Prepared dishes: a new trend in catering

With the improvement of people's living standards, the development of cold chain logistics, the stay-at-home economy and the "lazy economy", the number of professional women, cooking amateurs, and singles continues to expand, and the consumer and personal user markets of prepared dishes are booming.

Buddha jumps over the wall, spicy crayfish, pickled fish, Dongpo elbow, lamb scorpion, spicy grilled fish... During the Spring Festival of the Year of the Rabbit, the "hard dishes" and "big dishes" on the reunion dinner table of thousands of families may no longer take days to prepare. With the help of the dishes, cooking rookies can also easily be competent chefs for the New Year's Eve dinner.

With the improvement of people's living standards, the development of cold chain logistics, the stay-at-home economy and the "lazy economy", the number of professional women, cooking amateurs, and singles continues to expand, and the consumer and personal user markets of prepared dishes are booming.

However, while prefabricated dishes are popular, voices of doubt are also coming and going. Some people questioned that it is fraudulent for restaurants to heat up prepared dishes and sell them to customers.

What is a prepared dish?

"I know that pre-made dishes are not the best, but they are better than my own. When takeaways cannot be delivered in time, pre-made dishes can make me eat hot meals." "Post-90s" consumer Li Bingyu told "Looking East "Weekly Magazine", you don't need to choose and wash vegetables and chop them, and you don't have to worry about poor cooking skills. You can tear open the package, heat it up, and you can serve it on the table. The pre-made dishes successfully solved her eating problem.

In recent years, the prefabricated food market has been booming. In addition to the high-profile layout of leading companies in the catering, home appliance, and cold chain industries, relevant industry associations have stepped up to formulate standards, and local governments are scrambling to issue regulatory documents. The "2022 Digital Consumption Report of China's Prefabricated Vegetables" shows that the market size of prefabricated vegetables will be about 300 billion yuan in 2021, and the compound annual growth rate has remained at 20% in the past 10 years. It is expected that the market size will reach more than 400 billion yuan in 2022.

"The most nutritious and safest food must come from your own kitchen. We advocate that everyone cook at home more often, but the pace of life in modern society is fast. For those who find it difficult to cook at home, they can choose prepared dishes that suit them." Capital Healthcare Wang Xufeng, president of the Society of Nutrition and Gourmet, told "Oriental Outlook Weekly" that his family also often buys some convenient breakfast and food such as isinglass to enrich the family dining table.

What is a prepared dish? The "Prefabricated Vegetables" group standard issued by the China Cuisine Association in June 2022 clearly defines: "Using one or more agricultural products as the main raw material, using standardized flow operations, pre-processing (such as cutting, stirring, pickling, rolling, etc.) , shaping, seasoning, etc.) and/or pre-cooking (such as frying, frying, roasting, boiling, steaming, etc.), and pre-packaged finished or semi-finished dishes."

The standard divides prepared dishes into three categories: ready-to-eat/instant-heated prepared dishes, ready-to-cook prepared dishes and pre-made clean dishes. Instant meals include eight-treasure porridge and instant canned food. Instant dishes include quick-frozen glutinous rice balls and self-heating hot pots.

Yang Liu, president of the China Cuisine Association, said that the explosive growth of the prepared dishes industry is the result of a combination of many factors: First, with the development of China's economy, residents' incomes have increased and residents' consumption has become more diversified, laying an economic foundation for the development of prepared dishes; Under the background of the previous epidemic prevention and control, people's catering consumption habits and consumption scenes have undergone tremendous changes; third, the supply chain of the catering industry has been continuously improved, and the progress of logistics distribution system and cold chain technology has solved the problem of procurement, storage and processing for the development of prepared dishes. Sales and other technical problems; Fourth, in recent years, the standardization of China's catering industry has been continuously improved, which is conducive to the large-scale development of the prepared vegetable industry. In addition, the capital market's favor for prepared dishes is also an important reason.

"The individual consumer (C-end) market is expected to become the main growth engine. Enterprise users and merchants (B-end) accumulate customer resources, and the C-end improves brand awareness." Zheng Simin, chairman of Delis Group, told "Oriental Outlook Weekly", as An enterprise that got involved in the prepared vegetable industry earlier, Delisi has made efforts on the B side and has developed relatively maturely. In recent years, due to the prevention and control of the epidemic, the development of prefabricated dishes has entered a period of rapid growth. Delis is currently digging deep into the demand to break through the C-end. In addition to cooperating with e-commerce and new retail projects, it is also actively expanding new networks and communicating with community fresh food stores, convenience stores, and chain stores to enhance product market visibility.