also been "leakage at home", "damaged packaging", "all-in-one, I don't know if the inside is broken or not", etc. Comments appear.

  A consumer rights protection agency conducted an investigation on the consumption of pre-made vegetables this year and found that the current pre-made vegetables market has unsatisfactory food quality, food taste needs to be improved, food labeling is not detailed, food types are single, and there are many problems in logistics, distribution and delivery. question.

According to the survey, over 80% of consumers encountered various problems during the delivery process, such as damaged packaging, deterioration of food due to unrefrigerated storage, etc.

  Establish standards and norms to promote the healthy development of the industry

  Many restaurants use bright kitchens and bright stoves to protect consumers' right to know the food production process. However, it is difficult to intuitively see pre-made dishes from processing and production to logistics and transportation, and how to supervise them is still a difficult problem.

  Luo Yunbo, a professor at the School of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering at China Agricultural University, believes that as an emerging industry, prefabricated vegetables urgently need to introduce group standards, industry standards and national standards to regulate the business behavior of enterprises. Enterprises can also formulate their own standards and accept social supervision.

  In April this year, the first national non-profit self-regulatory organization for the prefabricated vegetable industry, the China Prefabricated Vegetable Industry Alliance, was established in Beijing.

The alliance stated that it will promote the healthy, orderly and sustainable development of the industry by establishing standards, establishing norms, establishing guidelines, and providing services.

  The reporter noticed that some places have begun to standardize the prefabricated vegetable industry.

Recently, more than 20 domestic units have jointly drafted the first national group standard of "Quality Evaluation Specifications for Prefabricated Vegetables", which clarifies that the storage temperature of frozen prefabricated dishes should be lower than -18°C, and the storage temperature of refrigerated prefabricated dishes should be 0°C to 4°C.

The standard also stipulates that the prefabricated vegetable industry should indicate the name of the dish, the production and processing date, the net content of the main ingredient and other production and processing information, as well as the consumption method, storage method, shelf life, etc., in a prominent position on the label.

  The industrialization of Chinese food has provided people with convenience in life, but some people in the industry believe that the market should not pursue pre-made dishes too much, and the personalized production skills and Chinese food culture of Chinese food also need more people to inherit and carry forward.