Most people don't guess that the first outlet in 2022 will be pre-made dishes. Last week, a number of prefabricated vegetable concept stocks in Shanghai and Shenzhen set off a rising tide. Behind the capital movement is the heat of the consumer market.
Under the epidemic situation, the Spring Festival is approaching, and under the initiative of the local New Year, many places have put pre-made potted vegetables into the New Year gift package. For families who want to prepare Chinese New Year's Eve meals, they are also beginning to focus on pre-made dishes.
"Chinese New Year's Eve rice is too time and craftsmanship, ready to buy a pot dish this year to try, it looks cost-effective, but I don't know how it tastes." Zhang Qin, a Shunde resident who saw a leaflet of pre-made potted dishes at the hotel, said that the 1,288 yuan pot dish contained ingredients such as sea cucumbers, abalone, lobsters, and was marked as produced by Lian Gengming, a Master of Chinese Cooking and President of the Shunde Chefs Association.
In Shunde, the pre-made market is rapidly rising. At this year's Shunde Two Sessions, the Shunde Government Work Report proposed to "explore and promote the development of the prefabricated vegetable industry". Once, Shunde cuisine was difficult to "go out" because of its emphasis on raw materials and craftsmanship, so could the arrival of prefabricated dishes change this dilemma?
Focus 1:
Why are the pre-made dishes on fire?
The fish is thawed into the pot, the sauerkraut is boiled in water, the oil is added to the pot, the spices in the ingredient package are stir-fried, and drizzled on the sauerkraut fish, and a bowl of sauerkraut fish with smooth and tender meat and authentic flavor is ready.
This is the hot pre-made dish nowadays. Conventional understanding, is a semi-finished dish: in the factory processed, well matched or even made into a dish, frozen or vacuum packaging preservation, consumers only need to heat or through the combination of material packages for simple cooking after purchase can be eaten.
"One is convenient and complete with materials; the other is easy to operate, no cooking skills are required to copy the chef's taste, and the cost performance is high, and the quality of the materials can be guaranteed through large-scale procurement." Chen Cuiying, founder and CEO of Pinzhen Technology, said. Last year, Guotong Logistics, located in Chen Village, Shunde, entered the prefabricated cuisine, established Pinzhen Technology, and created the brand "Yuxianfeng".
In Shunde, the pre-made market is rapidly rising. Courtesy of Pinzhen Technology
Although it was established less than a year ago, sales during the 2021 double 11 period have exceeded 10 million yuan, and the spicy shrimp tail product has set a sales volume of more than 23 million yuan in "618" last year. Chen Cuiying introduced that among them, the large pot dish with local characteristics of Shunde has been selected as the "Top Ten Famous Products" of Guangdong Prefabricated Dishes, plus its star products such as sauerkraut fish, flower glue chicken, Buddha jumping wall and other star products prefabricated dishes, and the expected sales of Yuxianfeng during the New Year Festival can also exceed 10 million yuan.
In the past two years, the epidemic, the promotion of the "home economy", coupled with changes in demographic structure, and the emergence of a large number of one-person and two-person households have accelerated the rise of prefabricated cooking.
"In the catering industry, pre-made dishes are not a new thing, they have always existed widely in the back kitchen of hotels, but under the impetus of the epidemic, they have moved faster to the family kitchen so that young people can better enjoy the fun of the kitchen." Chen Huiwen, a member of the Shunde District CPPCC Committee and chairman of Dehexin Catering Management Co., Ltd., is preparing to start a prefabricated vegetable market this year.
According to the "2021-2022 China Prepared Vegetable Industry Development Report", the size of China's prepared vegetable market will exceed 300 billion yuan in 2021, and it is expected to exceed 830 billion yuan by 2025. The China Commercial Industry Research Institute predicts that the mainland's prefabricated vegetable industry is expected to achieve a scale of more than 3 trillion yuan in the next 6-7 years, becoming the "next trillion-level catering market".
Relevant data show that more than half of the domestic catering brands are developing standardized finished products and pre-made dishes. Upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain are competing to lay out prefabricated dishes. "At present, prefabricated products account for half of the company's sales." Ding Liru, deputy general manager of Guangdong Shunde Junjian Modern Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., introduced that the company is focusing on aquaculture.
Junjian prefabricated products have accounted for half of the company's sales. Photo by Dai Jiaxin
Focus 2:
Will standardization affect the characteristics of Shunde cuisine?
The hot pre-made dish is a "trillion outlet" for enterprises, and for Shunde, the "world capital of gastronomy", can it become a new carrier for Shunde cuisine such as four cups of chicken, Jun'an steamed pig, salt and oil steamed fish?
Discussing this topic, standardization and industrialization have become an unavoidable controversy in prefabricated dishes.
In a random interview with reporters, some citizens believe that Shunde cuisine pays attention to color and flavor, and prefabricated dishes give people the feeling of industrial products, "like instant noodles, it is impossible to copy the 'taste of mother'." Shunde citizens who have been in the kitchen for a long time feel that pre-made dishes cannot guarantee the fresh taste of dishes, and for those who have "exquisite" food, "they will definitely not pay for takeaway food packages and prepared dishes." Another Shunde chef pointed out that the test of Shunde cuisine is the handling of heat and ingredients by each chef, and standardized prepared dishes cannot be 100% restored.
"The market's awareness and acceptance of prepared dishes still needs to be cultivated, and standardized prepared dishes naturally cannot represent the characteristics of Shunde cuisine." Chen Huiwen said, "But can we change our thinking and let the prepared dishes become a window for more people to understand Shunde cuisine." ”
As an old catering person, Chen Huiwen's Chen Cun Bus Hotel is a 45-year-old "time-honored brand" in Shunde, and Dehexin has contracted the delivery of food in many canteens in the surrounding area, with 200,000 people eating every day. How to balance industrial products and traditional fine products, in Chen Huiwen's view, the focus is on model innovation, "the standardization of Shunde dishes like potted vegetables, dragon boat rice into prepared dishes vigorously promoted, so as to attract more people to Shunde to taste authentic food." ”
Can pre-made dishes become a new carrier for Shunde delicacies such as four cups of chicken, Jun'an steamed pig, and salt and oil steamed fish to go global? Courtesy of DeheXin
On the other hand, dim sum products such as double skin milk, Lunjiao cake, and Chen Cun powder have a standardized basis, and in Chen Huiwen's view, it is more possible to borrow standardization to ensure the taste of consumers, which is also the strength of prefabricated dishes.
In fact, the idea of standardizing food has long been established in Shunde. Since 2009, the standard work of special gastronomy has come, and Shunde has issued more than 100 Shunde special gastronomic standards.
In May 2021, Shunde issued 20 group standards for specialties including Jun'an steamed pig, Daliang fried milk, and fried baked fish mouths, and formulated standards for the above specialties from the aspects of cooking methods, raw materials, dish inspection, dressing, transmission and preservation. "We hope that through standardization, we can ensure the color, aroma, taste, quality and shape of food, reflecting the characteristics of Shunde cuisine 'clear, refreshing, tender, smooth and fresh'." Ouyang Cuiyun, deputy director of the Shunde District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau, said at the time of the release of the standard, "The formulation of group standards will help improve the public's awareness of Shunde cuisine's materials and cooking techniques, and help Shunde cuisine to go out of Shunde." ”
In this way, the formulation of Shunde's gastronomic standards itself laid the foundation for pre-made dishes. "Therefore, the focus of the next Shunde pre-made dish should be how to explore the variety to enhance the taste." Chen Huiwen said.
Spot 3:
How do pre-made dishes "go global"?
If standardized prepared dishes can become an important window for the promotion of Shunde cuisine, then the next question is how to "go out".
One is to introduce Cantonese cuisine masters in the research and development stage. Ding Liru introduced that Junjian opened the Ouyang Guangye Cantonese Cuisine Master Studio last year to develop flavors and textures that meet the fish preferences of Shunde people, "through the combination of research and development, teaching and science popularization, we have produced a prefabricated dish brand with Shunde characteristics." ”
Yu Xianfeng also "hand in hand" Chinese cooking master and president of the Shunde Chefs Association Lian Gengming developed together, "to ensure that the taste is in line with the public consumers, and try to restore the taste of Shunde." Chen Cuiying said that in terms of ingredients, it will also use landmark ingredients in Guangdong Province, such as Qingyuan chicken, Cheng Cun oyster, Shunde fish rot and so on.
Of course, the ingredients of the prepared dishes should be fresh, and the focus is on transportation. "To ensure the good taste of pre-made dishes, it is best to use the whole cold chain for transportation; food is generally impulsive consumption, so that consumers can eat delicious food as soon as possible when ordering, and transportation time is also key." Chen Cuiying introduced that with the advantages of Guotong Logistics, Pinzhen chose to build a warehouse in the country, covering 90% of the cities, hoping to occupy the market with a better user experience. At the same time, Pinzhen also uses the modern technology and innovative technology of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Chinese Food Research Institute to continuously optimize and improve food safety.
Entering the live broadcast room to cooperate with the head anchor and open group purchase has also become a new way of playing for the promotion of prefabricated dish companies. Courtesy of Pinzhen Technology
Junjian focuses on the use of the already very mature low-temperature liquid nitrogen "locking technology", "so that Shunde fresh to a larger market, into thousands of households become possible." Ding Liru said.
In terms of sales channels, in addition to the entry of offline supermarkets, entering the live broadcast room to cooperate with the head anchor and opening group purchases has also become a new way of playing for the promotion of prefabricated dish enterprises. In order to better promote Shunde IP, in the previous sales, Pinzhen Technology also opened the game of buying prefabricated dishes to send Shunde home appliances, and proposed to use "Shunde home appliances to make Shunde dishes".
The data shows that the market size of pre-products in Guangdong has ranked first in the country. This year's "two sessions", Foshan proposed to build a special agricultural products "prefabricated vegetables" processing industrial park, Shunde also said to "explore and promote the development of the prefabricated vegetable industry", neighboring Zhaoqing proposed to build the first prefabricated vegetable industrial park in the Greater Bay Area.
"But in fact, prefabricated dishes are still in their infancy, there is a lack of leading enterprises in China, there are not many prefabricated vegetable enterprises in Guangdong, and even fewer in Shunde." Chen Cuiying observed that the development of the prefabricated vegetable industry itself still needs support. In Chen Huiwen's view, prefabricated dishes run from the field to the table, requiring government safety supervision and standard guidance, and the cold chain and central kitchen construction of enterprises also need industrial support and financial support, "so as to stimulate more enterprises to invest in the prefabricated vegetable market, break the original wall in an innovative way, in order to better promote Shunde cuisine to go out." ”
[Southern Daily reporter] Lan Zhiling Li Xin
Read more:
The special topic | directly attacked the two sessions in Shunde
【Author】 Lan Zhiling; Li Xin
【Source】 Southern Press Media Group South + client
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