Image source @ Visual China
Wen 丨1DU Finance
2022 is the third year of the "New Year in place". From the "Cloud Year" and "Cloud Drinking" trapped at home in 2020, to the "Cooking Competition" in the circle of friends in 2021, and then to this year's "prefabricated wind", the epidemic has enabled Chinese New Year's Eve rice to achieve three versions of the upgrade in three years.
Judging from the different styles of these three versions, the optimistic ridicule of the 1.0 era, the DIY of everyone in the 2.0 era, and the "main force" of the Chinese New Year's Eve meal finally returned to its true colors: after all, the pace of life is as fast as lightning at the moment, and it is difficult for this young person to spend two or three days on a table of Chinese New Year's Eve like their fathers.
This move also allowed the "pre-made dish" to successfully borrow the "East Wind".
Years ago, although the overall performance of big A-shares made many investors choke, the food processing and manufacturing industry performed particularly well before the end of the year, the most outstanding of which was the concept of prepared dishes. For example, Xi'an Catering and BAHEAL shares contributed to the limit board on the last trading day, such as Zhangzidao, Quanjude, SSAW Boutique Hotel, Tianbang shares, and Wen's shares also gained more than 5 points.
From this, it is not difficult to see that the upstream and downstream industrial chains involved in prefabricated dishes such as breeding, catering and food industry have performed well. When the industry is windy, the most important thing is the "wind chasing teenager", which is not, Luckin's Lu Zhengyao also "entered" this market.
So, where will this market that breaks through the fire go? Can it really be the "standard" on the ChineseChinese New Year's Eve dinner table?
01, the rise of prepared dishes
First of all, we need to figure out what is a pre-made dish? In layman's terms, pre-made dishes refer to dishes that have been washed, cut, matched, processed and made, packaged and stored by rapid freezing, transported to direct retail terminals in the cold chain, and consumers only need to eat them simply by cooking or directly opening after purchase.
Prefabricated dishes are widely recognized in China because of the media's investigation of takeaway pre-made dishes. In addition, an unconfirmed data said that 70% of the takeaways that users ordered on a daily basis came from prepared dishes.
Globally, the origins of prepared dishes can be traced back to the United States in the 1940s. At that time, the number of standardized catering enterprises in the United States was the largest, providing the soil for the development of prepared dishes, and Sysco, a global super-large food distribution and supply company, was born and developed in this context.
At present, Sisko has a 16% share of the U.S. food and beverage supply market, and in 2019 before the epidemic, Sisko's revenue reached 60.1 billion US dollars and net profit was 1.674 billion US dollars. Data from the most recent trading day shows that Sisko's market capitalization is $40.62 billion.
The ripening of prepared dishes occurred in Japan in the 1970s and 1980s. Due to the rapid economic development and the rise of convenience stores, Japan's prepared vegetable industry has grown by as much as 20%.
In Japan, the largest pre-brewed dish company is Nichiren Foods, which was founded in 1942. Since the official production of the first prepared food (tea bowl steaming: frozen food heated and ready to eat) in 1954, Nichiren Food has more than 70 years of experience in the development of the prepared food industry, and it is also a food supplier for the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games and the 1970 Hawker World Expo, and it is well known worldwide.
02, the domestic prefabricated vegetable industry into the fast lane
If the pre-made vegetable markets in the United States and Japan are more for B-end users, then domestic pre-made dishes have further developed in the expansion of C-end users in addition to continuing this path.
Anxin Securities' report shows that the mainland's prepared vegetable industry started late, starting from East China around 2000. In recent years, with the continuous development of the mainland economy and the improvement of residents' income level, the upgrading of residents' dietary consumption structure, and changes in social life patterns, the current mainland prefabricated dishes have a higher degree of processing and a richer variety.
In addition, some large-scale enterprises have begun to enter the market, and have built mature sales channels, cold chain logistics systems and introduced e-commerce platforms to sell pre-made dishes online. These factors have promoted the mainland prepared vegetable industry to gradually enter the fast lane.
According to the data of Tianyancha, since 2013, a total of 72 investment and financing incidents have occurred in the prefabricated vegetable track, and the total amount of financing disclosed has exceeded 1 billion yuan, involving 42 projects. Among them, 2015-2016 was the peak period of financing, with 14 financing incidents and 17 respectively. The second peak period is 2020-2021.
The rise of mainland prepared dishes is mainly due to the rapid development of the catering industry and takeaway. From 2012 to 2019, mainland catering revenue rose from 2.33 trillion yuan to 4.67 trillion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 10.44%, higher than the GDP growth rate.
Statistics from the China Hotel Association show that the average labor cost of mainland catering enterprises accounts for 21.35% of revenue. Cooperation with prefabricated vegetable enterprises can not only obtain the price advantage of raw materials, but also reduce the number of kitchen personnel, so as to achieve the goal of reducing costs and increasing efficiency, and also greatly improve the efficiency of cooking. At present, the B-end market accounts for 80% of the sales of pre-made dishes, and from this point of view, the B-end market has become the main battlefield of the industry.
This may also explain the reason why Luckin's Lu Zhengyao "ran in".
According to public information, the Tongue Technology Group, founded by Lu Zhengyao, is incubating a new project of prefabricated dishes called "Tip of the Tongue Workshop". According to its official introduction, the tip of the tongue workshop through the origin of the procurement of first-hand fresh raw materials, processed into semi-finished products, frozen or refrigerated storage, cold chain transportation to the retail terminal, after the customer purchases, using traditional kitchenware or new kitchenware simple cooking, can become a delicacy.
According to data from Everbright Securities, from 2019, the prefabricated vegetable industry will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 26%, and by 2025, the scale of the prefabricated vegetable industry will exceed one trillion.
The widespread popularity of prepared dishes on the C-end was before the Spring Festival this year.
After the twenty-third day of the Waxing Moon, "North Drift" Xiao Li began to receive New Year goods, in addition to the usual fruit nuts, more is a prefabricated dish, as a Cantonese, prefabricated Buddha jumping off the wall is a must-have dish for the Spring Festival, "this Kind of Buddha jumping wall, take it back and cook it directly in the pot for 30 minutes to eat, is the hometown flavor of the real estate, very convenient." ”
More young people trapped in the north, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen choose to buy New Year goods online, especially the emerging human beings who are not good at cooking themselves, and they use pre-made dishes as the "façade" on the table during the Spring Festival. "Inviting colleagues to celebrate the New Year together, there is a Buddha jumping off the wall on the table, which definitely enhances the overall style." Xiao Li said.
According to the data of Tmall New Year Festival, well-known domestic restaurant companies have increased the promotion of Chinese New Year's Eve rice pre-made dishes. The newly launched dishes include specialties from all over the country, cuisines of origin, time-honored foods, and new dishes with the theme of the Year of the Tiger. Among them, the sales of prefabricated dishes such as flower glue chicken, Buddha jumping wall, Cantonese pot vegetables, and boiled beef have doubled.
A catering practitioner told OneDU Finance, "Prefabricated dishes not only meet the dietary needs of young consumers, but also open up new sales channels for catering enterprises to maintain their operations, and under the normalization of epidemic prevention and control, they may become a new development trend in the catering industry." ”
In fact, as the post-80s and post-90s generations become the main consumers, most of them may be because of limited time or because of limited cooking skills, at this time, convenient and fast prepared dishes have become the new favorite of young families, contracting the scene of family dinner. Data show that the proportion of post-95 consumers who buy pre-made dishes is twice that of post-65s, and in addition, housewives have also become lovers of pre-made dishes.
03. Can pre-made dishes become the standard for ChineseChinese New Year's Eve meals?
In the Taobao APP search for "pre-made dishes", the top ranking of the "MaiZi Ma flagship store", different combinations contribute different styles, taking the 434 yuan 10 dishes as an example, the dishes include grassland sheep scorpion, kung fu yellow beef, boiled beef, kung fu chicken, Lao Tan sauerkraut fish and other classic dishes.
Xiao Li bought the Buddha Jumping Wall Large Pot Dish from a Guangzhou restaurant and sold for 398 yuan. "The taste is more authentic, SF transportation, not afraid of not being fresh," Xiao Li gave Amway to his colleagues after tasting it, "In fact, I want to eat a hometown flavor during the Spring Festival, and the pre-made dishes are particularly friendly to people like us who are floating in the field." ”
According to the development of this script, it is only a matter of time before pre-made dishes become the standard for ChineseChinese New Year's Eve meals.
To this end, OneDU Finance conducted a sample survey during the Spring Festival, of which 67.4% of the respondents believed that they could accept pre-made dishes on the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner table, 24.1% of the respondents thought they were "willing to try", and a small number said that "they can do it, they don't need it".
In terms of concern, the quality, nutrition and taste of dishes ranked top 3.
"Most of the retention period of this kind of prepared dish is 180 days or even more than 270 days, and I am worried about preservatives and dare not give it to children." A parent of a child told OneDU Finance. This also represents the voice of many post-80s consumers who have become parents of children.
However, this is not so serious here after the 90s and 95s, and they are more concerned about "Do you really only need to cook it to restore the delicious taste?" ”
"Restoring delicious taste" is actually a hurdle in front of the pre-made dish. After all, compared with the ration of Western food, Chinese food pays attention to "discretion". The taste of Chinese food is closely related to the cooking process, although the factory produces the various conditioning packages of the product, and then gives it to the customer for processing, once it comes to the cooking link, in fact, the taste can only be controlled by personal cooking, and the taste recovery is still a big problem.
Secondly, it lies in the maturity of cold chain transportation. After more than ten years of development, the domestic cold chain has been relatively mature, and it has a unique advantage in transporting some fresh ingredients. However, during the annual double 11, double 12, 618, new year goods festival and other major promotions, the customer complaints caused by cold chain logistics are still endless, especially involving the peak period of logistics before the Spring Festival.
It has also become the consensus of many people to order pre-made dishes as soon as possible. "After receiving the goods on the twenty-third day of the new year, Amway gave it to colleagues, and many colleagues who did not place orders on the same day either did not grab it, or the epidemic prevention and control express delivery was suspended." Xiao Li said.
Third, the industry is highly competitive. A set of data from Tianyancha can better show the development speed and competitive situation of the industry - the number of registered enterprises engaged in prefabricated vegetable-related business was 1,796 in 2011, exceeded 4,000 for the first time in 2015, exceeded 8,000 in 2018, and registered 12,500 new companies in 2020.
How do you win over so many competitors, and do each player have their own advantages? Whether or not you can build your own moat will be a problem for all players.
Write at the end
Euromonitor data shows that in 2020, the market size of the mainland's prepared vegetable industry was 87.76 billion yuan, and the per capita expenditure on prepared vegetables accounted for only 5.56% of per capita catering expenditure, far lower than the 19.05% in the United States and 87.74% in Japan. From this point of view, the scale of the domestic prefabricated vegetable industry still has a lot of room for development.
However, in China, it is still the initial stage of the industry, the concentration of the industry is low, and no real leading enterprises and super brands have been born. In China, Guolian Aquatic Products, Weizhixiang and Yasui Food are mature listed enterprises, which have occupied a first-mover advantage in the market and have the entrance ticket to compete for the first chair.
So, with Lu Zhengyao's entry, is it possible that the new Internet consumer brand he represents will become a catfish stirring up this market? The answer is yet to be revealed.