Wen 丨 e-commerce online, author 丨 Yang Niwa, editor 丨 Wu Lingwei
There is still more than 1 month before the Spring Festival, which is the golden period for merchants to rush to consume "New Year goods". Chinese New Year's Eve, which was supposed to be put on the table on the day of the Spring Festival, also began to run the competition.
Players in the competition include offline supermarkets such as RT-Mart, e-commerce platforms such as Tmall Jingdong, food buying platforms such as "Elephant Chef" under Meituan Buy, and long-established restaurants such as Shanghai Meilong Town Restaurant and Lvyang Estate Restaurant. The way they cook Chinese New Year's Eve meals revolves around the keyword "prepared dishes".
Prepared dishes are nothing new. The instant noodles and quick-frozen dumplings we are familiar with are actually the 1.0 version of the pre-made dish, and with the entry of diversified players, the pre-made dish has expanded to the 2.0 version of Buddha jumping the wall, pot rice, and even Chinese New Year's Eve rice.
Various platforms and restaurants, beginning to be keen on the Chinese New Year's Eve rice that is ready to eat, seems to have become a profile of the pre-made vegetable market in the past two years: the pre-made dishes that were originally mainly circulated in the to B channel began to move towards the stage of to C, where various sects exerted their fists and feet, renovated tastes and more catered to the operation mode of young people, and began to make the pre-made dishes, which are not fresh, have some fresh "taste".
The pre-made version of the Chinese New Year's Eve rice, just in the context of the epidemic "local New Year", meets the dual needs of young people for the Spring Festival ceremony and "lazy to move".
Does the pre-made dish that appears on the Chinese New Year's Eve table represent the maturity of the consumer side? In fact, for any participant, the track of pre-made dishes has only just begun.
01, when the Chinese New Year's Eve rice meets the prepared dish
Booking Chinese New Year's Eve meal is not an overstatement. The older generation who are good at handling a large table of dishes for the whole family is "retiring" from the kitchen, and the younger generation is difficult to be competent for such a big battle, in order to preserve the sense of Spring Festival ceremony such as Chinese New Year's Eve meal, booking a table of Chinese New Year's Eve meals outside is becoming the mainstream.
The epidemic in the past 2 years, while disrupting the rhythm of offline Chinese New Year's Eve rice, has spawned a market for prefabricated dishes, and the two have collided, and naturally there are pre-made dishes Chinese New Year's Eve rice become popular. "Finished Chinese New Year's Eve rice" has become the first choice of many young people in different places for "local New Year", and netizens said that they should also eat a sense of ceremony in the New Year.
In fact, under the trend of "local New Year" last year, the "finished Chinese New Year's Eve meal" began to show great growth. Ele.me data shows that from the 28th to the Chinese New Year's Eve of the lunar calendar last year, the takeaway of semi-finished Chinese New Year's Eve rice increased by 4 times year-on-year, the takeaway of Chinese New Year's Eve lunch gift box increased by 2 times year-on-year, and nearly 200 merchant brands and more than 5,000 offline stores participated in it, an increase of 164% and 260% respectively year-on-year.
This year, the "beach grabbing" action for the pre-made version of the Chinese New Year's Eve meal seems to be more obvious.
RT-Mart, which launched the Chinese New Year's Eve meal package in its third year, began researching and developing New Year's dish products in March this year.
RT-Mart Chinese New Year's Eve rice business Xiao Er mentioned in an interview with the "seller" that the main target group of prefabricated Chinese New Year's Eve dishes is to stay in different places to "celebrate the New Year in place" young families, this year's "one-person food" consumption trend has expanded significantly, so in terms of product design, some of the products of the New Year dish have also adjusted the specifications, such as "Buddha Jumping Wall" small package, five more Smooth And Wang independent bowl packaging, are convenient 1-2 people to eat.
Judging from the sales feedback, the popularity of small packaged products is obviously higher, of which the current sales volume of "Buddha Jumping Wall" small packages accounts for more than 20% of the overall sales.
"It is expected that January will enter the peak period of annual vegetable sales, and the total sales volume of annual dishes this year is expected to increase by 50% compared with last year." The above business small two said.
Xu Bingzi, Ademean R&D engineer, said that from the sales situation in previous years, pepper pork belly chicken soup, eight treasure duck, mutton cake are quite popular, and these dishes have also become "reserved songs" to be included in this year's New Year menu. In addition, this year, we also specially developed "pork trotters stuffed with peanut wine with too soft heart", "sour and spicy lychee grilled fish", "Buddha jumping wall with abalone sea cucumber" and so on.
(Food bloggers have already started to evaluate Chinese New Year's Eve meals)
Judging from the taste and name of the new dishes, it is also to create a "traffic explosion" that caters to the interests of young people.
In addition to RT-Mart, many offline restaurants this year are also focusing on pre-made dishes Chinese New Year's Eve meal sets, such as Meilong Town Restaurant has launched 6 Chinese New Year's Eve rice sets, including classic dishes such as wine-flavored yellow croaker, Buddha jumping off the wall, abalone sauce and roasted sea cucumber, with prices ranging from 298 to 1888 yuan. According to the price of the package + private room fee in the Meilong Town store, the average person is 280 yuan, and the pre-made dish version of the Chinese New Year's Eve rice reduces the price threshold to some extent, which is a more cost-effective choice.
The e-commerce platform has also become another position for Chinese New Year's Eve meals, and there will be various merchants in Tmall search Chinese New Year's Eve, most of which are offline long-established catering brands, including new players such as MaiZi Ma and Eclipse. Online, the concept of Chinese New Year's Eve rice is also extended beyond the traditional set menu to items such as Buddha Jumping Wall and Koshiki Cake.
02, the five points of the pre-made dish
Prepared dishes are nothing new. The instant noodles and quick-frozen dumplings we are familiar with are the 1.0 version of the pre-made dish, and "speed" is their biggest selling point, which is simply heated and can be served on the table in 5 minutes.
But today's pre-made dish 2.0 version, under the impetus of all parties, there are several changes: 1, there is innovation in the category, in addition to steamed dumplings, there are innovative pizza dumplings, square buns, taro balls, rice burgers, pot rice, etc.; 2, there is a more accurate insight into the packaging; 3, there is a more refined population division and scene operation, such as low-fat packages, Chinese New Year's Eve rice, etc. These upgraded pre-made dishes are not "fast" and heat up for a longer time, but they are about being able to replicate several "great-looking" dishes without much effort.
The variety of "semi-finished Chinese New Year's Eve rice" is a scene in the pre-made wet market.
Prefabricated dishes, like masks, are areas of achievement by the pandemic. In April this year, the first flavor of prefabricated dishes was listed, ushering in 10 up-and-down boards, Wangjiadu food, three meals with ingredients, taste lions and other prefabricated vegetable enterprises have successively obtained financing, the amount is basically more than 10 million yuan, more than nearly 100 million yuan, Si Nian, Xibei have opened special offline stores around prefabricated dishes, and Xibei's "Jia Guolong Kung Fu Cuisine" has opened more than 200 stores.
Just in the past Double 11, pre-made dishes have also become the "hot models" of major e-commerce platforms. Tmall data shows that during this year's Double 11 period, the turnover of prepared dishes increased by about 2 times year-on-year.
Prepared dishes have become the next "trillion market" in the mouth of public opinion. An industry insider analyzed the "sellers" and said that the current prefabricated vegetable players are divided into 5 factions, which have their own advantages:
Quick-frozen pie: a traditional quick-frozen food brand represented by Sanquan and Miss, which has the advantage of production and processing;
Hotel pie: Haidilao, Jia Guolong kung fu dishes, Weizhixiang, etc., based on offline traditional catering brands and channels;
Retail pie: Hema, Dingdong grocery shopping and Sam are all doing self-operated goods based on retail channels, and Aunt Qian also rushed to launch pre-made dishes before the Spring Festival;
Raw material pie: Guolian, Xingxing, Chia Tai and other traditional companies engaged in fish and shrimp farming, they are in the upstream position in the entire chain, and are currently looking for industrial upgrading directions through prefabricated dishes;
New Pioneers: Pre-Pioneer, Zhenwei Xiaomeiyuan, Rice Hu, born online, although there is no factory, but they have the ability to integrate and operate.
Before the birth of the new pie, pre-made dishes were more positioned in the to B channel. In order to ensure that the taste and taste of dishes are consistent, national chain restaurants generally produce semi-finished products through factories or central kitchens, and then transport them to stores around the world to continue processing.
The essence of pre-made dishes is an intermediate format between food and catering, and the difference behind the two lies in the distance from consumers. The first to promote the shift of business ideas from toB to toC is a group of new brands that understand consumer needs and are better at operation.
"From the perspective of online performance, the prefabricated dish market is mainly driven by operational businesses", Yanjin pointed out that the organizational structure of traditional prefabricated vegetable merchants is too heavy, the proportion of online transactions is small, the production cycle is difficult to adjust, most of them will first support their own to B large customers, and will not consider making great efforts to do online.
Tmall Food Fresh Xiao Er Yanjin gave an example. Almost 90% of the world's eels are farmed and exported by China, and under the influence of the epidemic, eels have begun to be exported to domestic sales. The original raw material price was 9-11 million / ton, when as low as 40,000 / ton, some good at operation of the business, seize this window period, the once hundreds of grams of large package of eel cut, made into a portion of one person's food, but also with egg rolls, seaweed, sesame and other ingredients, made into semi-finished eel rice.
03, it seems to be hot, but in fact, it is just starting out
The popularity of prepared dishes naturally comes from the continuous maturity of the supply chain system. This is the underlying logic of almost every industry in the constant breaking of the circle. However, research and development and categories are easy to imitate, and the degree of industrialization at the production end is not high, so the core of competition differentiation is reflected in channel efficiency.
Prefabricated dishes have also ushered in channel dividends in C-end retail, and fresh e-commerce, community group buying, and new hot pot supermarkets are good landing scenes for prefabricated dishes. The data shows that the sales of Kuaishou dishes on the Hema fresh line have accounted for more than 60%, and many of them have hema own brand products, including Douyin, Kuaishou, Dingdong shopping, etc., which are building online scenes of pre-made dishes.
In fact, it seems that the sound of prefabricated dishes is still in its infancy, unlike other new consumption tracks, a vertical demand corresponds to a category and a new brand, in the market of prefabricated dishes, consumer cognition is still in the cultivation period.
Yan Jin mentioned to the "sellers" that pre-made vegetable merchants such as rice cookers and rare plum gardens that make snacks are all admirable, and they are both doing category education and doing their own brands.
For category education, Yanjin gave an example. The merchants who took the lead in making one-person eel packaging last year seized the market price dividend period, but did not create a larger market. In addition to the constraints of the supply chain such as the limited production of eels, the merchants have not done a good job of extracting what the selling point of eels is. In contrast, Japan's annual 7.19-7.21 eel festival highlights that eels are seasonal and nutritious foods, which is a good category education.
Pre-made cuisine is a business of "replacing the restaurant chef" at home, there are many hard dishes in Several major cuisines in China, and the food track is also quite broad, and each type of subdivision has the opportunity to eat prepared dishes in the future.
However, C-end prefabricated dishes are still early in consumer education, marketing investment demand is high, and due to the short shelf life of prefabricated dishes, it is more difficult to manage the actual pricing system. In Yanjin's view, even so, prefabricated vegetable merchants must not fall into the cycle of "price war" at this stage, and ensuring profits is the basis for the stable development of the industry.