What is "Hex Technology"?
In the past few days, the "Hex Technology" meme has become popular again.
"Hex Technology" comes from the word " League of Legends ", which specifically refers to a top technology that integrates magic and technology. In the mouths of short video bloggers, it has become a way to "turn ingredients into magic".
As of September 15, 2022, the cumulative number of views of Douyin topic #Hex Technology##Sanhua Milk##Technology and Hard Life# exceeded 750 million.
Recently, a new connection has been established between "Hex Technology" and "pre-made dishes", , specifically referring to certain additives in the cooking process of food, because after addition, the taste and appearance of the food will quickly improve the taste and appearance of the food. How is the difference between
pre-made dishes and additives, or even dishes ? What is the difference from the stereotyped packaged cooked food that has been around in the past? What is the development direction of the industry?
What is pre-made dish ?
pre-made vegetables are made of agricultural, livestock, poultry and aquatic products, and are equipped with various auxiliary materials. The finished or semi-finished products are pre-processed by cleaning, slicing, pickling, rolling and kneading, forming, and seasoning. They are convenient, fresh and healthy.
From a broad perspective, all processed ingredients can be regarded as pre-made dishes. From a narrow perspective, pre-made dishes are mainly ready-made and ready-to-heat foods stored at low temperatures, which can be simply understood as "quick-frozen dishes".
can generate numerous sub-categories for the market and different cuisines/dishes according to the processing level, raw and mature level, storage conditions, and usage methods.
B end: The demand for pre-made dishes has gradually increased
At present, the biggest downstream demand in the pre-made dishes industry comes from the catering industry. Various factors such as B-end cost reduction and efficiency improvement, catering chain, improvement of takeaway penetration rate, and group meals sales have driven the increase in the demand for pre-made dishes on B-end.
First of all, reducing costs and increasing efficiency is one of the important driving forces for catering companies to use pre-made dishes.
Although my country's catering industry has developed well in recent years, it still faces the "three highs and one low" problems (high rent, high labor costs, high food prices, and low profit margins.). Especially after the epidemic in 2020, the pressure on the cost side of enterprises has further intensified. Pre-made vegetables can save the process of raw material procurement and initial processing, save the kitchen area and reduce labor and rental costs.
Secondly, the chain of catering has driven the increase in demand for pre-made dishes.
Chinese catering enterprises are becoming increasingly prominent, and pre-made dishes have the characteristics of standard and uniformity, which can ensure the consistency of the taste of dishes in each chain store to a certain extent.
At present, the pre-made dishes in my country's leading chain catering companies are relatively high. The proportion of pre-made dishes in Zhen Kung Fu and Yoshinoya uses pre-made dishes to reach 100%, and Xibei and Xiaonanguo Pre-made dishes also account for 85% of the raw materials. With the continuous increase in the chain rate of my country's catering industry, B-end catering will continue to increase the demand for pre-made dishes.
Furthermore, the takeaway market continues to grow, promoting the development of the pre-made vegetable industry.
my country's takeaway penetration rate continues to increase, reaching 19.92% in 2021. The booming development of takeaway also has higher requirements for the speed of catering companies to serve. Pre-made dishes can save meal time and improve takeaway delivery efficiency. Driven by the fast pace of takeaway, catering companies' demand for pre-made dishes has been continuously strengthened.
Finally, the development of the group meal business has driven the increase in demand for pre-made dishes in my country.
group meal is one of the important types of catering structure in my country, mainly composed of schools, enterprises, party and government organs, hospitals, military canteens and other scenarios.It has the characteristics of strong procurement planning and high timeliness, and has certain requirements for food quality and safety. Pre-made dishes can meet the requirements of group meal companies to a certain extent. As the market size of the group meal continues to expand, pre-made dishes are expected to accelerate their penetration in the B-end.
C end: Choose pre-made dishes to save trouble and convenient
C end needs start from the current dilemma of young people cooking. In recent years, with the increase in urbanization rate in my country and the influence of eugenics and the concept of eugenics and excellent parenting, the scale of family size in my country has continued to shrink, and the trend of singles and miniaturization of families has become increasingly obvious. "One person food" has gradually become a hot search term.
At the same time, most young people's cooking skills have gradually deteriorated, and coupled with the increasing work pressure, they have less time and energy to cook.
plus the impact of the epidemic has greatly increased the frequency of home cooking, as well as the rise of various retail channels such as supermarkets, convenience stores, fresh food e-commerce, etc. The characteristics of pre-made dishes are low-time, standardized flavors, simple operation and easy finishing, and gradually captured the hearts of young consumers.
Pre-made dishes are being chased by capital
Pre-made dishes investment fever provides support for the industry's expansion, and the number of registered companies related to pre-made dishes has increased year by year. According to Qichacha data, the number of related companies registered in 2011 was 1,796, and by 2021 it exploded to 59,400. As of January 27, 2022, there are 68,100 pre-made vegetables-related enterprises in my country.
The first pre-made dish stock weizhixiang , which was launched in April 2021, further promoted the first-level market's pursuit of pre-made dish companies. According to incomplete statistics, from 2021 to 2022, there were more than 20 financing incidents in my country's pre-made vegetable industry, with financing amounts of hundreds of billions of yuan.
According to NCBD (Food Book), the size of China's pre-made vegetable market exceeded 300 billion yuan in 2021, with an average annual compound growth rate of 28.8% from 2017 to 2020. is expected to further reach 415.15 billion yuan in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 32.4%, and will exceed 830 billion yuan by 2025, of which the scale in the C-end market will account for nearly 30%.
According to the market growth rate and popularity, pre-made dishes can still be regarded as a hot topic in today's catering track.
Is pre-made dishes considered black technology?
Let’s first look at the entire pre-made dish industry chain.
The upstream of the pre-made vegetable industry industry chain is mainly the supply of raw materials, accounting for 90% of the cost of the pre-made vegetable industry. Therefore, the fluctuations in the price of raw materials directly affect the changes in the cost of pre-made vegetable, and thus affect the profit level of the pre-made vegetable industry.
midstream processing participants, the obvious trend is that upstream and midstream enterprises have a two-way penetration trend, but when upstream agricultural product enterprises go too far into the midstream, their advantages are not strong. The downstream mainly includes B-end and C-end markets, and the B-end market, mainly the catering market and the food processing market, is the main consumer market at present.
According to the main product category of each player and the customer type of service, pre-made dishes players can mainly be divided into 6 categories: traditional pre-made dishes enterprises, quick-frozen enterprises, agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery enterprises, fresh food retail platforms, catering central kitchen , and catering supply chain platforms.
In the short term, the industry will still maintain a decentralized pattern. Due to the low entry threshold for the pre-made vegetable industry, although the number of pre-made vegetable enterprises in my country has grown rapidly in recent years, the majority of them are small and medium-sized enterprises of the same type and individual industrial and commercial households, and there is no trend of leading enterprises leading the industry development. In the medium and long term, industry clearance, large-scale enterprises formation, and share concentration are inevitable laws.
It can be seen from this that pre-made dishes are not a black technology, but just a concept of repackaging the market or capital, allowing this traditional pre-packaged technology to re-enter the public's vision.
In the past few days, the "Hex Technology" meme has become popular again. In 2021, the size of China's pre-made vegetable market will exceed 300 billion yuan, and it is expected to exceed 400 billion yuan in 2022 and exceed 800 billion yuan in 2025.The chainization of B-side catering has driven the demand for pre-made dishes. In order to solve the cooking dilemma, young people on the C-side also choose pre-made dishes more. So in the catering track, are pre-made dishes still popular? Is it still a black technology?
