---
title: "After Being Featured in the No. 1 Central Document, How Can Pre-Made Dishes Open Up a Trillion-Yuan Market?"
description: "The development of pre-made dishes has been a topic of debate in recent years. Amid doubts about the 'post-pandemic cooldown' and a sluggish market after the New Year, the 'Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Doing a Good Job in the Key Work of Comprehensively Promoting Rural Revitalization in 2023' explicitly proposed cultivating the pre-made dishes industry. With the release of the No. 1 Central Document, the industry's future direction has been clarified, and it is expected to develop more healthily, rationally, and vigorously. This move has injected a shot in the arm for the industry, and with the trends of deep penetration in the B-end and diversification in the C-end, pre-made dishes have officially opened up a trillion-yuan track towards scale and health."
author: "李相如"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2023-02-25"
language: "en"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/VZH5WKkvHiPVSf7a2R_zZQ"
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# After Being Featured in the No. 1 Central Document, How Can Pre-Made Dishes Open Up a Trillion-Yuan Market?

> The development of pre-made dishes has been a topic of debate in recent years. Amid doubts about the 'post-pandemic cooldown' and a sluggish market after the New Year, the 'Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Doing a Good Job in the Key Work of Comprehensively Promoting Rural Revitalization in 2023' explicitly proposed cultivating the pre-made dishes industry. With the release of the No. 1 Central Document, the industry's future direction has been clarified, and it is expected to develop more healthily, rationally, and vigorously. This move has injected a shot in the arm for the industry, and with the trends of deep penetration in the B-end and diversification in the C-end, pre-made dishes have officially opened up a trillion-yuan track towards scale and health.

In recent years, the development of pre-made dishes has been a topic of much debate. Amid doubts about the 'post-pandemic cooldown' and a sluggish market after the New Year, the 'Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Doing a Good Job in the Key Work of Comprehensively Promoting Rural Revitalization in 2023' explicitly proposed cultivating the pre-made dishes industry. Since then, the development of pre-made dishes amid controversy has finally 'landed' with the release of the No. 1 Central Document, clarifying the future direction of the industry. In the future, the pre-made dishes industry will usher in a healthier, more rational, and vigorous development. It is certain that this move has injected a shot in the arm for the development of pre-made dishes, and under the trends of deep penetration in the B-end and diversification in the C-end, pre-made dishes have officially opened up a trillion-yuan track towards scale and health.

**The Irresistible Trend of Pre-Made Dishes**

**1. An Important Means for Catering Enterprises to Reduce Costs and Increase Efficiency**

For most consumers, understanding pre-made dishes may have started during the pandemic. But for catering enterprises, the B-end market for pre-made dishes was opened as early as 2014. To date, one in five catering enterprises has chosen to use pre-made dishes. Why are catering businesses increasingly fond of pre-made dishes? Let's consider the pain points of the catering industry. High rent, high labor costs, high ingredient costs, and low gross margins have always been long-standing problems in the catering industry. At the same time, inconsistent taste and slow serving speed also restrict catering enterprises from improving table turnover and expanding operations. The emergence of pre-made dishes has broken these five major problems at once, becoming an important means for catering enterprises to reduce costs and increase efficiency. According to data released by the China Hotel Association, to solve the problem of standardized dish taste, large catering enterprises generally adopt the solution of building their own central kitchens. However, for the vast number of small and medium-sized enterprises, the investment of tens of millions in a central kitchen is too expensive. Before achieving economies of scale, they can only solve the taste standardization problem through external means such as pre-made dishes. Moreover, pre-made dishes can also free up nearly 80% of kitchen space, significantly shorten the serving time for large and hearty dishes, and provide a way for pandemic-stricken catering enterprises to improve efficiency.

**2. Reducing Losses in Agricultural Product Processing and Transportation**

Currently, China's total grain loss rate is between 12.9% and 19.4%, and the loss rate for fruits, vegetables, and aquatic products is even higher. This leads to issues with ingredient freshness, delivery timeliness, and transportation costs. Previously, the development of Beijing Wangshunge was constrained by ingredient transportation issues. A large bighead carp from Qiandao Lake transported by road to Beijing could take half a month, while using frozen fish would cause texture problems. Therefore, adopting pre-made dishes with pre-cooling at the place of origin and commercial processing can not only reduce the loss of perishable agricultural products but also reduce transportation difficulty and time.

**3. The Drive of the Lazy-Home Economy and Weakening Cooking Skills**

Over the past decade, Chinese residents' views on cooking have undergone a major shift. Against the backdrop of high-pressure work and long commutes, cooking has transformed from a pleasure for the parent generation to a chore for the younger generation. Especially for white-collar workers in first- and second-tier cities, who want to cook but lack time to hone their culinary skills, and want delicious food but lack time to shop and prepare, pre-made dishes that require low time and simple operations have become a new option. (C-end consumer profile of pre-made dishes)

**How Can Brand Owners Seize the Opportunity of the Pre-Made Dishes Trend?**

**1. The OEM Development Mindset Will Be Eliminated**

Relying on mature raw material supply chains and a large number of OEM factories, the entry barrier for pre-made dishes is extremely low. Currently, most pre-made dish enterprises still adopt a barbaric development mindset of OEM production, with few having a user-centric or brand-centric mindset. Directly copying the industrialized batch production mindset from the B-end to the C-end has directly led to homogeneous competition. Some enterprises have also proactively launched price wars, hoping to first capture users and then deeply cultivate products. However, low-price tactics such as '1500 iPhone 13 raffles' and '100,000 orders of sour fish at 1 cent' have greatly damaged the reputation of pre-made dishes, which have been labeled as unpalatable and unhealthy in the early stages of the category.

**2. The Differentiated Direction of Specialization and Refinement Becomes the Development Model**

Whether it's Jia Guolong Kung Fu Cuisine or Shejian Yingxiong, many catering enterprises promote their pre-made dishes as mastering the eight major cuisines and hundreds of dishes, but none have been recognized by consumers. The reasons are threefold: first, a lack of credibility—why should an enterprise specializing in Northwestern cuisine be proficient in Sichuan, Huaiyang, and Cantonese cuisines simultaneously? Second, R&D and supply chains cannot keep up; developing and stabilizing the supply chain for signature dishes across various cuisines requires significant time accumulation. Even dine-in restaurants with hundreds of local dishes cannot guarantee that every dish is delicious, let alone hundreds of dishes across eight cuisines, which tests the R&D capabilities of chefs and the requirements for core ingredients and seasonings. Third, it exceeds the business boundaries of enterprises. For example, Yihai Kerry's comprehensive expansion into pre-made dishes failed to leverage the synergy of a condiment enterprise in seasoning packets, directly leading to a massive waste of corporate resources. For catering enterprises, taking the path of a big single product in the early stage and becoming a billion-yuan single-product king might be a good route. For instance, New Hope Group launched the Chengdu Meihao brand focusing on semi-finished meat products, successfully creating a billion-yuan revenue hit product with a focus on crispy pork; Huangjia Xiaohu, starting with frozen sausages, built a product matrix around breakfast foods including egg tarts, chicken rolls, small fried dough sticks, and hand-grabbed pancakes, covering 23 provinces and over 2,000 catering and supermarket stores, accumulating over 50 million customers. With user-centric thinking and R&D capabilities as a moat, defining and leading the taste standard of a specific dish first is the opportunity to be remembered and chosen first by consumers among the thousands of competitors.

**3. For the B-End Market, Ensure Taste Stability and Synergy**

Compared to C-end dishes with diverse types and regional tastes, B-end pre-made dishes pursue full uniformity and stability of taste, especially after reheating; products with minimal taste change are more popular. Especially for many semi-finished pre-made dishes, significantly shortening the time catering enterprises spend on ingredient processing and reducing their dependence on chefs are the main development drivers. For example, the emergence of aquatic pre-made dishes has broken the geographical and seasonal freshness limitations of original aquatic products, saving a lot of slaughtering and cleaning steps; the emergence of frozen baked goods has saved baking enterprises and housewives from the time of fermenting dough in the middle of the night; the emergence of hot pot bases and dish seasoning packets has also saved catering enterprises a lot of time in simmering bases. Therefore, considering the three dimensions of scale, growth, and profitability, B-end pre-made dishes may have more development opportunities in eight tracks: fresh-cut vegetables, frozen baking, quick-frozen products, meal kits, aquatic seafood, processed meat, seasoning packets, and cooked marinated products. It is worth noting that not any enterprise can enter these eight tracks; enterprises need to have synergy with the relevant tracks in terms of production resources. For example, Anjoy, a leader in quick-frozen foods, leverages three major advantages in resource synergy, cognitive synergy, and channel synergy in its pre-made dishes efforts, with its Anjoy Xiaochu, Dongpin Xiansheng, and quick-frozen seasoned crayfish winning from the start; Shandong Xingsheng Group, focusing on chicken products, has launched related chicken dishes and marinated products through the synergy of chicken products, gaining favor from downstream group meal enterprises and marinated brands; Guolian Aquatic, leveraging its production advantages to launch fish and shrimp pre-made dishes, even turned losses into profits in 2022.

**How Can Distributors Profit from the Pre-Made Dishes Track?**

**1. Shift from a 'Sitting Merchant' to a 'Walking Merchant'**

Distributors accustomed to wholesale operations in the circulation market often look down on the retail market, which has small demand and scattered locations. When I was serving Xingsheng Group, I found that Meituan and Meicai have captured large chain catering enterprises, while canteens of government agencies, schools, and enterprises have dedicated distributors for delivery. However, small restaurants and communities are places where most distributors are unwilling to expend effort. Little do they know that this is precisely the opportunity for distributors to accumulate small amounts into large ones in new categories, where being one step ahead leads to continuous advantages. Whoever first occupies the local retail distribution market will be the first to connect with enterprise and channel platform development resources. At the same time, most pre-made dishes on the market are frozen products, heavily dependent on cold-chain logistics, and the timeliness of delivery and accuracy of temperature control have become distribution characteristics of pre-made dishes. After Qudian's sour fish dish went on sale on Douyin, there were issues where the shelf life was only three days but delivery took seven days, and many pre-made dish products claimed full cold-chain delivery, which was a pseudo-concept. By the end of 2021, China had fewer than 350,000 refrigerated trucks, and the huge gap in cold-chain delivery for pre-made dishes is precisely an opportunity for distributors to leverage.

**2. Build an Alternative Channel Brand**

The emergence of pre-made dishes also gives distributors two major development opportunities to become channel-type brands that integrate resources. From the hot sales during the pandemic and the Spring Festival period, it is not difficult to see that the opening of the C-end consumption scenario for pre-made dishes lies in targeting the family reunion banquet market. Unlike single-person single-serving takeout, family reunion banquets pursue richness and diversity of dishes. It is difficult for a single restaurant's takeout to gather the many dishes of a family reunion banquet, and ordering takeout from several restaurants at the same time poses delivery time issues. Pre-made dish manufacturers are also temporarily unable to develop multiple types of dishes such as 'cold dishes, marinated products, hot dishes, and soups' simultaneously. At this point, distributors have the opportunity to design and combine various dishes for local family reunion banquets, opening up the pre-made dish market for festivals and weekends.

From the perspective of market demand control, many distributors accumulated a large amount of residential community resident data and community leader data through food delivery during the pandemic, which is precisely the market resource that catering and processing enterprises, which are good at production, lack. Converting unstable pulsed retail demand into relatively stable customized demand is also the value of distributors as channel-type brands. For distributors, integrating production enterprises on the left and consumer groups on the right, and becoming a channel-type brand for pre-made dishes through family reunion banquets, may be an important path to regional dominance.

**3. Distributors Need to Seize the Family Reunion Banquet Scenario**

The C-end consumption scenario for pre-made dishes has not yet been clearly defined. Whoever finds this consumption scenario first will enjoy the huge C-end consumption dividend of pre-made dishes. In fact, from the explosive growth during the pandemic and the Spring Festival period, it can be seen that even takeout cannot replace the C-end consumption scenario embedded in family reunion banquets. In 2022, sales of 'New Year's Eve dinner pre-made dishes' increased significantly, with Douyin sales up 248% year-on-year, Meituan Maicai up 400%, and Dingdong Maicai up 500%. It can be seen that although pre-made dishes have been controversial, during traditional festivals, especially reunion festivals like Spring Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, the heat of pre-made dishes will rise to the highest temperature again. If distributors can design dish combinations for local family reunion banquets and sell targeted reunion banquet pre-made dish sets with 'cold dishes, marinated products, hot dishes, and soups,' there is a considerable possibility of opening up the festival and weekend consumption market and enjoying the consumption dividend first.

**Final Thoughts:** Homogenization and cold-chain issues have always been the main problems constraining the development of pre-made dishes. When the catalyst of the pandemic disappears, the barbaric growth of pre-made dishes will also be gone forever. In contrast, the number of pre-made dish enterprises at the forefront is increasing day by day. How to stand out among nearly 70,000 enterprises has become the next competitive challenge. For catering and processing enterprises, focusing on product R&D, supply chains, and channel relationships, leveraging resource synergy to focus on specialized and refined tracks, and deeply scanning related dishes and their consumption pain points to create a unique product matrix are the keys to entering the billion-yuan club. For distributors, fully leveraging resource integration capabilities to unblock the capillaries of pre-made dishes in the region is also the value of transforming from a delivery provider to a channel-type brand service provider. When at the forefront, all participants can easily profit. When the trend passes, the future of pre-made dishes will shift from product competition to brand competition represented by operational capabilities, and the release of the No. 1 Central Document will accelerate this process. In the next three years, the pre-made dishes industry will enter a reshuffling stage, and the days of excessive hype will be gone forever.

Li Xiangru, Senior Consultant at Best Management Consulting, senior brand strategy expert, with 12 years of brand strategy positioning experience, serving Fangtai Appliances, Jinmailang, Foton Pickup, Yihai Kerry, and other multi-billion-yuan enterprises, with consulting experience spanning FMCG, industrial products, condiments, and catering industries. Upgrading positioning theory and brand image theory, he created the meaningful brand strategy methodology.


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