Recently, the topic of "pre-made dishes into campus" has aroused widespread discussion among netizens.
Regarding whether pre-made dishes are safe, the experts interviewed believe that pre-made dishes are actually widely used in daily life, frozen dumplings, tangyuan, fast food restaurants such as McDonald's, KFC, as well as clean vegetable distribution and processing plants and central kitchens used by chain restaurants.
As a new thing, it is not advisable to "demonize" prefabricated dishes, but the contradiction between the rapidly developing trillion-level prefabricated vegetable industry and the relatively lagging standard system of prefabricated dishes does exist, which is the main problem in the current development of this industry.
Workers spot check the quality of prepared vegetable products. (Image courtesy of CNSPHOTO)
What is a pre-made dishThe so-called "pre-made dishes", according to the standards issued by the Chinese Cuisine Association, refer to one or more ingredients as the main raw materials, with or without auxiliary materials and condiments (including food additives), after washing, cutting, matching and other processing or stir-frying, frying, roasting, boiling, steaming and other techniques after cooking, divided into four categories: instant food, instant heating, instant cooking, and instant preparation.
Prepared dishes can be divided into four categories (4R food) in product form: ready to eat - ready to eat, such as eight treasure porridge; Ready to heat – products that can be eaten when heated, such as quick-frozen foods and instant noodles; Ready to cook – ingredients are processed to a certain extent and divided into portions, but processing is generally required to restore the original taste, but the cooking time is shortened, such as pre-made Kung Pao chicken; Ready to mix – a clean dish that has been screened, washed, cut and portioned, and needs to be cooked and seasoned by itself, such as a pre-made salad.
According to data from the China Chain Store and Franchise Association, at present, the largest downstream demand in the prepared vegetable industry comes from catering enterprises, accounting for 80%. Snack fast food restaurants, chain stores, catering outlets specializing in takeaway, rural kitchens, group catering canteens, etc. are the main scenarios for the application of pre-made dishes. Among them, some leading chain catering enterprises have a high proportion of pre-made dishes, and more than eighty percent of the dishes in some restaurants are pre-made dishes.
The person in charge of a large Chinese food chain told China Business Daily reporter: "Pre-made dishes are actually widespread, but there are some misunderstandings about pre-made dishes, thinking that pre-made dishes are cooking packages containing a lot of additives and 'zombie meat' frozen for several years." In fact, in the back kitchen of chain restaurants, many ingredients are pre-processed, pre-processed semi-finished ingredients, that is, commonly known as 'clean dishes', these ingredients are processed by the central kitchen, and then distributed to the restaurant for freshly processed, which must be cleaner and more efficient than freshly cut potatoes and freshly cut tomatoes in the restaurant. ”
The person in charge said that for restaurants, it is impossible not to pre-make at all. From the B-side, the industrial chain of pre-made dishes has a long history and is very mature, but from the C-side, due to the lack of popularization of relevant information, the acceptance of ordinary consumers for pre-made dishes is still low, and even there is rejection, the fundamental reason is the lack of unified standards, regulatory mechanisms and open and transparent information in the industry.
Prepared dishes are not "junk food"In recent years, the market size of prepared vegetables in mainland China has grown rapidly.
According to iMedia Consulting's "White Paper on the Development of China's Prepared Vegetables Industry in 2022", the scale of China's prepared vegetable market in 2022 will reach 419.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.3%. Forecast data shows that the market size of China's prepared vegetable industry can reach 516.5 billion yuan in 2023. It is expected that China's prepared vegetable market will maintain a high growth rate in the future, and the scale of the prepared vegetable market will reach 1,072 billion yuan in 2026.
Since the beginning of this year, the mainland has introduced a large number of policies to encourage the development of the prepared vegetable industry. The "Opinions on Comprehensively Promoting the Key Work of Rural Revitalization in 2023" issued in February this year clearly proposed to improve the standardization and standardization level of industries such as clean vegetables and central kitchens, and cultivate and develop the prepared vegetable industry. After prefabricated vegetables were written into the Central Document No. 1 for the first time, the National Development and Reform Commission requested that the construction of prefabricated vegetable bases be accelerated, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments have also included the prefabricated vegetable industry as a new economic growth point for cultivation and growth.
Industry insiders believe that in the first half of this year, mainland prefabricated dishes took the lead in entering the canteens of many government agencies, and also entered the campus, causing greater social repercussions, but its impact is mainly reflected in the ideological concept, the negative impact of real dishes is actually rare, most of them are due to lack of understanding of prefabricated dishes, or think that prefabricated dishes may have problems, causing a chain reaction.
In this regard, Hong Tao, director of the Business Research Institute of Beijing Technology and Business University, believes that prefabricated dishes are not "junk food", but a new consumption demand after the improvement of urban and rural residents' living standards, with a large market space, and a new growth point for the industrialization of dishes in the mainland, but also a new model for the development of dish e-commerce. The government's advocacy and guidance of the development of this industry has a multi-dimensional effect, which can also solve the homogenization problem of the current development of the catering dish industry and promote the structural optimization and upgrading of the catering dish industry.
There is an urgent need for unified standards in the industryIt is worth noting that although the market size is huge, the prepared vegetable industry as a whole is also facing many problems. For example, in this "pre-made dishes into school" incident, parents are worried about many additives, fresh ingredients, poor hygiene in the production workshop, nutrient loss, poor taste, etc., and there are potential food safety hazards in all links.
In addition, more and more companies are rushing into the field of prepared dishes, but there is still no unified national standard in the industry. According to the national standard information public service platform, up to now, there are a total of 193 current and numbered pre-made dish standards, including 8 local standards, 138 group standards, and 47 enterprise standards. Among the eight local standards, three are from Nanning, Guangxi, three from Baoding, Hebei Province, and two from Chongqing.
China Prepared Vegetables Industry Alliance believes that the current food safety standards for prepared dishes basically have rules to follow, mainly through the food safety standards of quick-frozen foods and pre-packaged foods to examine prepared vegetable foods, but there is no standard specifically for prepared dishes, let alone a dish standard system for catering scenarios.
"It's all called pre-made dishes now, but not all pre-made dishes are the same. Prefabrication is an important path for the catering industry, and it is a necessary path in some scenarios and fields. Prefabrication is not an end, but a means. Prepared dishes are largely used as dishes and catering products, and more and more products are mixed ingredients, meat and vegetable combinations, with watery cooking packages and ingredient packs; Many prepared vegetable products are cooked and processed in different degrees, doneness varies from product to product, the final product contains water, gum, these contents currently have no detailed standards, the description of the product and labeling standards need to be strengthened.
In addition, the taste texture in the shelf life of safe consumption may change, packaging and fresh-keeping material technology has a great impact on the taste and texture of the product during the shelf life, and frozen and cold, room temperature storage methods of dishes have clear differences in character, are called a dish name, but in fact, has been divided into different categories, this aspect of the label is currently not available. In addition, some products have requirements for thawing methods, reheating methods and reheating equipment, which currently need to optimize expression. The relevant person in charge of the China Prepared Vegetable Industry Alliance said.
The above-mentioned person in charge said that prefabricated dishes are standardized, industrialized and large-scale catering products, and they are also the carrier of the industrialization of the catering supply chain. Without a stable supply chain of major ingredients, no processing technology and equipment factory, no qualitative and quantitative nutrition and additive quantity indicators, and no link with controllable quality throughout the process, it is not a pre-made dish, these are the standards.
Hong Tao believes that the prefabricated vegetable industry needs to "hot innovation" + "cold exploration" in the future, and needs to develop, explore, and innovate, and now there is a third new wave of prefabricated dishes after fresh e-commerce and community e-commerce, so remember not to repeat the mistakes of fresh agricultural products and community group buying. The so-called "trillion-yuan industry" and "100-billion-level industrial cluster" are macroscopic points of view, specifically, they should be deeply cultivated, not pursued by "one nest of winds", and "one-size-fits-all" repeated construction and convergent investment. On the one hand, it is necessary to "heat innovation" and carry out enthusiastic innovation on new things; On the other hand, it is necessary to "cold exploration" and explore new development paths step by step.
(China Business Daily reporter He Yang)