Produced | Sanyan Finance by | DoraEmon
Recently, more and more prepared dishes have appeared in the media, financing events have begun to increase, and the data of Baidu Index and WeChat Index in the past 30 days has shown a "surge".
Prepared dishes seem to have become a new outlet. Last year's community group buying outlet was basically extinguished, and it was too early for the meta-universe to pour more and more capital and giants into the prefabricated dish?
What is a prepared dish?
In fact, prefabricated dishes do not contain a profound and complex concept, it is the use of industrialized standardized assembly line operations, the raw materials of the dishes pre-processed, after sealing the packaging into the market. After the consumer purchases, it can be eaten directly at home through simple heating, steaming, etc.
Just like instant noodles, you can eat them after buying them home and soaking them in boiling water. It's just that the prepared dishes are richer and taste better than instant noodles.
At present, the varieties of prepared dishes sold on the e-commerce platform can be described as various, including Sichuan and Cantonese dishes, as well as various soup points; including plum meat, fish fragrant meat shreds, Buddha jumping wall, seafood, chicken soup and so on.
In terms of price, some merchants sell single-product prepared dishes, with prices ranging from more than 20 yuan to 50 yuan; some merchants sell them in packages, and consumers can buy seven or eight dishes at a time, and the price ranges from more than 200 yuan to 500 yuan.
Why are prepared dishes on fire? The impact of the pandemic and changes in people's lifestyles
Although there are similarities in nature with instant noodle food, although instant noodles are "convenient", they cannot replace the meal; and the pre-made dishes are both "convenient" and "meals", which allows consumers to save the time cost of cooking to eat delicious food, so the market potential of pre-made dishes far exceeds that of instant noodle foods.
Of course, this alone is not enough to support the logic of the popularity of prefabricated dishes, and there are two main aspects that can become a new "outlet":
1. Epidemic situation
2. Changes in people's lifestyles
The first is the serious impact of the epidemic on the catering industry. Since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic in 2020, the offline catering industry has been in the first echelon of the most affected. Since then, although the domestic epidemic has been effectively controlled, sporadic epidemics in local areas have also plagued the catering industry.
Consumers are worried about health and safety issues and reduce the number of offline meals. Then, in this context, pre-made dishes naturally become the second choice of consumers.
And it is close to the Spring Festival, limited by the initiative of the local New Year, many people can not go home to reunite with their relatives. Chinese New Year's Eve meals in the New Year has become a big problem that needs to be solved, so buying pre-made dishes to make Chinese New Year's Eve rice has become the first choice for many people in situ for the New Year.
Secondly, many young people who are working hard are usually busy at work, and they rarely have time to buy their own vegetables and cook or cannot cook. Then, the prepared dish has become the most suitable choice for this group of young people, and it is only necessary to simply heat it up after work. Say goodbye to the life of "going to the restaurant" every day or eating instant noodles every day.
On the other hand, for some people who cook at home all year round and feel that the early processing of ingredients is very time-consuming and laborious, it is also friendlier, and this group of consumers also favors pre-made dishes.
How hot are the pre-made wet markets right now? The market size of more than 300 billion prefabricated vegetable concept stocks rose sharply
According to iResearch data, the size of China's prepared vegetable market will be 345.9 billion yuan in 2021, and then it will increase year by year with a growth rate of about 20%, and it is expected that the size of China's prepared vegetable market will reach 516.5 billion yuan in 2023.
In April 2021, Weizhixiang landed on the capital market and became the "first stock of prefabricated dishes". As soon as the company was listed, there were 10 up and down boards, and the highest market value was close to 14 billion yuan. According to the company's financial report for the third quarter of 2021, the company's revenue in the first three quarters was 570 million yuan, an increase of 24% year-on-year; net profit was 102 million yuan, an increase of 9.02% year-on-year.
According to the data of Flush, there are currently 42 A-share "prefabricated vegetable concept stocks" with a total market value of 947.735 billion. From January 12 to January 14, pre-made concept stocks surged nearly 15%, and have risen 17% this year.
Among these pre-made concept stocks, there are many companies that are familiar to the public. For example, Zhangzidao has developed many pre-made dishes around seafood; Delis has developed beef series and quick-frozen rice noodle series of pre-made dishes; Shuanghui has launched prefabricated products such as self-heating rice, balls, and crispy meat; BBK has launched sushi rice balls, box lunches, brine dishes and other prepared dishes.
In addition, there are well-known listed companies such as Arowana, Yonghui Supermarket, Jinzi Ham, and Sanquan that are making pre-made dishes.
Listed companies in the sector, the stocks have recently appeared in the continuous rise and fall. For example, Delis has 5 times in 5 days and led the rise 4 times; the League of Nations Aquatic Products has risen 2 times; Zhangzidao has risen twice in 3 days.
Capital is pouring into hillhouse, Baidu, IDG and other leading institutions
According to media reports, during the "Double 11" period in 2021, pre-made dishes have become one of the sales explosions of various e-commerce platforms, and the turnover has increased by nearly 2 times year-on-year. At present, there are 72,000 prefabricated vegetable enterprises in the country. According to data from the China Chain Store & Franchise Association, more than 90% of catering enterprises are engaged in takeaway food, of which 91.6% sell semi-finished products and pre-packaged food.
At present, there has been a large amount of capital pouring into the field of prepared dishes, such as health and welfare, sequoia, Hillhouse and other head coffee.
Asia Fishing Port, a well-known seafood deep processing enterprise, has been involved in the field of marine prepared vegetables, has received investment from Welfare Capital, Meituan and New Hope, and is currently seeking to be listed;
The initial shareholders of Shuhai Supply Chain, a catering ingredient B2B company under Haidilao, include Yunfeng Fund and Yonghui, and in March 2020, they ushered in Hillhouse Capital Investment. In April 2021, Shuhai Supply Chain signed an agreement with BBK to reach cooperation in the scene of clean vegetables and prefabricated vegetable factories.
In December 2020, Yonghui's food supply platform Cai Shi Xian received a round of investment of 1 billion yuan, led by CICC Capital's fund and Tencent, and followed by Jinglin Investment, China Merchants Bank and Minsheng Equity Investment Fund;
On January 17, 2022, the Chinese food pre-made cuisine chain brand "Silver Food" received millions of yuan of angel round financing, and the investor was Jianfeng K2VC;
On January 18, 2022, the new Chinese-style prefabricated dish brand "Zhenwei Xiaomeiyuan" completed tens of millions of yuan of B+ round financing, led by Baidu Venture Capital, followed by Dingxiang Capital and Zero One Venture Capital; in October 2021, the brand has completed tens of millions of yuan of B round financing, with a total of more than 100 million yuan in two rounds of financing.
In addition, there are many brands in the field of prefabricated dishes that have been favored by capital, and recently, companies such as Taste Lion and Pot Circle Food Hui have frequently raised funds, and the amount of financing has reached tens of millions, behind which are well-known investment institutions such as IDG Capital and Source Code Capital.
Although prefabricated dishes are currently sought after by the capital market, they have to ignore that they still have certain risks.
The market lacks relevant standards and heavy asset models, and it is easy to enter the bank and become stronger
Although the prefabricated vegetable market is hot and the entry threshold is relatively low, the overall pattern of the industry is scattered, mainly small and medium-sized enterprises and processors. There have not yet been large single products and leading enterprises with a certain scale. The new brands only have the ability to do one or two series of products, and it is difficult to cover the whole series and all channels.
Many companies are either in their infancy or focus on a certain category of prepared dishes. For example, Zhangzidao is mainly based on seafood and fresh food; the prefabricated cuisine business of the subsidiary of Jinling Hotel is still in its infancy; Tongqinglou is also a subsidiary involved in the prefabricated cuisine business, which is in its infancy.
In addition, prefabricated dishes are actually an asset-heavy model, which requires high upfront investment of enterprises. For small companies, if you want to become bigger and stronger, if you find a foundry in the "OEM" model, you may not be able to go very far.
Sanyan Finance looked at the evaluation of various prepared dishes sold on the e-commerce platform and found that there were basically good reviews and uneven bad reviews. Some consumers expressed their satisfaction, especially in the epidemic control area, during the quarantine period, the pre-made dishes solved the problem of eating; some consumers commented that the taste was good and they were ready to eat the prepared dishes as Chinese New Year's Eve rice.
Of course, there are also many consumers who think that pre-made dishes are not delicious and "cut corners". According to the photos posted by the consumer, most of the meat dishes he bought were fatty and less lean; some consumers badly commented that the taste was not good, and the amount was not much.
Another factor hindering the development of prepared dishes includes the current lack of relevant standards. Although there are standards for the materials involved in the preparation of dishes, such as oil, salt, and various ingredient requirements, there is a lack of overall standards.
Therefore, some pre-made dishes have no problem with ingredients, but the amount is small or "all fat, scraps" has caused consumers to accept pre-made dishes to decline.
Therefore, the prepared vegetable market needs more leading enterprises to participate in meeting consumers with higher quality and safer food; it also needs strong regulatory measures and relevant standards to constrain the industry and promote the more stable expansion of the market for prepared vegetables.
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