In the post-epidemic era, the pre-made vegetable industry is quietly becoming the next hot track. Recently, Guangdong Province issued a notice on "Ten Measures to Accelerate the High-quality Development of Guangdong's Prepared Vegetable Industry". These include ten measures, such as building a joint research and development platform for prepared dishes, building a quality and safety supervision and standardization system for prepared dishes, expanding the industrial cluster of prepared dishes, cultivating demonstration enterprises of prepared dishes, and cultivating talents in the prepared vegetable industry.
According to the "2021 China Prepared Vegetable Industry Analysis Report" released by Ai Media Consulting, the size of China's prepared vegetable market in 2021 will be 345.9 billion yuan, which is currently in its infancy, and the scale of China's prepared vegetables will reach 1,072 billion yuan in 2026.
With the change of consumption habits and the rise of young consumers, prepared dishes have begun to move more from the B-end to the C-end. A number of Internet fresh platforms are also aware of the huge consumption dividend behind the increased investment; the capital market with a keen sense of smell is carrying hot money to ambush the track in advance, and there have been more than 100 million yuan of single round financing in the industry.
Is the market growth space for prepared vegetables as broad as the outside world expects? How is the prefabricated dish business of retail companies growing? When the wind rises, how should the C-end users' cognition and acceptance of prepared dishes be cultivated? In this regard, after many interviews and research, Nandu Business Data News Department will launch a series of reports on decoding prefabricated dishes from today onwards, and wants to conduct in-depth research on the current challenges and opportunities facing the prefabricated vegetable industry from the retail end, upstream supply side, capital market and other dimensions.
Prospects: The next "trillion track" seed runners
Looking back at the Spring Festival in early 2022, people who could not return to their hometowns for the festival due to the epidemic pinned their thoughts on the food in their hometown on the pre-made dishes. Major catering merchants, retail brands and even takeaway platforms have launched a variety of pre-made dishes Chinese New Year's Eve meal packages, making the concept of "pre-made dishes" a wave of existence. According to data released by the Ministry of Commerce, during the "2022 National Online New Year Festival", semi-finished dishes were quite popular with consumers, and the sales of prepared dishes increased by nearly 46% year-on-year.
In fact, in 2021, "pre-made dishes" have quietly appeared in the list of the top ten trend items of Tmall Double 11 in 2021, and this industry that has matured in the B-end has begun to enter the vision of the C-end. The development of the "lazy house economy" and the change of consumption habits forced by the epidemic have made the turnover of prepared dishes, including semi-finished dishes and fast food dishes, usher in a year-on-year increase of more than 2 times year-on-year in this year-end promotion.
It is understood that prefabricated dishes are generally divided into four categories according to processing attributes and eating methods: ready-to-eat food, instant hot food, cooked food, and matched food. From a worldwide perspective, prefabricated dishes originated in the 1960s, mainland prefabricated dishes started in the 2000s, the key turning point in the development of the industry was around 2014, when the outbreak of takeaway growth promoted the B-end prefabricated vegetable blowout, and the epidemic in 2021 stimulated the accelerated development of the C-end.
According to the data on the in-depth research report on prefabricated dishes released by Essence Securities and Huachuang Securities in mid-to-late 2021, the market size of prefabricated dishes at that time was not much different between the two institutions, 210 billion yuan and 220 billion yuan respectively, and the proportion of both B-end and C-end was considered to be 8:2. Essence Securities expects that the average annual compound growth rate of the mainland prepared vegetable industry is also expected to remain at about 20% in the next few years, and the scale of the prefabricated vegetable industry is expected to grow to about 600 billion yuan by 2025. According to the latest "Research Report on the Development Trend of China's Prepared Vegetable Industry in 2022" released by Ai Media Consulting, the scale of China's prepared vegetable market is expected to maintain a growth rate of more than 20% and is expected to exceed 510 billion yuan in 2023. Referring to such a market space growth, it is no wonder that prefabricated dishes are considered to be the next "trillion track" seed players.
Dividend: a new model for the integrated development of rural first, second, and third industries
As a province that started earlier in the prefabricated vegetable industry, not long ago, the General Office of the People's Government of Guangdong Province issued the notice of "Ten Measures to Accelerate the High-quality Development of Guangdong's Prefabricated Vegetable Industry", which is also the first provincial-level prefabricated vegetable industry policy in the country.
The document mentions that prefabricated vegetables are a new model for the integrated development of rural first, second, and third industries, a new format for promoting the quality and efficiency of the "vegetable basket" project, and a new channel for farmers to increase their income and become rich "one after another", which is of positive significance for promoting entrepreneurship and employment, consumption upgrading and rural industrial revitalization.
The measures involved in the document include the construction of a joint research and development platform for prepared dishes, the construction of a quality and safety supervision and standardization system for prepared dishes, the expansion of the prefabricated vegetable industry cluster, the cultivation of prefabricated vegetable demonstration enterprises, the cultivation of prefabricated vegetable industry talents, the promotion of prefabricated vegetable warehousing and cold chain logistics construction, the expansion of prefabricated vegetable brand marketing channels, the promotion of prefabricated vegetables to the international market, the increase of financial and insurance support, and the construction of Guangdong prefabricated cuisine culture and science popularization highland.
Before the release of the above-mentioned documents, there were already relevant policy benefits at the national level. The 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People's Republic of China and the Outline of Long-term Goals for 2035 promulgated in 2021 clearly mention that "promote the combination of planting and breeding and the reengineering of the industrial chain, improve the development level of the agricultural product processing industry and the agricultural productive service industry" and "strengthen the construction of agricultural product storage and preservation and cold chain logistics facilities, improve the rural property rights trading, trade circulation, inspection and testing and certification and other platforms and intelligent standard factory buildings and other facilities, and guide the development of rural secondary and tertiary industries".
Under the guidance of the policy, on April 16, the National Public Welfare Prefabricated Vegetable Industry Self-Regulatory Organization - China Prefabricated Vegetable Industry Alliance was established by the Agricultural Trade Promotion Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the Agricultural Product Quality and Safety Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the China Green Food Development Center and other public institutions as the guiding units, supported by more than ten provincial agricultural and rural departments and municipal governments, and several state-level scientific research and economic research institutions as expert committees of the research institute.
Song Juguo, deputy director of the Agricultural Trade Promotion Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said that the establishment of the China Prefabricated Vegetable Industry Alliance is a positive response to the urgent demands of the current development of the prefabricated vegetable industry, and provides an organizational guarantee for better promoting the high-quality development of the prefabricated vegetable industry and realizing the integration and development of the rural first, second, and third industries.
Market: The outlet is the first to be perceived by the retail side
Compared with the market prospects of hundreds of millions, China's prepared dishes are just getting started, although the C-end market size has not yet exceeded 100 billion. But the rate of growth should not be underestimated.
As one of the earliest batch of enterprises in China to enter the prefabricated dish, Wen's subordinate unit Jiawei Company has been deeply cultivating the B-end, but since last year, it has obviously felt the explosive power of the C-end market. Huang Pengfei, deputy general manager, revealed in an interview with Nandu reporter: "Our soup products and pepper pork belly chicken only began to be promoted in C-end channels such as short videos in June last year, but the sales in the first month of promotion exceeded 1 million yuan, and with the deepening and precipitation of the promotion of this channel, it is expected to reach 30 million yuan in sales this year."
As a fresh platform at the channel end, Dingdong buys vegetables, daily excellent fresh, and Hema have a more intuitive perception. Dingdong Grocery revealed on the fourth quarter of 2021 earnings call that the GMV of their prepared dishes reached more than 900 million yuan, with an annualized volume of more than 3 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 15% of the total GMV. Among them, the performance of Guangdong region is eye-catching, last year, the sales of prefabricated dishes in Guangdong region exceeded 200 million yuan, and the sales of prefabricated dishes in Guangzhou exceeded 50 million yuan. The daily excellent fresh revealed that the overall sales growth of prepared dishes in 2021 reached 300%, and it doubled in April this year. Hema established the 3R Business Unit as early as 2020, and the establishment of the Business Unit is also to strengthen the development of Hema's own prepared dish business. It is reported that hema 2022 annual consumption data shows that the sales of prepared dishes increased by 345% year-on-year.
E-commerce platforms are also deeply experienced. Jingdong revealed to nandu reporters that in 2021, its prefabricated vegetable sales will exceed 100% year-on-year, and Guangdong will increase by 196% year-on-year, and it is expected that the overall growth rate of the C-end will exceed 150% this year. Taobao's pre-made vegetable sales also increased by more than 100% year-on-year.
"Our prepared dishes currently cover nearly 100 items such as home-cooked dishes, local specialties, hot pots and more." Offline retail companies have not let go of this outlet. Wal-Mart told Nandu reporters that since the epidemic, the sales of prefabricated dishes have been hot, and the sales of epidemic cities have increased by nearly 3 times compared with usual. Among them, the growth of the Guangdong market is particularly obvious. There are also about 30 prefabricated dishes introduced by CR Vanguard in Guangdong, "the meat ingredients in the Guangdong market are significantly higher than the vegetarian ingredients, of which the 'fish meat' category is the most prominent." ”
In the view of the relevant person in charge of Wal-Mart, compared with the mature prefabricated vegetable markets abroad, the prefabricated vegetable market is still in its infancy, and there is a broad space for the development of China's prefabricated vegetables in the future. "Under the epidemic, the consumption habits of customers have changed, the home/lazy economy is developing, and takeaway food is delivered into people's daily lives." The relevant person in charge of CR Vanguard said that at the same time, cold chain logistics is developing rapidly and the system is becoming more and more mature. Of course, national policy support and the improvement of technical capabilities have a non-negligible role in the development of the prefabricated vegetable industry.
Users: 70% of household consumers with children
Behind the hot sales of pre-made dishes is inseparable from the synchronous growth of its user scale. In the process of interview and research, Nandu reporters noticed that in addition to the young consumer groups and "lazy house people" mentioned in the outside world, the user portraits of prefabricated dishes began to spread more to the consumer groups based on family units, and the age group was more mature.
"The prefabricated dishes we show in the background are mainly purchased by users aged 25-45, white-collar workers mostly have better incomes, most of them have families, 70% of which have children," Ou Houxi, head of Dingdong buying prefabricated dishes, told Nandu reporters. Nandu reporter combed the interviewed enterprises and found that the age of the daily excellent fresh prefabricated dish users is similar to that of Dingdong to buy vegetables, and the 25-45-year-old population is the main consumer group, of which the 30-40-year-old population accounts for more than half. Hema consumers are mainly concentrated in 30-45 years old, as well as people over 50 years old, also mostly small families.
Offline channels are slightly different from online user profiles. Walmart's sales data shows that the main consumer group of its prepared dishes is concentrated in middle-class families who pursue quality of life, they pursue convenience and characteristics, and expect to provide richer dishes for their families and add freshness to life. The consumer group of zhonghua run wanjia is the youngest, mainly concentrated in young people aged 22-31, which accounts for more than 40%. At the same time, they revealed that the female group, as the main force of cooking, has also begun to turn more to buying prepared dishes to save cooking time.
"Among the users of pre-made dishes, 45.7% of the users are distributed in first-tier cities, 19.8% are distributed in second-tier cities, and 16.4% of users are distributed in third-tier cities." According to the "2022 China Prepared Vegetable Industry Development Trend Research Report" of Ai Media Consulting, among the prefabricated vegetable users, 22-40 years old users accounted for 81.3%, of which 31-40 years old users accounted for 46.4%.
According to the report of Ai Media Consulting, in the category of prepared dishes, the most popular are ready-cooked foods, such as refrigerated steaks, refrigerated kung pao chicken cubes, B-end cooking bags, etc.; followed by instant hot foods, including quick-frozen dumplings, frozen hot pot ingredients, instant noodles, etc.; and then ready-to-eat foods and ready-to-eat foods.
"Some unexpected user portraits are actually reasonable." Ou Houxi said, "The premise of buying prepared dishes is that you are willing to go home to eat, if it is a family of two or a small young person, you will choose to eat out or directly order takeaway." We found that the users of pre-made dishes and fresh food are highly overlapping, they have higher requirements for the quality of life, pay attention to food safety and health, have low price sensitivity, value time cost, and take into account the taste is more perfect. ”
Challenge: How to shorten the C-end education cycle of pre-made dishes
"Taking the 2019 data as an example, the B-end market accounts for more than 80%, which is much higher than the C-end market scale. C-end prefabricated dish consumer education is still early, and the demand for marketing investment is high. A senior retail industry told Nandu reporters that for now, pre-made dishes are mainly dominated by the B-end. However, with the change of family catering culture, the C-end market also has great potential for development. Consumers usually tend to buy products with higher brand awareness, and their trust and dependence on brands are getting higher and higher. In the C-end market, companies with strong brand influence and strong sales channels (online and offline) capabilities will have more advantages and are expected to occupy a larger market share.
However, C-end consumers' cognition of prepared dishes is not yet mature, and it is difficult to become the main force on the family table. "There is currently no standard for prefabricated dishes, and the definition is not clear enough. Some people think that pre-made dishes are cooked, some people think that it is clean vegetables and clean meat, and others think that it is a personalized solution. The above-mentioned retail industry veteran said that this also led to different standards of consumer demand for prepared dishes.
Ou Houxi said that many users' cognition of pre-made dishes is the choice of "eating together", and the expectations for its quality are not high, but the platform cannot develop products with such a mentality. She said that Dingdong hopes that the pre-made dishes section can provide users with a solution for three meals a day and can undertake more family dining scenes. "For example, many of our ace dish series are restaurant dishes, and it is difficult for consumers to cook the flavor at home, and we will make great efforts in recipes and material selection." Ou Houxi revealed that colleagues in the operation team initially thought that the pricing of ace dishes was somewhat high, and they were worried that consumers could not accept it, but the sales after the shelves proved that today's consumers are willing to pay for high quality.
The relevant person in charge of CR Vanguard believes that the current C-end consumer market "consumers are more concerned about whether food is safe and healthy, whether it is really convenient and convenient, and pay attention to taste, taste and price within the scope of their own affordability", which are all issues considered by enterprises. JD.com also admitted that at present, users' concerns about prepared dishes include whether they are healthy and whether the degree of dish reduction is in line with Chinese consumers' expectations for various dishes.
In addition, "pre-made dishes are only a medium-frequency consumption category for us, just a choice for changing tastes." A consumer with two children at home told Nandu reporter that the main reason is that the cost performance is not high. Usually the price of a semi-finished clean dish is 8 yuan-20 yuan; the price of home-cooked items of frozen pre-made dishes ranges from more than 20 yuan to more than 50 yuan, and the unit price of large dishes and hard dishes is about 100 yuan, "In these choices, if you want to operate simple, taste better, and have food safety guarantees of pre-made dishes, a dish is at least 30 yuan or more, a family of four to 3-4 dishes, so the cost of a meal is 120 yuan, this price in Guangzhou can actually go to the outside restaurant to order, and takeaway does not have to cook, do not wash dishes." ”
However, Huang Pengfei believes that pre-made dishes still have huge room for growth among young consumer groups, he told Nandu reporters that young people are more willing to spend time on hobbies and social work, and do not want to spend an hour or two on cooking, "pre-made dishes may be done in half an hour, and the rest of the time can go to participate in entertainment activities." Coupled with the fact that the prepared dishes are now in a stage of continuous improvement in quality, the taste will be better and the acceptance will be higher. ”
However, how to make more consumers better accept pre-made dishes is also a problem that many production enterprises and sales companies need to think about.
Producer: Nandu Business Data News Department
Written by: Xu Bingqian, reporter of Nandu Wan Finance Agency, Ma Ningning, Huang Pei
Planning coordinator: Zhen Qin Tian Aili