If you can't cook at all, would you like to cook a table at home? possible. You have at least three solutions: either order takeout, book a private chef, and buy pre-made dishes that are booming this spring.
In the view of many food processing practitioners, if the definition of prepared dishes is broadened, then semi-finished products, quick-frozen foods, and even instant noodles and other hot, ready-to-eat, ready-to-cook ingredients can be regarded as pre-made dishes. It is an inevitable product of the evolution of industrialization and standardization in the food industry, which has been popular in Europe and the United States for decades, and even accounts for nearly 90% of per capita catering expenditure in Japan.
However, the prefabricated vegetable industry that has risen as a "new outlet" in the past two years is obviously a narrow and higher threshold concept. It points to goods that are convenient to process, but have chef flavor to eat, and even reflect the quality of life, often referred to as kuaishou dishes.
How fast is the fast-hand vegetable market growing? From a set of data, it can be roughly seen that according to the disclosure of enterprise investigation, in 2021, there will be 4212 new enterprises related to prepared dishes in China. Since 2020, more than 20 related enterprises have obtained tens of millions of yuan and 100 million yuan of financing. Some institutions even predict that in the next 5-7 years, the prefabricated vegetable industry is expected to reach a scale of more than 3 trillion yuan.
In the process of "detonating" prefabricated dishes, there is one city that has attracted much attention, that is, Shanghai. Practitioners generally believe that Shanghai is the "most promising place to strengthen pre-made dishes", why is this? In the coming period, can pre-made dishes become a new track for local development? The reporter launched a visit.
Face the "embarrassment" of eating
According to the statistics of the China Hotel Association, the average labor cost of mainland catering enterprises accounts for 21.35% of revenue. The use of prepared dishes can not only greatly reduce the number of kitchen personnel, reduce costs and increase efficiency, but also standardize the dishes of the restaurant and realize chain operation.
Therefore, domestic pre-made dishes originated from the B-end (for catering stores). It was not until around 2020 that pre-made dishes began to enter the C-end (for ordinary consumers) and have since launched a big development.
Some have attributed this change to the outbreak. Because from the point of view of time, it is precisely because a number of restaurant companies have been affected by the epidemic that they have successively launched products such as self-heating hot pot and kuaishou dishes to offset the loss of dine-in.
However, as the epidemic situation has calmed down and the overall impact on catering has gradually decreased, pre-made dishes have maintained a strong momentum of development. At this time, people found that consumers already had a clear demand for prepared dishes, especially in some megacities.
Zhang Ming has been working in Shanghai for three years, because he is engaged in the IT industry, overtime is more common. In order to eat a meal more quickly and conveniently, he often ordered takeout or cooked convenience foods.
Starting last year, he experimented with prefabricated dishes, opening the door to a new world. "On the fresh e-commerce platform, there are a variety of prepared dishes, from staple foods to light foods, from Western food to Chinese food, from kung fu dishes to desserts. Buy back to thaw heating on it, very convenient, taste is not lost in restaurants. ”
At the same time, the prepared dish satisfies the dual needs of urban consumers for quality and efficiency, and directly hits the pain points and embarrassment of urban people in "eating".
Ou Houxi, the person in charge of Dingdong to buy prefabricated dishes, told reporters that the company started to lay out the prefabricated vegetables business from June 2020, and at first some people within the company were not very optimistic. "In particular, we launched the crayfish pre-made dish for the first time, and there are a few 'old masters' who make the market and say that the pre-made dish will definitely not sell fresh shrimp."
The result is just the opposite, the crayfish pre-made dish in the 3 months of the launch, the sales of fresh shrimp are equal, and now far exceed the sales of the latter. "It can be seen that as long as the taste is enough to impress people, most families are still willing to buy ready-made." Ou Houxi said.
Also impressive is the price of the prepared dish. On some fresh platforms, three boxes of 700g of crayfish are priced at about 100 yuan. If you eat or order takeout in a restaurant, the price may be 3-4 times higher. Taking beef bones as an example, the price of prefabricated dishes sold on the fresh platform is about 100 yuan, while some chain restaurants also use pre-made vegetable raw materials, and the same amount of price is more than 200 yuan.
"This is because compared with catering stores, the pre-made dishes facing the C-end eliminate the intermediate operation links such as chefs and venues, and the price is generally 30%-50% cheaper." Ou Houxi said.
At the same time, the diversity of pre-made food consumption scenarios is also one of the reasons for its popularity. During this year's Spring Festival, Dingdong buying vegetables in Beijing often received some consultation calls, asking if a certain sauce elbow was in stock. Some consumers believe that pre-made dishes are beautifully packaged and practical, and it is a good social product to give away or take to relatives and friends to eat together.
There are also some consumers who have a deep obsession with "going home to eat". The advent of pre-made dishes has made up for their shortcomings in personal cooking, and also satisfied their own sense of pyrotechnics and rituals in cooking at home.
Last year, Shanghai Inventory Food Technology Co., Ltd., which specializes in the production of pre-made dishes, surpassed the B-end for the first time in sales of products facing the C-end. "C-end prepared vegetable products have accounted for more than 60% of our total output." Wu Shun, the head of the company, said. At the peak of this year's sales, the daily sales of Dingdong's beef bone prefabricated menu can exceed 10,000 copies.
Some investors joke that "everyone is making prepared dishes" now, precisely because in this emerging market, everyone has the opportunity.
A prefabricated vegetable production workshop for inventory food.
"Eating" has no boundaries, bringing about great changes in the industry
According to the statistics of the Shanghai Catering and Culinary Association, during the Spring Festival this year, a total of 81 enterprises in Shanghai launched 205 kinds of reunion rice, Chinese New Year's Eve meal sets or special items; there are also hundreds of prefabricated menu varieties on platforms such as Hema, Dingdong Buy, and Meituan Buy.
The abundant supply of goods has brought benefits to consumers at the same time, but also brought great changes to the industry. Nowadays, many prefabricated vegetable companies have successively set up research and development departments specifically for C-end consumer products, and a group of compound talents who are proficient in food engineering and can cook are also accelerating their birth.
At Dingdong's prefabricated dish research and development center, more than 20 prefabricated dish developers are busy on the spot every day. They have developed more than 700 prepared dishes so far, and of course, a considerable proportion of pre-made dishes have been "aborted" in the development process.
"That's because the technical challenges are greater than selling prefabricated dishes to restaurants in the past." Dingdong buy vegetables prefabricated dishes A research and development expert said. Previously, he had experience as a chef in a large hotel and had been in the B-end pre-made dish business for many years. He pointed out that on the one hand, the C-end-oriented pre-made dishes should be more accurate in seasoning and reduce the difficulty of secondary processing of consumers; on the other hand, it is also necessary to accurately control the heat and ripeness of the product to ensure that the product achieves the best taste after the consumer's secondary processing.
"This requires chefs and food engineers to work together, the former responsible for the design of flavor patterns, and the latter responsible for standardizing flavor patterns through industrial means. If any link is not in place, or technical difficulties arise, the final product cannot be presented. R&D experts said.
At present, the research and development of pre-made dishes is in short supply.
Taking a "crispy pork belly" as an example, many prefabricated dish brands want to launch this internet red dish, but because the crispy crust and the soft glutinous meat are difficult to recover in the hands of consumers, it is only recently that a small number of brands have found a breakthrough and successfully developed the product. "At present, the talent proficient in the pre-made vegetable business in the industry is still very tight, and the training is in its infancy. The entire operational technology process of the research and development of prepared dishes is also constantly exploring and advancing. A food engineering expert said.
Due to the technical threshold of R&D and production, many prefabricated vegetable brands choose to cooperate with traditional food enterprises in processing. Shanghai Inventory Food Technology Co., Ltd. is now doing OEM work for more than ten prefabricated dish brands, and also produces its own pre-made dish brand Inventory Delicious. Wu Shun, the person in charge, said that in order to catch up with the prefabricated vegetables, the company upgraded its factory in Baoshan to a fully automatic production line last year. Nowadays, the use of artificial food has been compressed to the limit of the whole process of prefabricated dishes, from cleaning, ingredients, processing, to quick freezing, packaging, and storage. "With the continuous improvement of the production level of processing plants like ours, the entire prepared vegetable industry can be completely subdivided in the future, and the art industry has a specialty."
Inventory Food has undergone an automated upgrade of the production line.
The segmentation of the market, in turn, has also promoted the development and upgrading of the national food processing industry. At present, in addition to building its own factories, Dingdong Buy vegetables also cooperates with dozens of food processing enterprises throughout the country. For example, for the production of crayfish pre-made dishes, Dingdong Buy Vegetables has placed the raw material procurement and production place in Qianjiang, Hubei Province, the "hometown of lobsters". "This not only reduces procurement costs, but also compresses the time it takes for food to go from the field to the workshop and ensures product freshness." Ou Houxi said.
Asian fishing ports, which specialize in aquatic prepared vegetables, also have production plants in various places. Secretary of the board of directors Xia Shanshan told reporters that after the product is unified in the central experimental kitchen research and development, and then distributed to different factories according to the market demand and production characteristics of various places, it not only ensures production efficiency, but also cultivates a number of cooperative factories with productive forces to achieve the benign development of the entire industrial chain.
At present, pre-made dishes have had a significant impact on the food processing industry, especially in the upgrading of freezing technology. Dingdong buy vegetables prefabricated vegetable research and development personnel told reporters that in the past, a considerable number of food processing plants were reluctant to use liquid nitrogen freezing. Although this is the most efficient refrigeration technology at present, it can maximize the water and freshness of food with zero preservatives added, but the cost is high. "It takes hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy a truckload of liquid nitrogen, and it won't take long."
However, when the shelf life is shorter and the food freshness requirements are higher after the large-scale emergence of prepared dishes, people find that those factories with strong hardware facilities and advantages in freezing technology are often more likely to obtain orders from the pre-made dish brand giants, which invisibly forces the technological upgrading and optimization transformation of the entire industry.
Why is Shanghai the best place to develop prepared dishes?
In the interview, many factory leaders and industry practitioners invariably came to a common conclusion - Shanghai is the most suitable for the development of prepared dishes.
"Shanghai is first and foremost our largest market, accounting for 30% of the country's pre-sale vegetable sales." In Ou Houxi's view, although Shanghainese have a picky sense of taste, they also have the courage to taste early. Coupled with the all-encompassing city of Shanghai, the residents come from all over the world, and it is a natural testing ground for pre-made dishes. "So we put a lot of new product trials in Shanghai. Other cities do pre-sale, Shanghai will definitely do spot sales. ”
Dingdong Buy Vegetables Prefabricated Vegetable R&D Center is undergoing new product development.
Xia Shanshan said that Shanghai citizens ranked high in the country in terms of awareness and acceptance of prepared dishes. "The center of Chinese catering is in East China, and east China looks at Shanghai. At present, the proportion of pre-made dishes used in Shanghai restaurants has been very large, in addition to chain stores, some small restaurants are also using prepared dishes. Asian fishing ports have set up a number of large transit warehouses and urban distribution warehouses across the country, while the Turnover Rate of Shanghai Warehouse has always been among the best, and it is busy almost all year round, 7 days a week. Therefore, once we develop C-end-oriented pre-made dishes in the future, Shanghai must be the first place. Xia Shanshan revealed that at present, the Asian fishing port has plans to set up a market front-end agency in Shanghai in the next 1-2 years, responsible for the core research and development and market port business.
In addition to the market base, Shanghai's greater advantage in grasping the prefabricated vegetable outlet is reflected in logistics. Xia Shanshan said that seven or eight years ago, if a prefabricated dish brand wanted to sell goods through new retail channels, there were almost only one or two cold chain express deliveries that could ensure transportation efficiency, and the cost was extremely high. Send a single kilogram of goods, cartons, styrofoam plus freight, the merchant needs to pay a total of more than 50 yuan.
However, in the past two years, many cities have seen the emergence of cold chain service providers between cities and within the region. Especially in Shanghai, cold chain trunk logistics and regional urban distribution logistics are more developed, which greatly reduces the circulation cost of goods. According to reports, the starting price of orders from Asian fishing ports in other cities is 5,000 yuan, but in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, the starting price has dropped to 2,000 yuan. With the advantages of logistics equipment and personnel, prefabricated dishes can open up the last kilometer. "In the near future, we can also achieve a large number of frozen and chilled prepared food products within our reach, as Japan did." Xia Shanshan said.
In addition, the fresh e-commerce industry that Shanghai has vigorously developed in recent years has also provided a solution for the last mile of prepared dishes. Ou Houxi introduced that in order to ensure the quality and taste of pre-made dishes, the whole cold chain and rapid distribution are the foundation, and "inventory turnover" is the key. At present, the average inventory turnover of shanghai prefabricated vegetable commodities is about 7 days, compared with the past frozen products that are often placed in the supermarket freezer for more than half a year, and the freshness difference can be imagined.
In addition, fresh e-commerce has configured front-end warehouses in various communities in the city, so that the pre-made dishes are sent to consumers through takeaway riders for no more than half an hour, greatly reducing the impact of transportation on food flavor.
Because prefabricated dishes started early in Shanghai and have a wide range of sales, in the process of taking the first step, they were also the first to encounter problems and blockages in terms of market access and strong chain replenishment.
Ou Houxi told reporters that although there are many prefabricated vegetable processing enterprises in Shanghai, there are not many brine delicatessen factories and salad vegetable suppliers, which has become a missing link in the supply chain at the moment when consumers are increasingly pursuing light food.
Wu Shun also pointed out that because pre-made dishes are new, industry supervision and market access are still lacking in pertinence. For example, in the process of applying for a food production license, some cold and fresh prepared dishes cannot be marketed because they cannot find ownership in the traditional production category.
In addition, in this year's hot sales of prepared dishes, the feedback in the market has also been mixed. Some citizens reported that the purchased prepared dishes "cut corners" and did not match the pictures. Some people also complained that a certain brand of Buddha jumping wall prefabricated dishes "has a heavy industrial taste and dare not eat it." Food experts said that the next industry should gradually introduce a whole-process supervision method for the qualification of merchants, processing processes, transportation links, and distribution links, so that consumers can eat at ease, and relevant enterprises can also develop with peace of mind.
Predicting whether the "new track" with a market size of 3 trillion yuan will have a bright future depends on the further efforts of all parties, and Shanghai has the opportunity, ability and responsibility to play a model.