Under the dual effect of repeated epidemic and new consumption scenarios, the prefabricated vegetable station catering to the “lazy economy” is on the air outlet. On April 18, the concept of prefabricated dishes continued to rise, and several stocks such as Fortune Ng Fung Food (Hebei) Co.Ltd(600965) , Shandong Xiantan Co.Ltd(002746) , Shandong Delisi Food Co.Ltd(002330) , Zhongbai Holdings Group Co.Ltd(000759) , Cnfc Overseas Fisheries Co.Ltd(000798) , etc. rose. In addition, from the Suzhou Weizhixiang Food Co.Ltd(605089) listing of “the first stock of Chinese prefabricated vegetables”, to more than 10 prefabricated vegetable enterprises such as Weijie, Zhenwei xiaomeiyuan and wangjiadu, which have obtained financing of 10 million yuan, and then to players such as HEMA and dingdong accelerating the layout of prefabricated vegetables, it is obvious that the prefabricated vegetable industry has entered a period of rapid development.
According to the data released by ncbd, a catering big data research and evaluation institution, the scale of China’s Prefabricated vegetable market has exceeded 300 billion yuan in 2021 and is expected to exceed 830 billion yuan in 2025. More analysts predict that with the gradual maturity of China’s Prefabricated vegetable industry, if its market scale continues to maintain a growth rate of more than 20%, it will reach trillion in the next five years. At the same time, in the face of the trillion industry boom, Guangdong, Shandong, Fujian, Hebei and other places have successively issued prefabricated vegetable industry development policies, aiming to build a “capital of prefabricated vegetables”, “100 billion industrial cluster” or “single champion enterprise”.
However, at present, there are still many problems in the prefabricated vegetable industry as a whole, such as low concentration, unbalanced regional development, inconsistent rules and norms, low entry threshold, few leading enterprises in the industry, mainly small and medium-sized enterprises scattered in the region, etc. In addition, with the exposure of problems such as “soil pit pickled vegetables” and the sale of expired food in convenience stores, food safety issues have been pushed into the spotlight again. Undoubtedly, the prefabricated vegetable industry is also facing many tests.
According to the information provided by the public opinion monitoring system of Jiangsu consumer network, from January 1 to February 10, 2022, there were a total of 56948 public opinions about the prefabricated dishes for new year’s Eve dinner in Jiangsu Province. Consumers generally reflected that the quality of the prefabricated dishes was uneven, some of them were cut corners in processing, the food materials were not fresh, the taste was poor, and problems related to logistics distribution and after-sales also occurred frequently.
It can be seen that while the industry is booming, the self-discipline and normative development of the industry can not be ignored.
According to the author, recently, in order to promote the healthy development of the prefabricated vegetable industry, the first national public welfare prefabricated vegetable industry self-discipline organization – China prefabricated vegetable industry alliance was officially established in Beijing. However, the author believes that for the prefabricated vegetable industry, only industry self-discipline is far from enough. Especially in the capital market, the construction of large industrial market also needs professional industrial standards and evaluation system. Previously, although the China Food Industry Association issued the group standard of prefabricated packaged dishes in 2019, the industry standard is still not detailed and lack of operability. At this year’s two sessions, Gao Mingqin, a deputy to the National People’s Congress, said that as new products and services on the tip of the tongue, the food safety and hygiene of prefabricated vegetables is also the most basic problem of the industry. Relevant departments need to formulate industry standards as soon as possible and standardize industry access conditions.
At the brand level, facing the trend of fierce competition in the capital market, many prefabricated vegetable enterprises have focused on product standardization and large-scale production. Taking Suzhou Weizhixiang Food Co.Ltd(605089) as an example, Suzhou Weizhixiang Food Co.Ltd(605089) will adopt different procurement strategies according to the nature of raw materials, while ensuring the integrity of the quality control system in the production process and the standardization of production. At the same time, in April this year, the official website of the China Cuisine Association issued a notice saying that the “product specification for prefabricated dishes” applied by Zhanjiang Guolian Aquatic Products Co.Ltd(300094) led by has been approved and pending subsequent release.
The author believes that in the near future, the hot prefabricated vegetable industry will obtain a longer-term development in the norms and standards.
