This summer, prefabricated dishes have become a key word that affects the nerves of the whole society: first, Luo Min “promoted first and then suppressed” passed the prefab outlet, and then Haidilao set up a community operation center to save profits and losses to develop prefabricated dishes. Business, Guangdong, Shenzhen, and Shandong have successively held summits related to pre-made vegetables… The pre-made vegetables market is still hot. Rapid growth is not only favored by the domestic market, but also called the next “hundred-million-dollar outlet”. From the perspective of foreign markets, there is still huge room for growth.
Entering the second half of the year, governments around the country have successively promulgated policies to make pre-made dishes an important engine for local economic development. In just a few years, pre-made dishes have grown rapidly from the commercial market in which enterprises and capital are fiercely competing, and have become a new economic phenomenon that has attracted the attention of the whole people. In the face of a brighter market space and the support of both policy and capital, how can the pre-prepared vegetable industry move forward steadily? When the domestic market concentration is still low and leading brands have not yet been born, what opportunities can the entrants seize to rise above the wind?
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The market “cake” is huge, how to cut it?
In the face of a “giant” market of hundreds of billions of dollars, policies and capital have successively increased their bets. With the geometric growth of the number of players, the market potential and future trend of the prepared dish industry are more and more worth exploring and researching.
According to the “2022 China Prefabricated Vegetable Industry Insight Report”, from 2013 to 2021, a total of 71 investment and financing events occurred in the prefabricated vegetable track, and the total disclosed financing amount exceeded 1 billion yuan, involving 42 projects. Recently, there have also been media reports that following Hema, Sam, Yonghui and many other supermarkets setting up the prefabricated food track, Midea, Country Garden and other companies have also quietly entered the game. Although there are more and more brands of pre-made dishes entering the market, there are still obvious homogenization problems in terms of product types: such as too much concentration on heavy-flavored Sichuan dishes; a high proportion of home-cooked meat dishes; most of them need to be refrigerated; and No differentiation is made between the consumption groups, etc.
So what are the opportunities and development trends in the future for pre-made vegetable brands to get rid of the dilemma of homogenization?
1. Vegetarian pre-cooked dishes
In the European market, where pre-made dishes started earlier, major manufacturers have been launching high-end new products in order to meet the growing consumer demand. Consumer preference for frozen non-vegetarian packaged foods is on the rise, the survey shows, due to growing hygiene concerns with fresh products on the market.
According to a report published by Technavio, the global frozen food market is expected to grow by USD 94.99 billion from 2021 to 2025, with 46% of the growth coming from North America. Ready-to-eat meals, especially vegan ready-to-eat meals, will continue to drive industry expansion.
Another UK study also showed this trend. A report released last year by Eating Better revealed that there are 267 plant-based meals on the market for consumers to choose from, a 92 percent increase from the first survey in 2018. More and more supermarkets are planning to introduce more plant-based prepared dishes. The number of plant-based ready meals on the market has risen to 16% from 3% two years ago, with meat products accounting for 70%. Nearly 25% of ready meals on the market are more suitable for vegetarians.
European ready-to-eat food companies are also developing new products to keep up with market changes. Irish food manufacturer Swift Fine Foods has launched a range of pure plant-based ready-to-eat staples. Include high-quality fresh dishes such as tofu, garlic and bok choy, roasted eggplant, couscous, and prepared dishes like cauliflower and chickpea stew. These products use fine materials, different tastes, and even restore the original taste.
In recent years, with the rise of the concept of healthy eating in China, more and more consumers are also willing to choose vegetarian diets. “A Bite of China” once mentioned that China’s vegan population has exceeded 50 million. In addition to those who prefer vegetarian food, there are many groups who also choose vegetarian food in stages.
According to the “Report on Nutrition and Chronic Diseases of Chinese Residents”, more than 600 million Chinese are overweight and obese. “Global Obesity Data” also pointed out that in 2030, China’s total obese population will exceed 1.29 billion. Correspondingly, the domestic light food market is growing rapidly, with a compound annual growth rate of 76.6%. In 2020, the market size will reach 5.56 billion yuan. It is foreseeable that pre-made dishes featuring the concept of high-quality vegetarian food will also have a broad consumer market in China.
2. Non-refrigerated prepared dishes
Figures released by the British Frozen Foods Federation (BFFF) indicate that frozen prepared foods will still account for the largest market share in 2021. Frozen food has been the best-selling food category in supermarkets, outpacing fresh produce and all other food categories in both sales and growth.
The development of frozen foods is also driving the growth of refrigerated prepared dishes. In March 2022, FatBroccoli launched in the United Arab Emirates refrigerated pre-made vegetable buns made of local 100% natural ingredients, without the use of any additives, preservatives, and no added sugar, extending the shelf life of the product when stored in the refrigerator to 1 year.
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