After the epidemic, more and more people became the habit of cooking at home. Catalyzed by the "lazy house economy", the pre-cooked dishes that can be eaten once heated have formed a market of 3 billion by meeting people's demand for "delicious and convenient". In the future, will prefabricated dishes become a necessity for young people's kitchens?

Prefabricated dishes are pre-made semi-finished dishes. Manufacturers process the dishes in advance through the central kitchen, and then freeze or vacuum package them for sale. After consumers buy pre-cooked dishes, they can eat them by heating or simply cooking.

that is to say, even if a person's cooking is not that good, he can cook delicious food with the help of prepared dishes.

in the past, prepared dishes were all prepared for catering businesses. However, after the epidemic in 22, the "lazy house economy" was booming, and the prepared dishes met people's demand for "delicious+convenient". The catering enterprises affected by the epidemic have also seized this life-saving straw to upgrade their business models. Head catering enterprises such as Haidilao, Yunhaiyao, Meizhou Dongpo and Xibei have launched prefabricated food products for ordinary consumers.

1. What is a prepared dish?

"Prefabricated dish" is a kind of special dish for banquet dishes and wine restaurants, which is complicated in the process of making dishes. Star chefs in food enterprises make professional analysis of all kinds of food raw materials through food industry methods, use different production methods for targeted research and development according to the different characteristics of ingredients, and use modern standardization to concentrate production and scientific packaging through the central kitchen; Using rapid freezing technology (MINUS 18 degrees) to preserve, in time to ensure the freshness and original flavor of dishes.

Precast dishes save the trouble of purchasing ingredients and simplify the production steps. After sanitary and scientific packaging, they can be directly used as convenient and special dishes on the table by cooking methods such as heating or steaming.

second, the classification of prefabricated vegetables?

Prefabricated dishes are made of agricultural products, livestock and poultry, aquatic products, etc., which can be directly cooked after washing, cutting and preparation. 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-made food, instant cooked food, instant hot food and instant food.

1) Ready-to-eat food refers to fresh 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) Instant food refers to semi-finished materials that need certain cooking steps before they can be eaten. According to the degree of processing, 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, lightly fried, etc.) and packaged with seasonings in portions for refrigeration or normal temperature preservation, and need to be put into the pot and fried with seasonings. Seasoned food heated by raw materials: refers to meat products, aquatic products, clean vegetables, etc. which have undergone preliminary physical processing such as cleaning and cutting, and need to be matched with side dishes and seasonings by themselves and eaten after frying.

3) Instant food refers to food that can be eaten only by heating, such as quick-frozen Aauto Quicker dishes which are very popular in recent years, including fast-food cooking packages, self-cooking pots, crayfish, fish-flavored shredded pork, Luo Songtang and so on.

4) Ready-to-eat food refers to prepared products that can be eaten directly after opening, such as chicken feet with pickled peppers, chicken legs and canned food. In addition, according to the packaging form, prefabricated vegetables can be divided into three categories: scattered 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 on the market, such as the Buddha jumping wall, braised horseshoe lion head, braised peanuts and pig hands, and other dishes with complicated production processes have been made into prefabricated dishes.

While the pre-cooked vegetables continue to be hot, it catalyzes 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 67,7 enterprises in the country whose business names or business scope include prepared dishes, among which the most new enterprises will be added in 22, with a growth rate of 2.81%.

in recent five years, the annual registered growth rate has averaged 19.3%, showing a steady growth. Among them, in 221, there were 3,921 newly registered enterprises, with a growth rate of 6.2%. According to the consulting data of Ai Media, it is estimated that the prefabricated vegetable market in China will maintain a high growth rate of about 2% in the future, and the scale of prefabricated vegetable market will reach 516.5 billion in 223. 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. According to the Top 1 Brands of China Prefabricated Vegetables in the First Half of 222 released by Ai Media Consulting, the number of listed brands in Shanghai ranks first, with 18 brands on the list, which means that the enterprises are fair and elegant; Followed by Guangdong Province, there are 1 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 successively introduced policies to guide the healthy development of the prefabricated vegetable industry. Since January 222, Gaoyao, Zhanjiang, Zhaoqing, Guangdong, Shouguang, Shandong and Zhucheng, Weifang have publicly stated that they want to build a "prepared food capital". Guangdong has upgraded the pre-cooked vegetables to a provincial key development industry and issued ten measures to promote the development of the pre-cooked vegetables industry.

on March 24th, 222, the General Office of the People's Government of Guangdong Province issued Ten Measures for Accelerating the High-quality Development of Guangdong's Prefabricated Vegetable Industry (referred to as "Ten Prefabricated Vegetables" for short), striving to cultivate a number of leading enterprises and individual champion enterprises with national and even global influence within five years.

some people in the industry 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, and food and beverage stir-fried dishes, 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, we can match the suitable technology and choose better raw materials. This process is the key to the sound development of the prefabricated vegetable market. "

online platforms publish portraits of consumers of pre-cooked dishes, showing that consumers aged 22-31 account for more than 43%, and consumers in first-and second-tier cities account for more than 8%. Consumers' core comments on pre-cooked dishes are "saving time" and "delicious". It can be seen that in the city life with fast working pace and pursuit of good food, solving the kitchen problem of "can't cook, is not delicious, and has 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 concepts, prefabricated vegetables and take-away cooking bags are indistinguishable from each other. After all, in recent years, news media reported that the production environment of cooking bags manufacturers is very bad, which is synonymous with unhealthy and preservative-rich. In fact, prefabricated vegetables and cooking bags are very different.

Prefabricated dishes are definitely safer in the production environment than cooking bags, and the raw materials are 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, the prefabricated dishes are frozen rapidly, and they are safe to eat without adding preservatives, which preserves the original taste of the dishes to a greater extent and tastes more delicious.

Young consumers' high acceptance of prepared dishes has also quietly triggered new changes on the dinner table. For example, in January 222, JD.COM Fresh's overall sales of prefabricated dishes exceeded 1 million yuan, up 94% year-on-year, and Xinya Chef's New Year's Eve gift package and Xibei Eight-course boutique food gift box sold well.

Fourth, a trick to prepare dishes saves 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 accurate 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 cannot be compared with that of fried food, because the freshness has changed.

at present, although there is still a long way to go in cultivating 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 and "lazy house" lifestyle, are supporting the development of this industry. In the future, prefabricated dishes are likely to become a regular item in young people's kitchens.