Prefabricated dishes have become the new favorite of the capital market, who is the winner in the trillion market?

The approaching spring festival and the impact of the "local New Year" policy have made listed companies related to prefabricated dishes continue to rise and fall. As of Jan. 20, Delis (002330. SZ) for 7 consecutive days, Jinling Hotel (601007. SH), Haixin Food (002702. SZ) and Fucheng Shares (600965.SH) have been up and down for four consecutive trading days, and Guolian Aquatic Products (300094.SZ) has risen by about 100% since 2022.

Previously, consumers' doubts about the flavor of prepared dishes were a common problem faced by many people in the industry. However, with the development of supply chain and logistics, consumers' acceptance of prepared dishes is getting higher and higher, and the requirements for taste and quality have also increased.

Upstream and downstream enterprises have entered the bureau

Prefabricated dishes refer to finished or semi-finished products made of agriculture, livestock, poultry and aquatic products as raw materials, with various auxiliary materials, and pre-processed (such as slicing, stirring, pickling, rolling, forming, and seasoning). Pre-made dishes eliminate the trouble of food procurement, simplify the production steps, consumers after purchase, after simple processing or even no processing can be eaten, with convenient and efficient characteristics.

At present, the main participants in the prepared vegetable industry can be roughly divided into five types: professional prefabricated vegetable enterprises, upstream agriculture, animal husbandry and aquatic products enterprises, traditional frozen food enterprises, catering enterprises and retail enterprises.

Among them, professional pre-made vegetable enterprises include Weizhixiang (605089. SH) and other enterprises, Guolian Aquatic Products, Chunxue Food (605567.SH) is the representative of upstream agriculture, animal husbandry and aquatic enterprises, Barbie Food (605338. Traditional frozen food companies such as SH) have also entered the track, in addition, catering enterprise brands such as Songhe Tower and Tai'er Sauerkraut Fish, and retail companies such as Dingdong and Daily Excellent Fresh have entered the game.

The cooperation between upstream and downstream enterprises of prepared dishes has also become closer and closer. On January 11, Guolian Aquatic Products and Hema Fresh Signed a Cooperation Agreement, in which the two sides said they would cooperate in the development and marketing of aquatic prefabricated dishes.

At present, the pre-made dishes on the market cover a wide range of dishes, cantonese, Su, Hunan and Sichuan cuisines are sold. Some food and beverage brands have also introduced prepared menus for Chinese New Year's Eve meals. Prices range from 300 to 1500 yuan and contain about 10 courses.

In addition, with the development of supply chain and logistics, consumers are becoming more and more receptive to prepared dishes, and consumers are increasingly not limited to local traditional dishes in the choice of dishes and tastes of Chinese New Year's Eve meals.

The home economy catalyzes the trillion-dollar market

The number of prefabricated vegetable companies is still increasing dramatically. Enterprise investigation data shows that in 2015, there were about 4,500 prefabricated vegetable enterprises in the mainland, about 8,400 in 2018, and more than 12,000 in 2020. The scale of the industry in 2021 is estimated at 346 billion yuan, an increase of 18.1% year-on-year. Since 2013, there have been 72 investment and financing incidents in the prefabricated vegetable track, and the total amount of disclosed financing has exceeded 1 billion yuan, involving 42 projects. From the perspective of financing time, 2015-2016 is the peak period of financing, there are 14 and 17 financing events respectively, 2020-2021 is another peak financing period, there are 12 financings in the prefabricated vegetable track in 2020, and there are 12 financings so far in 2021.

Recently, the prefabricated dish brand Zhenwei Xiaomeiyuan announced the completion of the B+ round of financing, which was led by Baidu Venture Capital, followed by Dingxiang Capital and Zero One Venture Capital. In October last year, Zhenwei Xiaomeiyuan just received tens of millions of yuan of B round financing. In addition, prefabricated cuisine brands such as Wangjiadu Food and Three Meals with Ingredients have also raised funds in 2021.

What is the current level of development of mainland prepared dishes? Wang Lin, head of the light food brand Lixiangguo, believes that the prefabricated vegetable industry is developing rapidly, but in terms of consumer market education and C-end brand development, the industry is still in its infancy.

In fact, before being well known to C-end consumers, the development of the mainland prepared vegetable industry has been more than 20 years.

"By around 2014, due to the continuous increase in housing rent and employment costs, a large number of catering companies began to adopt the central kitchen + prefabricated ingredients business mode, and the growth of B-end demand gave birth to the first outbreak of the industry." At the beginning of 2020, the new crown epidemic suddenly broke out, and the home economy pressed the shortcut key for the penetration and development of the prefabricated vegetable industry in the C-end market. Wang Lin said.

Who's buying pre-made dishes? Ou Houxi, the person in charge of Dingdong to buy pre-made dishes, said that the age of prefabricated dishes on the Dingdong platform is about 30-45 years old, there are relatively many married and children, the cultural level quality is relatively high, there are more white-collar workers, the price is not so sensitive, and the demand for goods and health is higher.

For the popularity of prepared dishes, Wang Lin believes: "In addition to the catalysis of the home culture and lazy economy on the prepared dish industry, the prepared dish solves some of the pain points of modern consumers, and the prepared dish provides consumers with another choice, which not only improves the quality and nutritional flavor of the dish, but also allows consumers to move their hands slightly, through the steam in the steam room, to obtain a sense of ritual and warmth of life." ”

Industrialization is achieved under the premise of ensuring flavor

In the future, if prefabricated dishes want to further expand the market, what difficulties and pain points may they face?

In the view of Zhu Danpeng, an analyst in the Chinese food industry, the pain points of the current prefabricated vegetable industry market are mainly reflected in two aspects, on the one hand, there is no national standard, which will cause hidden dangers in food safety; on the other hand, the recognition and acceptance of prefabricated dishes by the consumer end may not be high enough, and some consumers will think that the nutrition of prefabricated vegetables has been lost or the ingredients are not fresh. In the future, how to match and meet the core needs and demands of the consumer side will be an urgent issue and problem for the entire prepared vegetable industry.

Through the interview, the reporter found that consumers' doubts about the flavor of prepared dishes are a common problem faced by many people in the industry.

"People may not believe that the prepared dishes are delicious at first, or they may compare the deliciousness to the standard restaurant meals." Ou Houxi, the person in charge of Dingdong's prefabricated dishes, thinks. She also said that the difficulty of pre-made dishes lies in how to make standardized and industrialized products into a home flavor. "Sometimes the chefs cook it well, but what the factory produces doesn't have to be delicious. Therefore, the accuracy of condiments such as sugar and salt is crucial, as is the details such as how long to blanch the water. ”

In the past two years, consumers have gradually become more demanding of the taste of prepared dishes, and they are less sensitive to price. So in this case, the preservation of fresh dishes, heating and other technologies related to maintaining flavor are particularly important, and now the preservation of cooked food has used some new technologies, such as liquid nitrogen lock freshness.

However, Ou Houxi still believes that the technical barriers in the industry are now less than the pressure of sales. "When you sell, these problems will be solved. To be precise, the bottleneck of the prefabricated vegetable industry is not the research and development and production end, but the most important thing is commodity planning. ”

Wang Lin also deeply feels that if prefabricated cuisine brands want to gain an advantage in competition, the first thing is to solve the problem of consumer trust. "Many consumers still have doubts about the nutrition and taste of prepared dishes, so in terms of the nutritional health of dishes and the development of quality control, whether enterprises can launch high-quality prepared dishes that reassure consumers, whether they can conquer consumers' taste buds in flavor, deliciousness and reduction, and enterprises with strong product power and brand power are easy to stand out in the competition." Secondly, the cold chain transportation capacity, the company's cold chain logistics system, determines whether it can break through the regional development, keep fresh and textured to reach consumers across the country, conform to the development and changes of social life, and truly fit the consumer's pursuit of a convenient and fast modern lifestyle. ”