Feng Liu
With the accelerated pace of modern life and changes in consumption habits, people increasingly prefer convenient and fast-prepared dishes.
In addition, the prepared dish industry has also developed rapidly under the impetus of favorable factors such as policy support, changes in catering structure, changes in residents’ consumption habits, the entry of industry chain enterprises, and capital assistance.
The Blue Book on the Development of China’s Prepared Dishes Industry in 2023 points out that the scale of China’s prepared dishes will be RMB 516.5 billion in 2023, with a year-on-year growth of 23.1%, and it is expected to exceed RMB 1,072 billion by 2026.
However, in the rapid development of the industry, the prefabricated vegetable industry has highlighted many problems. First of all, the standard problem of the prepared vegetable industry.
Even though enterprise standards and group standards for prepared vegetables have been introduced in various parts of the country, the standards vary from place to place, resulting in uneven quality of prepared vegetables.
At the same time, the prepared vegetable industry involves production and processing, logistics and transportation, wholesale and retail, and other links, as well as several related subjects, making the industry difficult to regulate and difficult to protect consumers’ legitimate rights and interests. Secondly, food safety of prepared vegetables.
Most prepared vegetable enterprises lack standard logistics and transportation conditions and advanced cold chain storage and transportation technology. This leads to the deterioration of prepared vegetables in the transportation process or the breeding of bacteria, posing a potential threat to consumers’ health.
The competition problem of prepared vegetable enterprises. As of December 29, 2022, are 75,900 enterprises related to prepared vegetables in China.
At the same time, the low entry threshold of the prepared vegetable industry has led to the fact that prepared vegetable enterprises are mainly small and medium-sized enterprises. These often lack technological innovation and awareness of differentiated competition, leading to serious homogenisation of products, fierce competition in the market, and narrowing profit margins of enterprises.
To solve the above problems, the first task is to establish uniform nationwide standards and improve the corresponding local, enterprise, and national standards.
Relevant departments should build a perfect standard system and regulatory mechanism to ensure that every aspect of prepared vegetables, from raw material procurement, production, and processing to packaging, storage, transportation, and sales, is safe and controllable.
In addition, prepared vegetable enterprises should strengthen cooperation with scientific research institutions, improve cold chain storage and transportation technology, and build a food safety traceability system using the Internet of Things.
Along with this, research organisations can also build and improve through the use of artificial intelligence, and other new technologies will be developed via joint research to develop more advanced food preservation technology to ensure that the product still maintains the best quality when it reaches consumers’ hands.
At the same time, pre-prepared food enterprises must continuously enrich their product lines and introduce diversified food choices. They can also develop prepared dishes with specific functions or features to meet the special needs of different consumer groups, such as fitness people, vegetarians, children, etc.
The prepared dishes enterprises should emphasise after-sales service and establish a perfect customer feedback mechanism. By collecting consumers’ experiences and suggestions, they can improve their products and services in time to enhance customer satisfaction.
The readymade food and vegetable industry is in the golden period of rapid development, the industry has a broad prospect.
From the perspective of market size, the market for prepared dishes has shown explosive growth and is expected to continue to maintain high growth in the future, moving towards a trillion-dollar market.
At the same time, consumers will have more stringent requirements for the safety of prepared dishes, and the demand for diversification of product types will also grow.
In addition, under the general trend of “Made in China Going Overseas,” the export of prepared dishes has a bright future. It is expected to occupy a place in the international market under its taste, category, and price advantages.
Continuous favorable national policies will also provide a good development environment for the prepared vegetable industry and promote its standardization and high-quality development.
*The writer is a Scholar at Southwest University of Political Science and Law, P. R. China
