Break -off pre -made dishes: suppliers lying down, the catering industry is lying flat

Author | Bai Lu

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Since the beginning of this year, the prefabricated vegetable track has continued to heat up, and in the context of capital shrinkage, it has become a new investment in the trend. From the catering brand to the upstream raw material supply chain, players in all major fields have run into the new track, looking for turns and new businesses in the prefabricated dishes.

Facing the offline consumer business that has not been fully recovered in the post -epidemic era, some head chain catering brands actively introduced prefabricated dishes as the main meal supply of the store to further reduce the operating costs of the store. The upstream enterprises of the food supply chain such as fresh and aquatic products have also tried to launch standardized prefabricated products for consumers and catering stores. In addition, a number of prefabricated retail brands that rely on e -commerce retail channels to quickly open up sales for ordinary consumers.

In January of this year, the Institute of Stunning Research Institute has proposed that there are still some difficulties in the C -end consumer market that need to be resolved in the C -end consumer market, and it is more to achieve rapid breakthroughs on the B -end. Over time, new changes have undergone new dishes industry, and in the development of more than half a year, the problems and challenges of prefabricated dishes have become clearer.

Chain catering is caught in prefabricated dishes

The main reason why prefabricated dishes were attracted to the outside world because of the well -known chain catering brands such as Xibei, the first use of prefabricated dishes to reduce the labor cost of the store. Essence Theoretically, prefabricated dishes have indeed advantages in terms of cost reduction and efficiency.

In traditional meal operation scenarios, almost every dish requires on -site processing raw materials and then cooked on -site, which has led to many offline dining stores with a large area of ​​kitchen space and a large number of kitchen hands. In contrast, the prefabricated dishes can directly provide semi -finished ingredients by suppliers, or make raw materials into semi -finished products in the central kitchen in advance. Therefore, offline stores only need to simply heat it, and they can be put on the dining table in a few minutes.

If you just settle the account from the perspective of operating costs, the offline catering form with prefabricated dishes as the core, through the compressed area of ​​the back kitchen of the offline store, reduce the pressure on the store rent, and reduce the scale of the team required by the chefs, shorten the scale of the team, and shorten the scale of the chefs, shorten the scale of the team, shorten the scale of the chefs, shorten the size of the team, and shorten the scale of the team. The time of serving is conducive to increasing the turnover rate, thereby improving the efficiency. However, for offline catering, adjusting the supply of ingredients is not only a change in operating costs, but also affects consumer dining experience.

There are four core key points for offline catering competition: taste, service, price and environment, of which only the environment is not directly related to the quality of the production of the kitchen. When the prefabricated dishes are introduced at the compression cost, the other three core points of offline operations will change. The Siberian brand Jia Guolong Kung Fu dishes encountered great obstacles when trying prefabricated dishes for the first time.

Although in terms of brand positioning, Jia Guolong Kung Fu dishes continued the high -end image of Xibei's brand, but in order to reduce costs, Jia Guolong did not re -load the dishes and directly with the service method of the packaging box. Low -end impression. At the same time, most prefabricated dishes are processed by steaming boxes, microwave ovens, and heating in water. It is difficult to restore the taste of on -site cooking to a certain extent.

Therefore, in the early days, Jia Guolong Kung Fu was once spit out as a "airplane meal", and some netizens bluntly said that it was "high -end box lunch" and "IQ tax". More importantly, Jia Guolong Kung Fu Cai, which is based on high -end positioning, still maintains the "one hundred per capita" consumption level, which has left a negative impression of very low cost performance.

It is worth mentioning that after aware of the taste, service and price, Jia Guolong Kung Fu dishes has been upgraded at the end of last year: the prefabricated dishes to reconcile and serving, and the chef will be changed to the prefabricated dishes on -site seasoning and processing Seasoning "now" mode. The original "one hundred per capita" price became close to the people, and even Mapo tofu and Matsutake chicken soup priced at 9.9 yuan. The search results of the public comment showed that the "per capita consumption" of Jia Guolong's kung fu cuisine dropped to about 60 yuan.

However, this adjustment may not bring obvious turns. Not long ago, some media visited online and found that Jia Guolong Kung Fu cuisine closed stores in Beijing in Beijing, and according to the property party, the reason for closing the store was the adjustment of the business strategy.

Why do new retail brands come up later?

In addition to the prefabrication of offline catering attempts, the retail model is also the direction of the key development of prefabricated vegetables. Although the chain catering brands such as Xibei and Haidilao have tried, the results are not ideal. In the Taobao Institute, the Institute of Jingxu searched for the Tmall flagship store of Jia Guolong Kung Fu Cai, which is the highest monthly sales product, which is priced at the grassland sheep scorpion (1.8kg), which is priced at 199 yuan. The specific monthly sales are only 33 pieces. On the Tmall flagship store of Haidilao, although the monthly sales of the hot pot reached tens of thousands of items, the monthly sales of the prepared duck blood of the prefabricated dishes are only 100.

It should be pointed out that although the sales of e -commerce flagship stores in Xibei and Haidilao are not high, this does not mean that prefabricated vegetable retail is a completely unpredictable road. The Institute of Jingxuan noticed that brands such as Ding Ding Lazy and Cong Kitchen, which opened the market through live broadcasts, showed a completely different situation in terms of sales in terms of sales volume.

According to the cicada mother data, the Douyin platform is expected to sell 60,000 pieces of sauerkraut fish (450g) with a price of 79 yuan in the past 30 days. ) It is estimated that 39,000 pieces are sold. In contrast, Haidilao's self -heating rice, self -heating hot pot and other fast -food products have a maximum sales of more than 5,000 pieces, and the sales volume of Jia Guolong Kung Fu vegetables is only more than 60 pieces. On the Tmall platform, the monthly sales volume of the same sauerkraut fish in the same sauerkraut fish is 3,000 pieces. The monthly sales of the same plums in Congku reached 4,000 pieces, which is also in sharp contrast to Xibei and Haidilao. It is also a prefabricated dish. Why is Xibei and Haidilao chain companies with brand advantages, but they are not as good as these new retail brands? In essence, it is still because the target users are completely different.

The chain catering brand developed by large -scale offline stores is highly related to offline scenes in terms of user value and brand image. Regardless of the Sibei or Haidilao, it is not the demand for "three meals a day" in daily life, but the dining needs of groups such as banquets and gatherings. Therefore, traditional offline chain catering brands have launched prefabricated vegetable brands based on daily family scenes, and they also have a certain sense of conflict.

To give a simple example, Haidilao's offline stores often show their own hot pot, self -heating rice and other products, but there are not many people who buy it. On the one hand, because of the premise of spending on the store, customers are more concerned about the dining experience in the following, and it is difficult to buy an additional self -heated food and eat it in the future. On the other hand, in the field of fast food, there are already many mature head brands, and there are many choices of consumers. Haidilao does not have an advantage.

In addition, although the overall strength of the chain catering brand is more advantageous, strategic focus is different. When the head chain companies such as Xibei and Haidilao encounters difficulty in operating, they need to consider how to adjust the stability of the original business according to the existing business status. Therefore Caixin business can only be promoted slowly as a test item. Otherwise, because the new business has caused the original business to lose, it is even more worthy.

The prefabricated dishes are fired, and the supplier wins numb

If you return to the perspective of the industrial chain to look at different forms of prefabricated dishes, you will find that the chain catering brand in the downstream of the supply chain will lay the prefabricated dishes, more only for yourself. This is limited resources. In the traditional catering and consumer market, the supply of prefabricated vegetables at B -end has long developed a relatively stable industrial chain.

For example, many Chinese -style restaurants that need to make meals on the spot will also focus on the pre -processing net dishes, and even some fried foods and baked snacks. They also purchase semi -finished products directly from the supplier. Put on the table. On the industrial chain of "ingredients-catering store-consumer", the real value of the store is not providing food, but processing food and providing offline scene services.

In addition, for a long time in the past, the prefabricated dishes on the B -side flow to Western and Chinese chain catering brands such as KFC, McDonald's, and King Yonghe King. Because these fast -food brands are satisfied with a large number of dining needs of consumers concentrated on the fixed period of three meals a day, which requires them to increase the speed of delivery through the standardization model. Complete a part of the meal production in advance in the kitchen, then distribute the packaged semi -finished products to different offline stores, and then send it to the diners after proper pre -cooking.

For consumers, these fast -food brands have already become a common solution for "three meals a day". When the prefabricated dishes continue to become popular and the "big -name replacement" consumption trend starts between young people, the B -end supplier represented by the main supplier of KFC, instead, has increased outside the C -end market.

On August 24, the latest financial report released by Shengnong showed that the company achieved revenue of 7.527 billion in the first half of 2022, an increase of 11.16%year -on -year, of which the revenue of the food deep processing sector was 2.928 billion yuan, an increase of 18.69%year -on -year. The deep processing of food here actually refers to the production of fried products such as spicy chicken rice, salt crispy chicken, and frozen conditioners such as crispy chicken legs, crispy skin wings. At the same time, the sales volume of online channels such as Tmall and Douyin of Shengnong also has a significant advantage over chain catering companies.

As for September last year, Qianwei Chongku, which provides a number of well -known catering brands such as Pizza Hut, KFC, Haidilao, etc., has successfully logged in to A shares and harvested 40% of the "first share of the catering supply chain" on the opening day. From the perspective of the capital market, it proves that the catering supply chain company is the "invisible winner" of the prefabricated vegetable industry.

In fact, the concept of prefabricated dishes has become a new investment hotspot, and the truth may not be what investors imagine. One of the truths is that the C -side prefabricated dishes are not like high -speed fast -growing products in recent years. They can be facing almost all consumers. The limit of potential user bases makes it difficult for its market scale to grow rapidly in the short term.

Another truth is that the background of prefabricated dishes in the C -end consumer market is because the epidemic caused the consumer trend in the short term after the epidemic caused the offline catering and takeaway supply to improve the daily diet. But in fact, many people who try prefabricated dishes in the early days will not cook in their daily life.

Therefore, once the offline restaurant restores the food and takeaway normal supply, consumers will soon return to the previous catering consumption habits, and the loyal consumers who really retain the prefabricated waves are actually cooked every day every day. "Housewives" for rice demand.

It is not difficult to understand why Lu Zhengyao, former chairman of Ruixing Coffee, participated in the founding of the prefabricated physical store brand of prefabricated food physical stores who sacrificed "banknote capacity" as soon as it appeared on the stage. Start closing the store. The prefabricated vegetable business from the mature supply chain is not as good as fast food, and the quality is not as good as traditional catering. The gross profit cannot be directly compared with the upstream suppliers. Either establish a new market segment in traditional food retail tracks, or can only attract franchisees who blindly enter the game through short -term speculation concepts.

需要指出的是，预制菜在C端市场仍然大有前景，因为预制菜对做饭效率的提升，高度契合现代人快节奏的生活方式，而且随着整体产业发展向家庭厨房需求靠拢，味道和The cost -effective issue will eventually be resolved. As long as the habit of eating at home does not change, prefabricated dishes have the opportunity to enter the kitchen of more families.

But it also needs to be emphasized: prefabricated dishes are only the efficiency improvement tools of future life. If one day a day is replaced by prefabricated dishes, people will definitely miss the pot qi and not panic and enjoy the life of life. Fireworks in the world.

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