Recently, due to the repeated inconvenience of people going out to shop due to the new crown epidemic, a plate of "prepared dishes" has heated up the capital market, and the stock prices of related concept stocks have soared, and some individual stocks have even attracted the attention of regulators. On January 18 and 19, most concept stocks began to pull back.
The Securities Times E Company reporter's investigation found that prefabricated dishes are not new things, and are essentially the collective name for canned food, cooked food, frozen and frozen food that has existed for many years, and refrigerated fast food that has emerged in recent years. Although the industry frozen and refrigerated products market has grown rapidly in recent years, the entire prefabricated vegetable market is still in the cultivation period, and the industry threshold is low, the enterprises are many and mixed, the competition is very fierce, and the gross profit margin of the subdivision head enterprises is not high, generally below 30%. In addition, industry insiders generally believe that the current and future prepared dishes will mainly be oriented to the B-end enterprise market, and it is difficult to become a normal necessity for C-end consumers.
Guohai Securities Research Report pointed out that the current market stock of prepared vegetables is about 300 billion yuan, accounting for less than 10% of the total proportion of ingredients. If it is estimated according to the compound growth rate of 20% per year, in the next 6-7 years, China's prepared vegetable market can grow into a trillion yuan market. If you refer to the Japanese market with a similar Structure to the Chinese diet, the proportion of prefabricated dishes reaches more than 60%, then the scale of the mainland prefabricated vegetable market can reach more than 3 trillion yuan in the mature period, and there is a huge room for development.
Prepared dishes are not new
After the New Year's Day holiday in 2022, on January 4, the three major A-share indexes fell together, the prefabricated vegetable concept stocks rose sharply against the trend, the Guolian Aquatic Products rose by 20%, and the stocks such as Great Lakes Shares, Huifa Food, Chunxue Food, Tongqinglou, and New Hope rose in tandem. Since then, the concept sector of prepared dishes has continued to maintain its strength, and as of the close of trading on January 17, the share price of Guolian Aquatic Products has risen by 116% during the year, and the shares of Fucheng Shares, Haixin Food and Delis have risen by nearly 50%. During the period, many shares continued to issue stock price change announcements to warn of risks, and on January 17, Guolian Aquatic Products received a letter of concern from the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. On January 18 and 19, the prefabricated vegetable sector as a whole pulled back, and some individual stocks were still strong.
"In fact, pre-made dishes have existed for a long time, and many companies have been carrying out related business, such as the sheep scorpion hot pot of Xibei noodles, the quick-frozen dish products of New Hope Liuhe, etc. As early as 2014, Anhui light stinky mandarin fish can sell more than 400 million yuan a year." Yuan Chao, deputy director of the Food Industry Productivity Promotion Center, said in an interview with the Securities Times E Company reporter.
Yuan Chao introduced that pre-made dishes developed from cooked food, but the cooked food at that time was mainly meat products. With the gradual upgrading of market demand, the variety of dishes is becoming more and more abundant, and there are gradually dishes with meat and vegetarian combinations such as kung pao chicken, plum button meat, and shredded fish and meat. From the perspective of preservation methods, it is mainly divided into three kinds of prefabricated dishes: room temperature preservation, cryopreservation, and refrigerated preservation, of which many room temperature products use soft canning technology, and the shelf life is usually more than one year; the shelf life of frozen products is generally more than half a year, and some products are prefabricated to seven or eight mature in advance; refrigerated meals generally have a shelf life of no more than 7 days.
"At present, there is no unified standard for prepared dishes in the industry, and different products are scattered and classified into cooked meat foods, convenience foods or primary agricultural products for management, and prepared dishes are equivalent to the collective name of such finished or semi-finished dishes." Yuan Chao said that in recent years, due to the continuous development of domestic cold chain technology, changes in consumer behavior habits and other factors, frozen prefabricated dishes have developed rapidly, and the current market is also dominated by frozen dishes, and its taste resilience has certain advantages compared with room temperature, and consumer acceptance is also high. In addition, refrigerated pre-made dishes have also grown rapidly, fujian, Guangdong and other regions called kuaishou dishes, but they have not yet been widely popularized.
According to Euromonitor consulting data, in 2007, China's prefabricated vegetable consumption was only 1.0113 million tons, and by 2021, China's prefabricated consumption reached 1.7472 million tons, approaching the consumption of Japanese prefabricated dishes by 2.1186 million tons, accounting for 10.34% of the world's prefabricated vegetable consumption from 7.92% in 2007 to 10.34% in 2021.
"It is undeniable that pre-made dishes will be a trend in the industrialization of Chinese food, although pre-made dishes have now begun to become a new term, but they have been around for a long time, and in a nutshell, they are actually a standardized pre-provisioned raw material for the industrialization of catering." Huang Yue, associate professor of the College of Food science of China Agricultural University, said in an interview with reporters that Western countries have long achieved a high degree of preparation and processing delivery industrialization, with the rapid development of China's social economy, catering and takeaway market continues to expand, the traditional dishes of slow simmering and fine carving often can not meet the requirements of consumers for waiting time, so the standardized production of semi-finished products or primary processing raw materials to meet the needs of catering enterprises, the future market for prepared dishes is very large, For the fast consumption of the catering industry is a very clear development direction.
Huang Yue believes that the development of prefabricated dishes will be affected by industrialization, intelligence, hygiene, traceability, intensification and other non-recognition factors, while meeting the safety access permit, in the shortest time to manufacture the largest scale of taste and taste of products is the most perfect template for the development of prefabricated dishes.
It is difficult to become a normal necessity for families
The development model and future development direction of prepared dishes have also attracted much attention. Industry insiders generally believe that at present, the B-end market has a large space for development.
Yuan Chao told reporters that from the perspective of production and marketing model, the current prefabricated dishes are mainly for B-end enterprise-level customers and C-end consumers, mostly B-end catering enterprises, canteens, takeaway systems, etc., because prefabricated dishes can reduce the cost of catering enterprises, reduce labor, rent expenditure, and improve production efficiency, which will have a subversive impact on the business model and production mode of catering enterprises. In the short term in the future, the C-end market may maintain a relatively stable market share, but with the development of the young generation of home and lazy economy, the development of the C-end market can also be expected.
Guohai Securities Research Report shows that at present, the largest downstream demand in the prefabricated vegetable industry comes from the catering industry, accounting for 80%. Snack fast food restaurants, chain stores, restaurants that specialize in takeaway, village kitchens, group meal canteens, etc. are the main scenarios for the application of pre-made dishes.
Zhou Yunnan, founder of Beijing Nanshan Investment, also said in an interview with the Securities Times e Company reporter that the main market for prefabricated dishes in the future is still at the B-end, and many chain catering enterprises currently implement the prefabricated dish operation mode, and the B-end market has a lot of room for development; as for C-end customers, they will pay more attention to the freshness of ingredients, food safety and taste characteristics, so when returning to their own tables, the probability of purchasing prefabricated dishes is low, and only in special circumstances will there be a demand for prefabricated dishes when pursuing the speed of finished dishes and the diversity of dishes.
At nearly 8 o'clock in the evening of January 18, the reporter found in a large supermarket in Futian District, Shenzhen City, that its refrigerated Kuaishou vegetable shelves were still full of goods, and many of them were temporary products (close to the last day of shelf life). In addition, other quick-frozen product areas are still full of goods and sparsely populated, indicating that the market demand for prefabricated dishes in the C-end is not particularly strong.
However, Bai Wenxi, chief economist of IPG China, told reporters that the future development direction of the prefabricated vegetable market should be equally important at the C-end and the B-end, while different channels have great differences in batch, variety, personalization and diversity of products and consumption scenarios, and product publicity.
"At present, large-scale prefabricated vegetable production is more extensive with the B-end, but it is not excluded that it will gradually face the C-end consumer market in the future." Huang Yue said.
According to the data, during the "Online New Year Festival" sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce last year, the sales of Chinese New Year's Eve rice products increased by 96% year-on-year, of which semi-finished products, that is, prepared vegetable products, increased by more than 380%. According to the statistics of Jingdong fresh data, the overall sales amount of prefabricated vegetables in January this year has exceeded 10 million, an increase of about 94% year-on-year, and the sales of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou account for nearly 50%.
Yuan Shuai, deputy secretary-general of the Rural Revitalization and Construction Commission, said in an interview with the Securities Times E Company that although the prefabricated vegetable market has developed rapidly, the industry still faces some pain points restricting the development of the industry, such as product taste, supply chain and large-scale and standardized production. Among them, in terms of logistics, prefabricated semi-finished vegetable products rely on cold chain transportation, and logistics costs and product freshness requirements limit the distribution radius of a single enterprise product. At present, semi-finished vegetable enterprises can usually only cover a certain area, and there has not yet been a national semi-finished vegetable leading enterprise. In addition, due to the large differences in eating habits in different parts of the mainland, most prepared vegetable products are difficult to sell in other regions.
Chain industry expert, and Hong Consulting general manager Wen Zhihong told reporters that the development of prefabricated dishes is still facing some bottlenecks, from the demand side, the market is still in the cultivation period, especially the C-end market, many consumers do not know enough about prefabricated dishes, and there are still concerns about the quality of prefabricated dishes. In addition, compared with China's rich traditional cuisine, there is still a big gap in the pyrotechnics of pre-made dishes.
Industry competition is fierce and the gross profit margin is low
The fast-growing market and huge market prospects have attracted many players to enter. Guohai Securities Research Report pointed out that there are currently about 20,000 upstream prefabricated vegetable enterprises. According to oriental wealth choice data, there are currently 29 companies in the A-share prefabricated cuisine concept sector, including A-share food, hotels, chain supermarkets and other related enterprises, such as Quanjude, Shuangta Food, Shuanghui Development, Tongqinglou, Yonghui Supermarket, etc.
At present, A-share enterprises mainly engaged in pre-made dishes include Michika, Yasui Food, Qianwei Central Kitchen, Gaishi Food, Sanquan Food, Yike Food, etc.
Among them, Weizhixiang began to make pre-made dishes in 2008, mainly engaged in the development, production and sales of more than 200 kinds of semi-finished dishes in three categories: meat and poultry, aquatic products and other categories. In April 2021, the company landed on A shares with the halo of "the first share of prefabricated dishes" above its head, and the current market value of the company is 8.638 billion yuan.
In 2016, the revenue and net profit of Weizhixiang were 291 million yuan and 41 million yuan, respectively. In 2020, the company's revenue and net profit were 622 million yuan and 125 million yuan, respectively. In the first three quarters of 2021, Weizhixiang achieved revenue of 570 million yuan and net profit of 103 million yuan. In 2020, the gross profit margin of Weizhixiang was 29.46%, and its gross profit margin in 2021 was 25.9%.
Wei Zhixiang said in the prospectus that there are many participants in the semi-finished vegetable market in the mainland, the competition is fierce, the entry threshold is relatively low, and the production enterprises only need to have the basic processing equipment and necessary upfront investment of semi-finished vegetables to participate in the semi-finished vegetable market. With the intensification of market competition, the company's gross profit margin is at risk of declining.
The low gross profit margin of the industry is a common phenomenon, and Great Lakes co., Ltd. currently has three core series of pre-made dishes of fresh series, chilled series and frozen fresh series, including bighead carp, big lake organic turtle and Yangcheng Lake hairy crab. In the first half of 2021, the operating income of the company's aquatic products segment was 332 million yuan, accounting for 56.50% of the total revenue, an increase of 39.61% year-on-year, but the gross profit margin of the aquatic products part was only 16.56%.
Qianwei Central Kitchen, as the "first share of the quick-frozen supply chain" focusing on quick-frozen rice noodle fast food, landed on A shares in September 2021, and the company's main business is the research and development, production and sales of quick-frozen noodle rice products for catering enterprises, and the company's revenue in the first three quarters of 2021 was 889 million yuan, net profit was 56.59 million yuan, and the gross profit margin was 21.84%.
On January 18, 2022, the leading poultry food Yike Food successfully landed on the GEM, and the company mainly engaged in poultry slaughtering, feed, breeding poultry, as well as the production and sales of cooked food and conditioning products. In 2019, the gross profit margin of Yike Food Duck Products was only 2.55%, down from 3.78% in 2018. In 2020, the gross profit margin of Yike Food Duck Products fell to 1.83% again. From January to June 2021, the gross profit margin of Yike Food Duck Products gradually recovered to 3.47%, still lower than the level in 2018.
In addition, Anjing Food is mainly engaged in the research and development, production and sales of quick-frozen hot pot material products, quick-frozen noodle rice products, quick-frozen dish products and other quick-frozen foods, and the company's gross profit margin in the first three quarters of 2021 was 21.83%. In addition, Gaishi Food is mainly a cold vegetable prefabricated vegetable production enterprise, and Sanquan Food is the largest frozen food production enterprise in the country, the former gross profit margin in the first three quarters of last year was 20.67%, and the latter gross profit margin was 26.12%.
In addition to the above-mentioned prefabricated vegetable enterprises, some other A-share enterprises have also been involved in the prefabricated vegetable business. On the evening of January 18, Guolian Aquatic Products replied to the letter of concern of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange that in the first three quarters of 2019, 2020 and 2021, the company achieved prefabricated vegetable revenue of 634 million yuan, 730 million yuan and 577 million yuan respectively, accounting for 13.69%, 16.24% and 17.49% of the company's revenue, and the gross profit margin of prefabricated dishes was 19.72%, 18.74% and 26.16% respectively.
According to Delix, the operating income of pre-made vegetable-related products in 2020 and the first three quarters of 2021 accounted for about 11.22% and 9.79% of the company's overall operating income, respectively. Among them, in the first three quarters of 2021, the gross profit margin and net profit margin of prefabricated vegetable-related products were about 20% and 2.78%, respectively. In 2020, the company's narrowly defined prefabricated vegetable volume (excluding low-temperature meat products) is more than 400 million, and the revenue growth in 2021 is relatively fast, and it is expected that the revenue scale of prefabricated dishes in 2022 will be about 1.2 billion yuan.
Jinling Hotel disclosed that the company's operating income in the first three quarters of 2021 accounted for less than 5% of the company's operating income, which is still in its infancy, and Tongqinglou disclosed that Anhui Tongqinglou Food Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company, is involved in the prefabricated vegetable business, which is still in its infancy, and as of September 30, 2021, the operating income of the business accounted for less than 1% of the company's operating income.
It is reported that the current industry is relatively scattered, and there is no head enterprise. In China, the market penetration rate of prepared vegetables is still low. The "Five-Year (2021-2025) Work Plan of the China Cuisine Association" has proposed that the current penetration rate of domestic prepared dishes is only 10%-15%, and it is expected to be raised to 15%-20% in 2030. In Japan, the penetration rate of prepared dishes has reached more than 60%.
Reporter observation: Prefabricated dishes lead to the explosion of floating funds in the short term, we need to pay attention to the risk of overheating
The prepared market has attracted the participation of investment institutions in the primary and secondary markets. In terms of the primary market venture capital circle, Meizhou Dongpo's emerging prefabricated dish brands such as Wangjiadu Food, Zhenwei Xiaomeiyuan, and Three Meals with Ingredients have all received financing in 2021, and many investors include well-known institutions such as Sequoia China, IDG Capital, and Qingsong Fund. After Announcing the launch of the "Fun Noodles" brand last year, Luckin Coffee founder Lu Zhengyao also recently stepped into the pre-made vegetable track and launched the "Tip of the Tongue Workshop" project.
The secondary market is one of the symptoms of the recent hot pre-made dishes. Since the beginning of the year, the overall trend of prefabricated concept stocks has been strong, and the concept index has risen by nearly 6% overall from the end of the year to January 17, and the stock prices of some stocks have doubled during the year. Since January 18, the prefabricated concept stocks have begun to pull back, only some stocks have remained strong, such as Delix in the context of the correction of many stocks on January 18 and 19, still two consecutive days of limit, so far delism stock price has been up and down for six consecutive days.
Between the rise and fall of stock prices, which funds participate in the secondary market speculation?
In this wave of prepared vegetable market, Guolian aquatic products rose first in the sector, up 116% overall during the year (until January 17), and as of the close of January 19, its increase was still close to 100%.
The Dragon and Tiger List shows that Guolian Aquatic Products has been on the list for 6 times since 2022, and there are institutional seats on the list that buy or sell the top five on the day, and most of them have carried out T+0 operations. For example, on January 12, Guolian Aquatic Products rose and stopped 20%, and one institutional seat bought 14.83 million yuan on the same day, ranking in the top five for buying, while ranking in the top two seats sold for 17.4159 million yuan, and another institution bought 11.55 million yuan on the same day and sold 16.8855 million yuan.
On January 4, the day of the 20% rise and fall of Guolian Aquatic Products, there were three institutional seats to sell Guolian Aquatic Products, ranking second to fourth in sales, totaling 72.83 million yuan, of which two institutions sold on the same day and also carried out buying operations. On January 17, Guolian Aquatic Products rose and stopped by 20% on the same day, and three institutional seats were on the list, and all of them bought and sold operations at the same time on the same day.
Statistics from the Securities Times E Company reporter found that during the period when Guolian Aquatic Products was on the Dragon and Tiger List for 6 times, a number of securities companies' business department seats were ranked in the top five for buying or selling many times, and also carried out T+0 operations, such as Huaxin Securities Shanghai Branch, Dongguan Securities Beijing Branch, CICC International Shanghai Branch, Huatai Securities Wuxi Financial First Street Securities Business Department, Guojin Securities Shanghai Pudong New Area Meihua Road Securities Business Department, Guosheng Securities Ningbo Sangtian Road Securities Business Department, Orient Wealth Securities Lhasa East Ring Road Second Securities Business Department, CITIC Securities Shanghai Liyang Road Securities Sales Department, China Merchants Securities Shenzhen China Merchants Securities Building Securities Business Department.
Among them, Guosheng Securities Ningbo Sangtian Road Securities Business Department and Orient Wealth Securities Lhasa East Ring Road Second Securities Business Department are well-known floating capital seats. The second business department of Orient Wealth Securities Lhasa Tuanjie Road, which was the champion of floating capital in 2018, was once known as "the wildest floating capital".
Guohai Securities pointed out that prefabricated dishes have the dual catalyst of the Spring Festival and the epidemic, ushering in the outlet period. This year, many people choose to "celebrate the New Year on the spot" during the Spring Festival, and the sales of online and offline pre-made dishes Chinese New Year's Eve rice are hot. Prepared dishes need to pay attention to the risk of overheating in the short term, and the long-term growth trend is clear, and it is preferable to select individual stocks that can contribute to performance. The prefabricated vegetable industry has a strong momentum and a low industry threshold, attracting many types of participants to join, and the competition pattern is extremely fragmented.
In the view of guohai securities analysts, traditional quick-frozen food companies are more likely to become national leaders and exert the potential of single products to the extreme. Professional prefabricated vegetable enterprises are deeply rooted in the region, and can become small and beautiful enterprises. For upstream agricultural and animal husbandry aquatic products enterprises, prefabricated vegetables is a rare window period for business transformation, if the product strength advantages are prominent, the rapid establishment of B-end and C-end distribution channels, it is possible to give birth to dark horse enterprises. However, prefabricated dishes are in the initial stage of the industry, short-term may face the risk of overheating in the industry, some listed companies have just begun to get involved in the prefabricated vegetables industry, the contribution to performance in a short period of time is not high, and it is currently in the first stage of market expectations.
(Editor: Peng Bo)