Prefabricated dishes are semi-finished dishes made in advance. Manufacturers process the dishes through the central kitchen in advance, and then freeze or vacuum package them for sale. After consumers buy pre-cooked dishes, they can eat them by heating or simple cooking.
In other words, even if a person's cooking is not so good, he can use prefabricated dishes to cook delicious food that he can't usually cook.
In the past, pre-cooked dishes were all prepared for catering businesses. However, after the epidemic in 2020, the "lazy house economy" flourished, and the prepared dishes met people's demand for "delicious+convenient". Catering enterprises affected by the epidemic have also seized this lifeline and upgraded their business models. Head catering enterprises such as Haidilao, Yunhaiyao, Meizhou Dongpo, Xibei, etc. have launched pre-prepared foods for ordinary consumers.
1. What is a prepared dish?
"Prefabricated dishes" are special dishes of banquets and restaurants, and the production process is complicated. Star chefs in food enterprises make professional analysis of all kinds of food raw materials through food industry methods, adopt different production methods for targeted research and development according to the different characteristics of ingredients, and make centralized production and scientific packaging through modern standardization in the central kitchen; Adopt quick-freezing technology (below zero 18 degrees) to keep fresh and ensure the freshness and original flavor of dishes in time.
Prefabricated dishes save the trouble of purchasing ingredients and simplify the production steps. After sanitary and scientific packaging, it can be directly used as a convenient special dish on the table by cooking methods such as heating or steaming.
Second, the classification of prefabricated vegetables?
Prefabricated dishes take agricultural products, livestock and poultry, aquatic products as raw materials. After cleaning, cutting and processing, it can be directly cooked. Prefabricated dishes are convenient, fresh and healthy, and the rich choice of dishes can meet the tastes of people in different parts of the country, and gradually become a favorite product of families and catering industry. According to the degree of processing from difficult to easy, prefabricated vegetables can be divided into four categories: ready-to-eat, instant food, instant heat and instant food.
1) Convenience food refers to fresh and clean vegetables, small pieces of meat and other foods formed by preliminary processing such as cleaning and cutting, and the processing degree is relatively complicated.
2) Convenience food refers to semi-finished materials that can only be eaten after certain cooking steps. According to the processing degree, it can be further divided into two types:
Clinker heated seasoning food: refers to semi-finished vegetables that have been relatively processed (pickled, seasoned, rolled, shallow fried, etc.). ), and packaged with seasonings in parts, refrigerated or stored at room temperature, and need to be put into a pot and fried with seasonings. Seasoned food heated by raw materials: refers to meat products, aquatic products, clean vegetables, etc. After washing, cutting and other preliminary physical processing, you need to mix your own side dishes and seasonings and eat them after frying.
3) Fast food refers to foods that can only be eaten by heating. For example, quick-frozen Aauto dishes, which are very popular in recent years, include fast-food cooking packages, self-cooking pots, crayfish, fish-flavored shredded pork, Luo Songtang and so on.
4) Ready-to-eat food refers to cooked food that can be eaten directly after opening, such as pickled chicken feet, chicken legs, canned food, etc. In addition, according to the packaging form, prefabricated vegetables can be divided into three categories: bulk sales, small packaging and large packaging. According to the storage and transportation methods, it can be divided into four categories: cold storage, quick freezing, hot chain and normal temperature.
With the diversification of consumer demand and the continuous development of industry technology, there are more and more kinds of prefabricated dishes in the market, such as Buddha jumping wall, braised horseshoe lion head, braised peanut pig's hand and other dishes with complicated production techniques are all made into prefabricated dishes.
Precast dishes continue to be hot, and at the same time catalyze the development of the industry. According to the data of Tianyancha, the number of related prefabricated vegetable enterprises has increased significantly. Up to now, there are about 67,700 enterprises in China whose business names or business scope include prepared dishes, among which the most new enterprises will be established in 2020, with a growth rate of 20.8 1%.
In the past five years, the average annual registered growth rate was 19.3%, showing a steady growth trend. Among them, in 20021year, there were 392 newly registered enterprises1family, with a growth rate of 6.2%. According to the consulting data of Ai Media, it is predicted that the assembled vegetable market in China will maintain a high growth rate of about 20% in the future, and the size of the assembled vegetable market will reach 5165 billion in 2023. In the next six to seven years, China's prefabricated vegetable industry is expected to achieve a scale of more than 3 trillion yuan and become the "next trillion catering market".
This "big cake" has attracted many enterprises to carve it up. The top 100 brands of prefabricated vegetables in China released by Ai Media Consulting in the first half of 2022 show that the number of brands on the list ranks first, with 18 brands on the list, which means that the company is fair and elegant; Followed by Guangdong Province, there are 10 brands on the list, and the representative enterprises are Guolian Aquatic Products and Guangzhou Restaurant.
In addition to the influx of capital, local governments have also introduced policies to guide the healthy development of the prefabricated vegetable industry. Since June 5438 +2022 10, Guangdong Gaoyao, Zhanjiang, Zhaoqing, Shandong Shouguang and Weifang have publicly stated that they want to build a "cooked food capital". Guangdong promoted pre-cooked vegetables to provincial key development industries and introduced ten measures to promote the development of pre-cooked vegetables industry.
On March 24th, 2022, the General Office of Guangdong Provincial People's Government issued "Ten Measures to Accelerate the High-quality Development of Guangdong Prefabricated Vegetable Industry" (referred to as "Ten Prefabricated Vegetables"), striving to cultivate a number of leading enterprises and individual champion enterprises with influence in the whole country and even the whole world within five years.
Some insiders believe that bringing local characteristics to all parts of the country is also the development direction of prefabricated dishes. In the past, most localized goods, local snacks, cooking and cooking, due to the limitations of production conditions and supply chain, could only stay in the local area and become delicious food passed down by local people.
"With the development of food industry and logistics transportation, it is a development direction of prefabricated dishes to bring local characteristics to all parts of the country through central kitchen production and cold chain logistics transportation. To be a consumer-oriented prefabricated dish commodity, it is necessary to meet the needs of consumers. Then, according to these needs and commodities, match the appropriate technology and choose better raw materials. This process is the key to the sound development of the prefabricated vegetable market. "
Consumer portraits of pre-cooked dishes published on the online platform show that consumers aged 22-3 1 year account for more than 43%, and consumers in first-and second-tier cities account for more than 80%. Consumers' core evaluation of pre-cooked dishes is "saving time" and "delicious". It can be seen that in the city life with fast working pace and pursuit of delicious food, solving the kitchen problem of "no cooking, no taste and no time" is an important reason why prefabricated dishes are favored by netizens.
3. What's the difference between a prepared dish and a cooking bag?
In many young people's minds, prefabricated vegetables and take-away cooking bags are confused. After all, in recent years, the news media reported that the production environment of cooking bag manufacturers is very bad, which is synonymous with unhealthy and preservative-rich. In fact, prefabricated vegetables are very different from cooking bags.
Precast dishes are certainly safer than cooking bags in the production environment, and the raw materials are also carefully selected. Every dish has been repeatedly debugged by the chef, and finally the dish that best meets the public's taste is tested. The preservative problem that everyone is most concerned about is that the prefabricated vegetables are quickly frozen without preservatives, which is safe to eat, retains the original flavor of the vegetables to a greater extent and tastes more delicious.
Young consumers' high acceptance of prefabricated dishes has also quietly triggered new changes on the dining table. For example, in June 2022, the overall sales of JD.COM Fresh Food exceeded RMB10 million, up 94% year-on-year. The sales of Xinya Chef's New Year's Eve gift package and Xibei Eight-way boutique food gift box were hot.
Fourth, the pre-made dishes save you who don't want to cook!
Although the prefabricated vegetable industry has formed a certain scale and consumption habits, it still faces some challenges.
On the one hand, compared with western food, Chinese food will encounter some problems in the process of quantification. Many western foods have a quantifiable and precise cooking system. As long as the temperature, time, maturity and seasoning ratio are well controlled according to the recipe, it is not a problem to cook a delicious meal. However, the texture of Chinese food after quantification can't be compared with fried food, because the freshness has changed.
At present, although there is still a long way to go to cultivate consumers' minds, the demand behind the rise of prefabricated dishes does exist. The needs of catering businesses to reduce costs and increase efficiency, as well as people's fast-paced, "lazy house" lifestyle, are supporting the development of this industry. In the future, prefabricated dishes are likely to become routine items in young people's kitchens.