During the special period of the epidemic, the restaurant material bag, which was originally uncommon, began to move from behind the scenes to the stage.
On the one hand, this is a means for restaurants to save themselves under the background of stagnation of offline consumption; On the other hand, the prefabricated dishes represented by material bags are undergoing structural changes from b-end to C-end, and under the influence of the epidemic, the restaurant has become a new promoter.
At present, the prefabricated dishes are still dominated by the b-end, and the C-end is still in the stage of cultivating the consumer market. At the same time, the C-end is also regarded as an important layout for the commodity licensing of prefabricated vegetable production. Under the epidemic situation, the general effect of selling prefabricated vegetables in restaurants, the “cold” of community group buying prefabricated vegetables, and the limitations of cost performance and diversification are still the challenges for prefabricated vegetable production enterprises to expand towards the C-end.
epidemic restaurants sell prefabricated dishes
“Since we are not allowed to eat in the hall due to the epidemic, we are all focused on takeout.” A clerk at a western restaurant on Jinhui Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, who specializes in oysters, steak and Seafood Hotpot, told the financial associated press.
The shop usually has a unit price of about 500 yuan. It is a relatively high-end western restaurant in Beijing. When the store is hungry, the delivery price from the platform is 238 yuan and the delivery fee is 11 yuan.
According to the clerk, the original takeout only sold seafood or raw beef and other ingredients. A prefabricated hot pot set meal was launched in late April this year.
In Shanghai, where the epidemic is more serious, many restaurants on the takeout platform also sell a variety of prefabricated dishes, including prefabricated bags or raw materials. On the takeout page of a restaurant on middle Huaihai Road in Shanghai, there are no finished dishes sold at ordinary times, but packages of ingredients such as fried chicken nuggets, cooked soybeans and Japanese beef well topping. The customer service specialist of the store said that these products are “imported goods from others”, and these material bags will not be used in the store at ordinary times. He said that the store has not been opened normally since it is still in the “silent period”. A well-known chain Japanese ramen shop even launched self heating Ramen on the takeout platform, with tutorials attached.
In the context of catering industrialization, it is no secret that restaurants use prefabricated dishes. However, when the epidemic situation presses the offline consumption pause button, considering the difficulty of restoring the hall food, the pressure of raw material inventory and operation, and the safety of takeout products, the restaurant directly launches prefabricated dishes on the takeout platform as an expedient measure.
The clerk of a Jiangnan cuisine chain restaurant in Shanghai Universal Port stressed to the financial associated press that prefabricated dishes are only an emergency special option for the restaurant in a special period. In the future, if the epidemic situation improves, it will still focus on Hall food catering.
The chain restaurant has launched a series of “anti epidemic prefabricated dishes” on the takeout platform, including Tomahawk steak, crayfish, abalone ginseng wing belly, pork with plum vegetables, fried yellow beef and so on. However, the store told reporters that a variety of prefabricated dishes are out of stock and cannot be ordered. The reason is that this batch of prefabricated dishes is “supplied by Hangzhou and the supply is unstable”.
However, even when the hall food was seriously affected during the epidemic, most restaurants did not rely on prefabricated dishes to survive, but still focused on the following daily fast food. At present, the effect of boosting the overall catering takeout sales is not significant, and the popularity of prefabricated dishes with limited types is far less than that of finished dishes.
It is worth noting that consumers have very different attitudes towards this.
The night before the closure of Shanghai, Jiang Li, a “post-90s” girl, snapped up a “prefabricated vegetable blind box” on the platform for 200 yuan. This is the first time she bought a prefabricated dish. After opening it, she found that “the ingredients are very good, the meat and vegetables are matched, and the cooking instructions are attached”. During her stay at home, she began to pay attention to the prefabricated takeout launched by the restaurant.
She found that Xibei also launched “Jia Guolong Kung Fu cuisine”; Yunhai cuisine directly displayed the poster of “home finished dishes, home semi-finished products, 7.9% off for the whole audience”.
Different from Jiang Li’s acceptance of prefabricated dishes, Yang Zhe, who also lives in Shanghai, found on the hungry platform that some restaurants that had eaten in the store began to sell cooking bags. It turned out that these products were what he ate at ordinary times, which was difficult for him to accept.
prefabricated vegetable manufacturer’s C-end road
According to AI media consulting data, the scale of China’s Prefabricated vegetable market was 345.9 billion yuan in 2021, with a year-on-year increase of 19.77%. It is expected that the scale of China’s Prefabricated vegetable market will reach 1.07 trillion yuan in 2026.
As of January 27, 2022, there were 68100 enterprises related to Chinese prefabricated vegetables. Recently, many enterprises have continued to enter the Bureau, and Yihai Kerry Arawana Holdings Co.Ltd(300999) ( Yihai Kerry Arawana Holdings Co.Ltd(300999) . SZ), Jinling Hotel Corporation Ltd(601007) ( Jinling Hotel Corporation Ltd(601007) . SH), Zhengzhou Qianweiyangchu Food Co.Ltd(001215) ( Zhengzhou Qianweiyangchu Food Co.Ltd(001215) . SZ) and other enterprises have released signals of starting prefabricated dishes. In addition, companies such as Zhongjing Food Co.Ltd(300908) ( Zhongjing Food Co.Ltd(300908) . SZ), Jiangsu Hengshun Vinegar-Industry Co.Ltd(600305) ( Jiangsu Hengshun Vinegar-Industry Co.Ltd(600305) . SH), Foshan Haitian Flavouring And Food Company Ltd(603288) ( Foshan Haitian Flavouring And Food Company Ltd(603288) . SH) also said to start the research or layout of prefabricated dishes.
In the prefabricated vegetable industry, absolute large-scale enterprises have not yet appeared. A number of listed companies are vigorously expanding production capacity, increasing scale advantages and seizing the leading position. In 2022, Shandong Delisi Food Co.Ltd(002330) , Springsnow Food Group Co.Ltd(605567) , Shandong Xiantan Co.Ltd(002746) and other new production capacity will be put into operation. Among them, Shandong Delisi Food Co.Ltd(002330) plans to add 4 times of the current capacity.
At present, Chinese prefabricated dishes are still in the early stage of development, and the market is still dominated by b-end. Li Jikai, chief economist of East Asia think tank and secretary general and President of the academic committee of Beijing Cade Institute of modern agricultural science and technology, told the associated press that large enterprises have the advantages of industrial chain, quality and scale. At present, the advantage of b-end is more obvious, and the industry will tend to be concentrated in the future.
Springsnow Food Group Co.Ltd(605567) ( Springsnow Food Group Co.Ltd(605567) . SH) at present, the proportion of b-end and C-end of prefabricated dishes is about 8:2. The epidemic has reduced the consumption of b-end food, and the online consumption of homestay orders has exploded, catalyzing the consumption of C-end. Seeing the trend of C-end channels in the market, the company stressed in its annual report that it will implement the synchronous development strategy of b-end and C-end Suzhou Weizhixiang Food Co.Ltd(605089) ( Suzhou Weizhixiang Food Co.Ltd(605089) . SH) also said during the investigation of the reception organization that it would work simultaneously at the B and C ends to actively explore and try new channels and tap potential users.
However, for the suppliers of prefabricated dishes, the C-end is regarded as a crucial step in branding. Zhu danpeng, an analyst of China’s food industry, said that the only way for China’s Prefabricated dishes in the future is to “walk on two legs at the b-end and C-end”. The b-end can quickly form a scale effect, but the brand effect needs to be built through the C-end. Therefore, at the same time, it will be the core direction of the development of prefabricated dishes in the future.
However, in the C-end retail market, prefabricated dishes face the problems of cost performance and difficult to adjust.
Li Jikai believes that, on the one hand, the proportion of prefabricated vegetable production enterprises transformed from traditional Shenzhen Agricultural Products Group Co.Ltd(000061) processing enterprises is relatively large, resulting in serious problems of small, scattered and disorderly industrial development; On the other hand, subject to the characteristics of Chinese food, some dishes with complex tastes and factory and standardized tastes of prefabricated dishes are difficult to meet the needs of consumers.
Springsnow Food Group Co.Ltd(605567) Board Secretary Li Yanlin told the financial associated press that the company would further increase investment in production technology research and development and product research and development, bid farewell to the low-level “cooking package” prefabricated dishes, make great efforts in product taste, and take “high reduction” as the research and development goal. In May, the company just released 12 new spring products Shandong Delisi Food Co.Ltd(002330) ( Shandong Delisi Food Co.Ltd(002330) . SZ) also launched a variety of new products of prefabricated dishes last year. The company’s R & D investment in 2021 increased by 203.66% year-on-year.
