Image source: Visual China
During the Spring Festival in 2022, it has become a new trend to use pre-made dishes for half an hour to make a table of Chinese New Year's Eve rice. If we look at it again with the eyes of the future, what else should we see when we talk about prepared dishes now?
Lu Zhengyao, who once ran out of Luckin Coffee with a crazy store and a largely subsidized capital play, incubated the pre-made dish project tongue workshop, and also wanted to tell the story between young people and pre-made dishes:
"When we go to work, we place an order on the APP, go to the bottom of the office building to get a cup of coffee and go upstairs, in the future, when everyone leaves work, we will place an order on the APP, and when we go to the door, we will take something back to make a meal by ourselves, which is actually the connection we want to achieve with the strongest experience with consumers."
Now, how far are we from this consumption scenario? Whose wealth code will it be for the prefabricated vegetable track?
The C-end market is still being nurtured
Looking back at the double-creation boom from 2014 to 2016, during which the earliest batch of prefabricated vegetable enterprises based on semi-finished products of clean vegetables were born, such as young vegetable jun, my kitchen, fresh vegetables, kaka fresh, small farmers, and chain farmers, but few can survive until now.
Some investors told the Titanium Media APP, "In 2015, the batch of to C-oriented prefabricated dishes, whether placed in supermarkets or sold directly to consumers through e-commerce, the growth rate is there, but it is not as fast as the investment institutions imagine." ”
At that time, the batch of prefabricated vegetable enterprises generally encountered the problem of high customer unit price repurchase rate and high supply chain logistics costs, especially many brands wanted to do their own products and channels themselves, and the heavy model operation made them fall after the capital calmed down.
These immature business operation models have instead spawned the infrastructure related to the takeaway delivery network since 2015.
Compared with the situation at that time, in terms of supply chain and logistics, the current pre-made dishes have been blessed with freezing technology, mature takeaway delivery networks and cold chain policies. For new Internet brands, the convenience of offline and online channels such as vegetable farms, integrated e-commerce and fresh e-commerce is improving, which can reduce the upfront assets and operating costs.
Judging from the consumption data of the prefabricated vegetable industry, the current domestic prefabricated vegetable field has gradually entered the quantitative stage compared with seven or eight years ago, and the growth space is broad.
According to Statista, the per capita consumption of prepared dishes in mainland China increased from 5.4kg in 2013 to 8.9kg in 2021, with an overall upward trend, with a CAGR of 6.4% in 2013-2021. In 2013, Japan's per capita consumption of prepared dishes has reached 25kg, and it has hovered between 20-25kg in the past 8 years.
The life cycle of the prepared market is also much longer than expected, with Japan's penetration rate of more than 60% for semi-finished vegetables at the C-end and 6:4 at the To B and To C ends. More than 85% of the sales channels of domestic prepared dishes are concentrated in the B-end, of which the B-end penetration rate is only about 8%, and the current incremental market is shifting from the B-end to the C-end, and the growth rate of the C-end is much higher than that of the B-end.
In the traditional catering industry, pre-made dishes are not a new proposition. Some investors told the Titanium Media APP that the pre-made dishes of the To B end appeared in group meals and chain restaurants at the earliest. "For example, Sodexo, McKinfield and the like will provide canteen outsourcing services for large companies, the central processing plant of large catering will be made into semi-finished products, and then the store can be served when it is hot, and the dishes of hot pot restaurants are all prepared dishes."
Pre-made dishes and restaurant companies have formed a good positive interaction, but the current education of consumers is not yet mature and sufficient, the C-end market is still cultivating, and the trust and doubt of consumer groups in the taste, health and safety of semi-industrial products still exist.
Yu Keqiang, an investor in Dinglin Capital, told Titanium Media APP, "The main channel for us to buy vegetables is still in the vegetable market, and now there will be stalls selling balls and frozen products in the vegetable market, and some pre-made dishes are also being added." I think that pre-made vegetable companies should conform to the consumption channels of the public, the demand for C-end is growing, but it is not so fast, and the change is also based on the timeline of ten years or even a generation, which is difficult to change in the short term. ”
Giants race to grab the beach layout
It is undeniable that, at least for the entrepreneurs of the prefabricated vegetable track, telling stories for a decade or even a generation is too slow, and it is possible to become a giant if it is "fast" enough.
The traditional prefabricated food leaders have begun to encircle the prefabricated vegetable business and take the lead in making a new layout.
After the A-share listed company Yasui Foods launched Mr. Frozen Products for the C-end last year, it recently launched Kuaishou Cuisine, which applies the freezer in the quick-frozen experience to the prepared dish;
Weizhixiang, which has been listed on the A-share market in April last year, currently accounts for 70% of the revenue of the C-end of prefabricated dishes, and has more than 200 kinds of semi-finished vegetable products;
As the largest aquatic products enterprise in China, Guolian Aquatic Products, which lost 269 million yuan in 2020, achieved a turnaround in the first three quarters of last year driven by the high-margin aquatic products prefabricated vegetable business.
Using the laid front warehouse as a logistics foundation, coordinating the upstream and downstream industrial chains, some fresh e-commerce companies that try to save themselves will regard prefabricated dishes as "the way to break the situation" and begin to build their own factories in order to control the overall situation.
For chain restaurants, the To C-end pre-made dish business launched by most catering companies is not mature enough and is in the exploratory stage. "Xibei" pre-made dish store "Jia Guolong Kung Fu Dish" just after experiencing mixed praise and criticism from consumers, began to upgrade the model at the end of last year, reducing prices while turning "reheating" into "fresh frying", but "weakening" the previous main pre-made dish products.
Even if the giants encircle and suppress, the barriers to entry in the prepared vegetable industry are actually not high.
From the perspective of the future development space of the entire catering track, Taihe Capital Research has pointed out that China's "food" track is brewing three trillion-level opportunities, namely the branding of basic ingredients, the industrialization of prepared dishes and the chaining of restaurants.
At present, most of the new entrants in the industry are still far from entering a state of fully industrialized competition, and can even be said to be in the blue ocean of "disorderly development".
The next wealth password for new consumption?
Another big background is that since July last year, the voices of new consumption have been constantly heard, and the capital "spring cold" in the primary market has arrived ahead of schedule. Pre-made dishes are considered to be the next fortune code and the biggest track in 2022 after coffee and ramen in the new consumption track.
Rare little plum garden, wheat mother, pot circle food exchange, taste of the lion... New brands with Chinese pre-made dishes as the outlet are attracting the attention of capital. In the subdivision categories, that is, hot fast food ding-ding bags, pre-cooking brand COOOOK light cooking has also gained capital favor in the short term.
What is the core of the game for these new brands?
Focusing on western-style pasta fast food brands empty carving, in the Tmall pasta fast food list sales first, co-founder Wang Yichao told titanium media APP, their differentiated play, is to see a major consumer pain point - domestic consumers want to stay at home to eat authentic pasta Availability is very low, and takeaway and restaurant to obtain pasta cost is relatively high, and then with a large single product strategy, to provide consumers can also eat authentic quality pasta at home.
The product strength under the differentiated play method is the core competitiveness of most brands, and the commercialization ability and explosive model determine whether they can survive first and the speed of breaking the circle.
Since August last year, the popular products cooked by COOOOK, a pre-cooking brand that specializes in exotic cuisine, have been in short supply. The "pizza dumplings" launched in the second half of last year have become another explosive large single after its fast food pasta, and have sold nearly one million boxes so far, with a monthly sales of nearly 10 million yuan.
Behind these explosive products, it is not only a unique insight into consumer demand and category design upgrades, but also the ultimate control of the entire process from research and development to production to logistics. COOOOK light cooking currently has five patents in the direction of product research and development, 22 groups of exclusive formulas, digital traceability of quality control at the raw material end, and more than 50 factories in the national supply chain to ensure sufficient stable production capacity, delivery rate and product quality.
Compared with Western-style prefabricated products, Chinese food standardization is actually the most difficult part of the catering industry. Some of the new brands of Chinese pre-made dishes choose from pasta into the game.
Titanium media APP editor observed that in the prefabricated dish track in the broad concept including fast food, the new brands that have completed financing in the past two years, the current new entrants are mainly divided into brands that mainly focus on a certain SKU category and multiple categories at the same time, and after the launch of a number of new brands, the SKU with good sales is the main food category based on pasta.
Seeking Taste Lion, a new brand of Chinese pre-made dishes established in the early stage of the epidemic, also saw opportunities for pre-made dishes. From the layout of the "noodles" category, and then as the entry point for the launch of various types of SKUs, Taste Lion has created a hot noodle product and an innovative category of snail powder hot pot.
But founder Wang Biao told the titanium media APP that only the explosive model is not enough, "traffic brand is very dangerous, in the future only by constantly cutting to the innovation needs of consumers, creating a brand mentality, and then transforming into channels and supply chain advantages, it is very likely to enhance their core competitiveness in the track." ”
The market is also changing much faster than expected.
"At the supply chain end, the fast food packaging specifications for small portions, one-person food have become very mainstream." Wang Yichao, co-founder of The Void Carving, told the Titanium Media APP, "Two years ago, when he first made the short engraving in 2019, he proposed to the supply chain to do a small amount of packaging of 110g of pasta, ingredients and meat sauce packets, and it took a lot of effort to convince the factory. ”
"When you go and tell them to make this kind of one or two grams of small packages, they will show a surprised expression, but now everyone has become accustomed to it." 」
These changes are still happening at any time.
In the view of Leo, the founder of COOOOK Light Cooking, the frozen layer of the future home refrigerator will definitely have prepared dishes. What COOOOK light cooking has to do is to seize the refrigerator of 500 million families in China in the future. And now, who can really meet the changes of consumers and react quickly, who is taking the lead and occupying the consumer's vision.
Is it difficult to make big business with prepared dishes?
Behind the enthusiasm of various players, the controversy in the market about "pre-made dishes are difficult to do big business" has not stopped.
The first difficulty is to restore the taste of the product itself.
"When the product taste of the blank engraving was developed, the light flavor was adjusted almost one or two hundred times." Wang Yichao, co-founder of Kongke, mentioned that including inviting InternationalLyzed Michelin chefs to jointly develop flavors, the integration of high-quality upstream supply chains, aluminum foil-grade locking technology to lock flavor, and then consumer testing, and finally industrialized and upgraded mass production, behind the explosive flavor tomato meat sauce must be a set of combination punches.
The eight major Chinese cuisines are broad and profound, the regional characteristics of the dishes are more obvious than those of Western-style catering, excellent chefs master the five flavors and the most exquisite proportioning methods, and the dispersion of downstream demand also has a huge challenge to the supply chain factory.
How to restore the taste of Chinese pre-made dishes?
Li Yingbo, rotating CEO of Tongue Technology, said in an interview with media groups including Titanium Media that the Tip Workshop divides the country into eight regions in Northeast China, North China and Central China, and these eight regions have two roles.
The first role is for chefs with standardized experience in Chinese food to reproduce and restore tastes, and to make fresh dishes and innovative combinations on existing ingredients;
The second role lies in the selection of raw materials, the team combines with the most characteristic local food raw material manufacturers, uses the most advanced freezing technology to do processing, and then sends them to the store, and in the channel store, in the way of A, B, C combination to create more SKUs.
However, not all brands have strong supply chain integration and bargaining power, and the core difficulty of these new brands lies in their own research and development of dishes and the degree of restoration of dishes.
New players in the C-end market are still groping.
Taste Lion tries to find answers from authentic raw material sourcing and locking techniques. Founder Wang Biao told Titanium Media APP that the first step they did at the raw material end was to cooperate with old stores with local characteristics to carry out local procurement of authentic raw materials to ensure that the taste of dishes was consistent;
In the industrial production link, the use of the chef's processing methods, exclusive recipes and processes to achieve the industrial process of SOP, restore the taste of small pot stir-fry; and then through the self-developed "micron frozen lock fresh" and "physical instantaneous freeze antiseptic" technology to restore the taste, control and ensure the stability of the taste.
At the same time, in terms of consumer feedback, with reference to the research methods of traditional consumer goods companies and Internet companies, combined with quantitative research and channel feedback to improve products, so that online products are closer to user needs.
However, in the industrialization process of taste reduction, Wang Biao, founder of Taste Lion, mentioned to the titanium media APP that the entire supply chain is relatively mature for home cooking, but the maturity of authentic specialty products is not high, so they still spend a lot of time and energy, repeatedly looking for methods and means in the whole industry, improving process levels and production standards, and signing some relatively exclusive protection with the factory, combined with the latest equipment, in order to achieve 1:1 restoration of the taste of the restaurant recipe.
The track is getting more and more rolled, and in the supply chain industry, ORG, a listed company that does food and beverage packaging, looks for a breakthrough through packaging technology.
Some executives of former upstream traditional breeding companies told titanium media APP that supply chain homogenization is common in the prefabricated vegetable track, and Chinese is more likely to have this problem than Western style.
"Most of the factories are originally OEM, they don't do To C, give a brand OEM a fire, other small brands, especially most of the Chinese products are easy to find, I also want this thing, can't stop it."
However, the top suppliers of western-style upstream do not usually take orders from start-ups, and the supply chain channels of Chinese prefabricated dish brands are more likely to compete with the factory, which forces companies to create extremely differentiated products.
"Because many pre-cooking products that do not take the general product and take the extremely differentiated pre-cooking products are based on their respective requirements to transform the product line." Therefore, the production capacity may not be able to meet the orders of a family, and the supply chain will not have a richer production capacity to receive orders from brands that want to imitate. ”
The creation of this extremely differentiated ability continues to put forward new requirements for large-scale capacity production, rapid iterative update of products and cost control.
Going offline, it will be a fierce battle
Whether it is online e-commerce, short video platforms, or offline channel supermarkets, the data related to prepared dishes is growing at a faster rate.
According to the "Top Ten New Year Goods Data" released by Tmall, the sales volume of prepared dishes increased by 16 times year-on-year. Jingdong data mentioned that during the Spring Festival, the turnover of semi-finished dishes in small packages for 1 to 2 people increased by 3.5 times year-on-year.
Multi-point Dmall told titanium media APP that this year's Spring Festival, the sale of Chinese New Year's Eve rice pre-made dishes is the highlight of Beijing Wumei. Compared with last year, the number of Wumart pre-made SKUs increased by 95% year-on-year, omni-channel sales increased by 85% year-on-year, and online sales of multi-point APP accounted for 49%.
In the C-end offline channels, the new retail represented by Hema and the frozen product area of the member stores and fresh supermarkets represented by Sam, the proportion of prefabricated dishes is getting higher and higher, and the sales of prefabricated Dishes in Hema this year have increased by 345% year-on-year compared with last year's Spring Festival.
All new players are in a very early state, and the basic amount of pre-made dishes in each channel is almost at the same starting line.
"It's hard to say which channel of prefabricated dishes is now laid out to have more basic advantages, after all, they are all categories that have only warmed up online since 2020." Wang Biao, founder of Taste Lion, told titanium media APP, "Picture display is easy to fake, and the product of prefabricated dishes is more closely integrated with video, so doing video and live broadcasting on Douyin and Kuaishou is more conducive to attracting consumers than doing pictures and texts on Tmall and Jingdong." ”
But in general, most new brands start online, and the offline channel layout is still in the initial exploration stage, far from being as lively as online. Leo told titanium media App that COOOOK light cooking has also begun to enter the offline channel since the end of last year.
No accident, like the new brands in other tracks, the offline market of prefabricated new brands is also a long-term process, not a smooth road.
"Practitioners and the outside world need to have a reverence for offline channels." Leo, the founder of COOOOK Light Cooking, had experience as an executive in traditional FMCG such as Procter & Gamble and New Hope before creating Light Cooking, and he believes that "offline is not online, and offline needs to be low-profile, down-to-earth, and attack little by little." ”
In the current offline channels, the barriers and consumer base of old brands are also deeper.
Titanium media APP learned from the digital retail platform multi-point Dmall that according to the data of the multi-point DMALL OS commodity system procurement and marketing platform, in the category of prepared dishes, northern cuisine, sheep scorpion, and tendon head are the first choice of consumers during the Spring Festival.
Although these traditional Chinese prefabricated cuisine brands are also facing regional problems that are difficult to break through the limitations of time and space, consumers have obvious brand effects when purchasing pre-made dishes, and pre-made dishes endorsed by established catering brands such as Lao Cheng Yi Guo and Ziguang Yuan are more popular.
"Overall, the C-end market for prefabricated dishes is still on the big snow track of the incremental market, and the opportunities in the incremental market are far more than the stock market, but the prefabricated dishes want to do a good job in the future or walk on two legs, and the B and C ends eat everything." Leo, founder of COOOOK Light Cooking, stressed to the Titanium Media APP that they also have to consider cross-category and global channel marketing.
Can't kill offline, can't fight street battles, and is difficult to become a giant. The new brands will go offline next, and it will be a fierce battle.
Opportunity and chaos coexist
Behind the fiery VC investment, chaos abounds.
The prefabricated vegetable track is hot, but in the eyes of capital, it is not necessarily a long-term logic behind this, and it may also be chaotic.
Yu Keqiang, an investor in Dinglin Capital, told Titanium Media APP that the core of the institution's current investment in the prefabricated vegetable track lies in products and channels.
"In terms of products, it is mainly the product categories and the logic of product expansion; channels are traditional channels online and offline, but online channels are easy to brush single data." In addition, it is currently difficult for capital to make a comprehensive standard for the prefabricated vegetable track.
An important factor is that traditional big restaurants have always been difficult to make into big companies, because each chef's style is different, especially difficult to standardize. There is only one special category of hot pot, which can be standardized, chained, and listed.
In the process of investing in popular tracks, major VCs have also begun to roll in among institutions. "Now it is the investment institutions that are mutually involved, and the investors behind the investment are desperately fooled early, and they run away first, and the institutions behind them become the receivers."
Some investors have also mentioned to the titanium media APP that most investment institutions are companies that cannot manage the investment, "for example, if you invest in Xicha, can you finally go public, can you make money to exit, they think that this Xicha you must not die at least in these two years, and you have to wait until the end of my next fund fundraising." The next fund raises funds well, the management fee is received in the pocket, and the project in front of you is not a big problem when it dies, and it is better to make money. ”
But right now, opportunity is also coexisting with chaos.
"It's amazing that the pre-made dish doesn't have a faucet on the To C side at the moment."
Some practitioners in the prefabricated vegetable industry told the Titanium Media APP that even if there are too many things that need to be overcome, entrepreneurs can still find their own positioning and needs to innovate according to their own resources and advantages, and he believes that there will be industry consensus and standards in the future.
A number of new brands of prepared dishes told Titanium Media APP that they want to capture white-collar, female, single or small family groups in first- and second-tier cities with larger categories, frequencies and volumes.
But in the sinking market, there are actually huge opportunities hidden, and the competition is far from saturated.
After 95, Chen Qiang told Titanium Media APP that his hometown, located in an eighteen-line county town in Shandong, has recently begun to open offline community stores for pre-made dishes and semi-finished meat dishes.
For consumers in the sinking market, the core attraction must be low prices, and additional services do not constitute barriers. Analogy, the new tea brand that has experienced rapid growth and then laid off employees and lost money, is now difficult to penetrate into the sinking market, and the county occupied by low-cost milk tea brands will also be surrounded by low-cost pre-made vegetable stores in the future?
Li Lihong, CEO of Silver Food, a new retail channel brand focusing on the sinking market, once said that counties and townships are acquaintances' society, and the price advantage will naturally form word-of-mouth communication. The price of prepared dishes on e-commerce platforms is generally higher than that of county and township restaurants, and the price of silver food products is 30% lower than that of vegetable farms.
This means that the sinking market will usher in a price war in the future.
Because of the difference in eating habits, the development reference significance of specific dishes of Japanese pre-made dishes is not very strong, but from the perspective of the overall trend of change, the Japanese pre-made vegetable market has also experienced a variety of tricks from the to B end of the preheated dishes to the development of To C end dishes, and the size of the players chasing the blue ocean.
Four years ago, Yuanqi Forest took the lead in cutting into the zero-sugar zero-fat zero-calorie track, and today, food and beverage giants such as Coca-Cola have been using superior resources to seize the market. Nowadays, in addition to the giants of traditional quick-frozen, catering, and fresh e-commerce, the upstream aquaculture industry of domestic pre-made dishes or the processing industry of Chia Tai Food, Shengnong Food, Shuanghui and New Hope have actually begun to gradually derive their own new brands.
Mr. Z, who has been in the traditional quick-frozen industry for many years, told titanium media APP that the advantages and disadvantages of the leading enterprises in the upstream aquaculture industry or the processing industry layout of the prefabricated vegetable track are very obvious.
These leading enterprises usually allocate resources to To C in the production capacity of To B, and have the advantages of upstream collection and procurement, raw material costs, factory ownership, quality control management, the ultimate supply chain control method and large-scale production.
However, these traditional giants are usually factories and raw materials thinking, and it is difficult to be flexible in the distribution channels and brand building capabilities of new retail channels and To C. The competition in the current market is not just a test of the production level of enterprises, but whether it can quickly and accurately gain insight into the needs of end consumers.
Mr. Z pointedly pointed out, "The products they make are often not amazing or just very rough to make To B's products small, so it is easy to make chases." However, the most important target of the current pre-made dishes is the needs of young users after 85-95. ”
Not to mention that the giant turned around, the most direct and effective way to avoid corporate risks is still acquisition.
He is more optimistic about the product attributes of the catering team and the entry of FMCG brands, "The insight of daily chemical and makeup skin care brands on consumer needs is the ultimate, and they have also been trained to build brands, if the supply chain is made up for this lesson, it will also be a new force that cannot be underestimated in the prefabricated dish track." ”
Titanium media APP editors have also purchased some prefabricated products derived from the upstream aquaculture industry or the leading manufacturers of the processing industry many times online and offline, but they are generally bulk products, and at the same time, in terms of refinement and deliciousness, they will indeed have a certain distance from new brands, and it is more difficult to mention the pot gas.
Run fast enough to become a giant, but products, channels and brand building are indispensable. The aforementioned prefabricated vegetable industry practitioners told the Titanium Media APP, "Now some KOLs develop their own online red prefabricated vegetable products, but they do not have supply chain, channel advantages and the ability to continuously innovate products, and it is difficult to imagine where their long-term brand advantages lie in the future." ”
"In addition, because the production line of frozen dumplings and meat products is completely different from the production line of frozen pre-made vegetables, the traditional faucet may be played more slowly."
But he did not hide his sense of urgency and concern about the new brand breaking the prefabrication track, "I think the new brand has a window of two to three years to build a brand advantage, the action is too slow, it will be reacted to by the traditional giants." ”
After all, when the craze subsides, you don't know who is swimming naked.
Right now, on the eve of the prefabricated outbreak, we are still waiting for the first unicorn giant to appear.
(This article was first published on the Titanium Media APP, interviewed and written by | Liu Dafang, edited by |, and some of the interview subjects in the article are pseudonyms)