Prefabricated dishes, also known as semi-finished dishes. The main difference between it and takeout or finished dishes is that it is made in the central kitchen, frozen or vacuum packaged, and then sold to restaurants or consumers in the state of "semi-finished products". As long as simple cooking, it can become a finished dish.
It's hard to define whether it's a dish or a ingredient. In a sense, the emergence of prefabricated dishes is a sign of increasingly blurred boundaries between catering and food.
One
Prefabricated dishes into tuyere, attracting players from all walks of life
The epidemic situation in 2020 has objectively promoted the growth of prefabricated dishes and attracted heroes from all walks of life to join the Bureau.
On February 16, a Sichuan restaurant in Guangzhou launched a series of "chefs come home" to deliver signature dishes to the door. Each dish is disassembled into semi-finished products step by step, which is convenient for consumers to finish the final cooking at home. The delivery range is about 15 km;
On March 1, Haidilao launched semi-finished dishes on several e-commerce platforms. It increased the consumption market of semi-finished vegetables at the C-end, and launched nearly 20 kinds of semi-finished dishes online, but only in Beijing;
On March 7, Guangzhou Restaurant launched the "self cooking chef series" on the takeout platform, and launched high-profile semi-finished dishes to retail the classic dishes of Guangzhou hotels. In addition, famous Guangzhou restaurants such as Yunhai cuisine, liyatu, Concerto Bistro and ziconglou also launched semi-finished dishes.
Under the epidemic situation, catering enterprises out of self-help, food and beverage semi-finished products emerge in endlessly, catering retail is becoming more and more intense. At the same time, fresh e-commerce, new retail enterprises, chain convenience, and major e-commerce platforms are also increasing.
We invite well-known catering brands to join in and jointly develop semi-finished fast food products to provide famous dishes to consumers;
7-Eleven also launched a variety of semi-finished food soup, including mixed cream mushroom soup, cabbage bean curd and vermicelli soup;
"Good neighbor", which focuses on the Beijing market, also launched a number of semi-finished dishes during the epidemic period. The good neighbor convenience store is famous for its innovation in the industry. It has developed cooked food products such as meat patties, stewed vegetables, fried noodles and so on. After that, it also launched mutton and scorpion, tomato hotpot, sauerkraut fish and other dishes together with Shuhai, as well as home-made dishes such as Gongbao diced chicken and spicy pork feet.
Open Jingdong to search for "semi-finished products", and such semi-finished products as Fucheng, Xiaonanguo, and Meizhou Dongpo are also in sight. In addition, according to the "economic report of the Spring Festival in 2019" released by Ali, semi-finished vegetables in tmall have become a new consumption trend during the Spring Festival, with sales volume soaring by 1683% compared with last year.
The development of semi-finished vegetables is in full swing, but in fact it is not a new species, but the epidemic has accelerated the development of semi-finished vegetables.
In addition to the semi-finished dishes launched by the above catering enterprises and new retail enterprises, there have been many convenient food brands in the market for many years, mainly concentrated in the first tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Jiangsu haotelai convenient food, mainly chain franchise, relying on large-scale agricultural market, has more than 800 stores in East China, becoming an important force in the semi-finished vegetable market; Fucheng Xianjia convenience dish in Sanhe, Hebei Province, is close to Beijing, the capital city. It has been operating in the north for many years. Its boiled fish, saliva duck, Beijing style sauced duck, Gongbao chicken and sour soup beef have become its famous dishes.
Two
How to catch the wind?
Prefabricated dishes have a bright future. Compared with the dishes made and sold in restaurants, prefabricated dishes need more standardized dish making and distribution; compared with pre packaged products in food factories, it emphasizes freshness, convenience and delicacy.
With the rise of C-end consumption and the fierce development of prefabricated dishes, how can we better cut into this big cake and gain a firm foothold in the tuyere?
One
User thinking
Prefabrication should be based on consumer demand, research and development and creativity of dishes.
First of all, we should have user thinking, understand what kind of consumer groups to serve, the characteristics of consumer groups and consumption habits, etc. Based on the needs of users, we should innovate the style and taste of products, innovate the way of product combination, tap the selling points of products, and fully consider the operation convenience of cooking process, etc.
For the C-end market, the consumer groups of prefabricated dishes can be mainly young consumers, whose age group is between 23 and 36 years old. They have a fast pace of life, strong consumption awareness, and average cooking skills. They are also irresistible to delicious food. They like to stink in the circle of friends, take photos and share cooking skills.
Two
Product thinking
Product is the underlying logic of an enterprise. Product is 1, marketing is 0. If the product is not done well, everything will return to zero. As a vigorous consumer goods category, it is not recommended that enterprises spend a lot of money on marketing communication, but should use more resources in dish research and development and supply chain management. Only by making enough efforts on the products, can we better meet the taste of users and meet the taste bud needs of consumers seeking innovation and change.
The development and breakthrough of prefabricated dishes, demand-oriented, product concept mining, not only in taste breakthrough, more important is to improve quality, standardization, clean and hygienic, convenient and delicious.
Three
Scenario thinking
It is more valuable to integrate into the small consumption environment. The development of prefabricated dishes should be placed in the scene of common people's family table consumption, and how to solve the problem of consumers' dining.
For example, in the breakfast scene, what problems can the prefabricated dishes solve? Fast, convenient and nutritious? Especially in families with children, the breakfast of children has always been a hard injury. The dishes are single and the taste is monotonous. Can the prefabricated dishes solve this problem?
For example, how to prepare a meal for a family dinner or a visit from relatives and friends? How to match the meal? What are the cold dishes? What are the hot dishes? What are the hard dishes? How to make the soup? What are the main snacks Scenario thinking is not to provide a product, but to provide a family meal solution.
Four
Strong supply chain management capability
Prefabricated dishes, involving between dishes and ingredients, have high requirements for standardization, freshness, convenience, taste and taste.
For the general small and medium-sized catering chain, small-scale trial, store sales, these problems are not big. However, if you want to get a share of the big market by independent projects, it is very difficult to make a difference in scale and standardization unless you work hard in the supply chain and introduce professional talents from the aspects of consumer demand insight, product creativity, dish research and development, production and storage, logistics and distribution.
Supply chain is very important to the development of prefabricated dishes. Haidilao has said that the shelf life of the semi-finished dishes they developed is 4 days in cold storage. Therefore, the production is started after the customer orders, and the delivery is completed within 24 hours after delivery.
For large-scale catering chain enterprises, making prefabricated dishes and doing retail operation have inherent supply chain advantages. Catering enterprises such as Haidilao, Xibei, Meizhou Dongpo and Xiaonanguo can quickly enter the market by introducing FMCG marketing ideas on the basis of the original supply chain.
Five
Precise business model
The operation of prefabricated dishes is to open an offline shop, or to sell online, to enter a retail chain store, or to be close to the community catering. What kind of store to open? Close to the community? Farmer's market? Direct store or franchise store?
The business model is indefinite, but there are two basic principles:
One is the advantages of the enterprise itself. What kind of genes do you have? What kind of underlying logic and operation system do you have? Of course, it also includes the boss's vision, pattern and talent reserve;
The second is around the origin of consumer demand. What kind of people do you serve? What are their consumption characteristics? What are their consumption paths and consumption scenarios?
Jiangsu haodelai convenience food is closely related to the farmers' market and has achieved rapid development. The Guoquan Shihui hot pot food material store in Henan Province has made rapid progress close to the community. Sichuan Ziyan Baiwei chicken stewed dishes are thriving close to the community. Fuchengxian semi-finished dishes in Hebei Province are booming online. Major catering enterprises rely on stores and online platforms to do their best.
