Pre-made dishes quietly emerged, accept or reject

Author: Guo Jin

In recent years, pre-made dishes have quietly emerged and unknowingly entered thousands of households, even high-end restaurants and campus canteens. Pre-made dishes provide convenience for young people who are busy with their careers, solve the troubles of "cooking troubles and expensive takeaway", and at the same time continue to rush into hot searches because of topics such as freshness, preservatives, oil and salt. Proponents believe that pre-made dishes eliminate the cumbersome process of "buying and drinking", are diverse, simple and easy to eat, and have a stronger taste than traditional ready-to-eat foods such as instant noodles and luncheon meat, which is really a gospel for the "lazy economy"; Opponents argue that pre-made dishes have a long shelf life, preservative abuse, and additives that have been unanswered for a long time, and must be strictly regulated, especially to resolutely resist pre-made dishes entering campus. In the face of such complex and even completely opposing information, on the one hand, the convenience of pre-made dishes, on the other hand, the possible potential risks, how should we, as ordinary consumers, make judgments and spend the rational choice of banknotes in our hands?

What is a prepared dish? Why is it suddenly popular?

The so-called prepared dishes, the current industry standard definition refers to the use of agriculture, livestock, poultry, aquatic products as raw materials, with a variety of auxiliary materials, after pre-processing (such as slitting, stirring, pickling, molding, seasoning) and other completed dishes. Centrally produced according to modern standards in a central kitchen, it is then preserved using flash freezing or vacuum technology to guarantee freshness and taste. After purchase, consumers only need to simply reprocess it to eat, eliminating the steps of food procurement and processing, and has the characteristics of convenience, efficiency and high taste reduction.

Prefabricated dishes are not actually new concepts, new things, as early as the 40s of the last century foreign have begun to appear prefabricated dishes, in the 70s of the last century prefabricated dishes introduced into Japan, Europe and Taiwan, and in the 80s ~ 90s of the last century into the Chinese mainland, we are familiar with McDonald's, KFC, its use are standardized semi-finished prefabricated dishes. Although prefabricated dishes have a development history of more than 70 years, they are really concerned by the Chinese people, and they can be traced back to the rise of deep-processed semi-finished dishes around 2000. However, because the supporting cold chain logistics system is not developed, the development of pre-made dishes at that time is still very slow, usually only in the New Year festival, large hotels, restaurants will provide semi-finished Chinese New Year's Eve lunch gift boxes, which are tightly packed in sealed bags, in fact, it is a variety of ready-to-cook and instantaneous pre-made dishes, clerks usually remind customers to "go home and put the refrigerator quickly".

The real popularity of pre-made dishes is also due to the three-year epidemic that began in 2019, the "stay-at-home economy" not only promoted pre-made dishes to replace dine-out, but also quietly changed consumers' shopping methods and dining habits, and pre-made dishes ushered in a period of rapid development of the industry. According to data from the China Chain Store and Franchise Association, more than 90% of catering enterprises focused on takeaway products during the epidemic, of which 91.6% sold semi-finished products and pre-packaged food. By the end of 2022, there were 7,2 prepared vegetable enterprises in China, an increase of more than 2011,7 compared with <>, surpassing the United States and Japan and becoming the country with the most prepared vegetable enterprises in the world.

What has changed in prepared dishes? What are we worried about again?

As a product innovation, prepared dishes not only change the consumption habits of the people, but also change the supply chain mode of the food industry, which is not only the inevitable development of chain and standardization of the catering industry, but also the active choice of agricultural modernization and industrialization. Prefabricated dishes provide a good platform and carrier for the standardized production and supply of agricultural products, from the field to the restaurant table, agricultural products can be presented to consumers in a standardized and quality semi-finished product form in accordance with the standards specified in advance by prefabricated dishes, which can not only greatly reduce the loss of intermediate processes, but also effectively control the quality of products, which is very conducive to the large-scale operation of catering enterprises. This model of upgrading the entire catering and food supply chain with product innovation is undoubtedly an ideal carrier for agricultural modernization and catering standardization. That's why pre-made dishes became popular in chain restaurants first.

However, the innovation of enterprises on the supply side does not mean that consumers have to accept all orders. There is a rationality for the existence of prepared dishes, but rationality does not mean perfection. As a rapidly rising emerging industry, prepared dishes are still in the barbaric growth period of rapid expansion, and there are inevitably various growing pains. Food safety issues directly affect the lives and health of the people, and naturally arouse their concern and worry.

The first is the issue of shelf life of prepared dishes. At present, the shelf life of prepared dishes on the market is different, mainly short, medium and long. The shelf life is only 3 days, and usually the outer packaging will indicate "require refrigeration at 0~4 °C", such as instant pre-made dishes such as sauerkraut fish, beer duck and steamed meat that are common on the Internet. The long shelf life is usually 6~12 months, such as various livestock, aquatic and other raw materials-based vacuum packaging prefabricated vegetables, usually need to be frozen below -18 °C. Many ready-to-eat prepared dishes have a shelf life of up to 2 years. At present, the mainstream prefabricated dishes on the market are products with medium and long shelf life, and there are a series of problems such as inconsistent shelf life between external combination packaging and internal independent small packaging, and "overnight meat" such as thawed meat is not marked as short shelf life pre-made dishes. In the face of the shelf life and freshness of prepared dishes, in addition to the strict supervision of market supervision departments, consumers still need to cultivate the golden eye of fire to distinguish the authenticity.

The second is the problem of preservatives for prepared dishes. The birth of prepared dishes is closely related to the invention of refrigerators, and cold chain logistics has always been the foundation and support for the development of the prepared vegetable industry. However, today, although China has built a huge cold chain logistics system, the national backbone cold chain logistics base, the cold chain facilities of the production area and the place of sale have basically achieved full coverage, and the level of cold chain equipment has also been significantly improved, but there are always shortcomings in the last mile of cold chain distribution. Especially the emergence of a large number of prepared vegetable enterprises, many small and medium-sized enterprises do not have the ability to monitor the source like dairy products, and it is difficult to achieve the whole cold chain logistics in the transportation process, which objectively leads to the motivation of some enterprises to add preservatives. It stands to reason that the vast majority of pre-made dishes need to be cooked at high temperatures, which is itself a sterilization process. Then the use of liquid nitrogen and other quick-freezing technology, through ultra-low temperature freezing, can completely inhibit the reproduction of microorganisms, so pre-made dishes theoretically do not need to add additional preservatives. However, in the actual test, it was found that many prefabricated dishes on the market had preservatives such as potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate, and the news around the world also reported this from time to time. Although the standards and dosages of these preservatives are within the scope of national standards, it is inevitable that the claim that pre-made dishes do not use preservatives is greatly reduced. What needs more attention is that prepared vegetables are generally heavy in oil and salt, because salt can inhibit the reproduction of microorganisms, thus playing a short-term preservation role. The gap between theory and reality suggests that the preservation technology of pre-made dishes needs to be further kept up, and efforts need to be made to control the cost of freshness and improve the preservation effect, and come up with a more economical and practical preservation technology.

Again there is the issue of additives for prepared dishes. Prepared dishes need to be processed in advance, and some nutrients will inevitably be lost. At the same time, due to the limitation of the type of ingredients, the nutrition of prepared dishes is relatively simple, although carbohydrates, proteins and fats can be well retained, but vitamins, minerals and bioactive ingredients are more difficult to retain. In order not to affect the taste and form of prepared dishes, many prepared vegetable manufacturers choose to use additives to condition the taste of food, retain moisture, prevent food rot and color changes, etc. In a horizontal evaluation, the number of additives in the existing pre-made dishes was as high as a dozen. Of course, these additives are in line with the national standards for use, but consumers' concerns are understandable. How prepared dishes can be more nutritious, hygienic and safe determines how far the prepared vegetable industry can go in the future.

Stir-fry hot prepared dishes, how can regulation keep up?

Pre-made dishes are undoubtedly the product of the progress of the times. To ensure the efficiency, freshness and safety of food supply, developed countries have chosen the supply chain combination of canned food + prepared dishes + fresh ingredients, which better ensures the consumption preferences of people of all classes. Due to the influence of traditional concepts in China, people prefer fresh ingredients, and vegetable markets and supermarkets are still the main channels for urban residents to buy food. However, the three-year pandemic has taught us that this model of supplying primary agricultural products is not only costly, inefficient, but also so depleting that it is time to transform and upgrade. China is not only the first producer of agricultural products, but also the first country in the loss and waste of vegetables and fruits, with more than 20%~30% of fruits and vegetables wasted in the food supply chain. The development of prepared dishes is not only the need of the country's war readiness, but also the needs of the modernization and upgrading of the entire catering industry, food industry and agricultural system.

As a new thing, prefabricated dishes have brought new consumption patterns, led to new formats and new needs, and will inevitably bring new challenges to social concepts, regulatory systems and industry development, which is the main reason why prefabricated dishes continue to be hotly debated on topics such as "whether they are fresh, safe and nutritious". In the face of growing pains, prefabricated dishes need to grow in the development of standardization and supervision, and constantly grow and mature in solving problems, and even go abroad and go to the world. Therefore, the current problem is not to accept and reject pre-made dishes, but to face the trend of the times in the development of pre-made dishes, how to use more professional supervision and stronger social supervision to ensure that the pre-made vegetable industry develops in a direction conducive to social health and industry progress.

Here we do not want to discuss more policy proposals, because the eyes of the masses are bright, the wisdom of the masses is infinite, and more and better opinions and suggestions will definitely be put forward. This article only introduces multinational catering giants, these large users of pre-made dishes, how they ensure the quality of pre-made dishes, after all, these multinational giants have rich management experience and industry knowledge. More importantly, the real big customers of pre-made dishes are not ordinary family consumers, but all kinds of food processing enterprises and restaurant chain enterprises, the share of pre-made dishes in the B-end market is about eighty percent, and directly for C-end users only two percent, these B-side large enterprises pay more attention to the freshness, safety and nutrition of pre-made dishes, which directly determines their profits and success or failure.

In our investigation in Langxia Town, Jinshan District, we learned that as the designated agricultural product supply base for major exhibitions and events such as the Expo and the Universiade, the town has a number of prefabricated vegetable production enterprises and is the largest prefabricated vegetable production base in the Yangtze River Delta region. Take a multinational fast food brand in Langxia Town as an example, it has been established for more than 70 years and has entered Shanghai for more than 40 years. Over the years, it has three experiences in quality control of prepared dishes: First, grasp the supply of ingredients and raw materials. For semi-finished prepared vegetables, the enterprise will specially examine the place of origin, through training, audit, certification, jointly set up a special food supply enterprise, these supply enterprises connect countless small farmers, cooperatives, guide and supervise farmers to plant and supply raw materials for prepared vegetables according to standards, and the process strictly implements the quality standards and product specifications of the enterprise. The second is to strictly control the production and processing of prepared dishes. The entire production workshop of prefabricated vegetables is basically unmanned, except for the initial vegetable cleaning link, the entire processing and packaging workshop basically does not see workers moving, ensuring the high-temperature sterilization, vacuum packaging and low-temperature cooling of prefabricated dishes. The third is the whole process of cold chain transportation. Semi-finished prepared dishes are delivered to stores by special cold chain trucks, which many large companies can easily do. But the core of management is the details, and we were shocked by the rigor of the cold chain transportation process. During the investigation, we found that the store will carefully check the lead seal of the cold chain transport vehicle before unloading, check the road transportation time, and compare and verify it with the specified cargo loading and unloading time. After loading and unloading the goods of the store, we will check the loading and unloading time, variety and quantity of the pre-made dishes again, and after being completely correct, we will affix the lead seal marked by the store to the refrigerated truck again, and sign and seal the relevant form.

The above-mentioned rigorous and meticulous verification process and the precise control of time, in addition to shocking us, also further remind us that stir-frying pre-made dishes does not need endless debates, but requires the government, enterprises and society to effectively control the quality of pre-made dishes and implement them in every specific detail. If we can take the issue of catering related to the health of the whole people as seriously as the above-mentioned multinational companies, we believe that the masses will accept the new thing of pre-made dishes. In the near future, we will also see more and more local multinational catering giants moving towards the "Belt and Road" and going to the world.

(The author is a Ph.D., Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences)