Staff members work on the production line of a pre-made food company in Liuyang, Hunan Province in central China, on February 24 (XINHUA)
Pre-made dishes have recently come under the spotlight in China, with their increasing use igniting heated discussions about their nutrition and safety.
There are four types of pre-made food: ready-to-eat food, meaning food that can be eaten directly such as canned porridges; ready-to-heat food, meaning food that needs to be heated before being eaten; ready-to-cook food, which is semi-finished dish which has been deep processed and only requires simple cooking; and meal kits with fresh ingredients: vegetables and meat that have been washed and cut and need to be cooked before being eaten.
One newlywed couple in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, recently held their wedding banquet at a high-end hotel in the city. They ordered an expensive banquet package that cost 5,988 yuan ($820.4) per table, but were told by the groom's friend who works in the food and beverage industry after the wedding that 11 of the 16 dishes served to each table had been pre-prepared food purchased by the hotel and heated for service.
The couple's post expressing discontent about their experience on social media stirred up an uproar online. Many netizens said that despite being aware pre-made dishes are becoming more popular, they were surprised they'd be used in an expensive wedding banquet. Some mockingly joked that restaurants no longer need to recruit cooks in the future, as diners can heat the dishes themselves.
The possible use of pre-made dishes in schools has also sparked concerns among parents. Debate has arisen during the current autumn semester, after a kindergarten in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province in east China, began to serve children food made by central kitchens. Parents complained online that the food is not fresh and doesn't taste good.
Although whether food made in central kitchens should be classified as pre-made food is still disputable, the incident has fueled widespread concerns about pre-made food.
Parents worry that pre-made food may contain a lot of additives and that eating it will affect children's long-term health.
In response to public concern, the Ministry of Education recently expressed a cautious attitude toward the issue of "pre-made meals in schools."
An official from the ministry was quoted as saying that due to the lack of unified standards, certification systems and traceability systems for pre-made meals, they are not suitable to be introduced to schools at the moment and that any future effort to do so should be cautious.
Benefits
Most Chinese learned of the concept of pre-made dishes around 2019 and most had a welcoming attitude toward it at that time. During the COVID-19 pandemic, pre-made food gained popularity as many young people in quarantine, who were unable to go out for dinner and lacked cooking skills, turned to pre-made food for its convenience and reasonable price. However, as the use of pre-made foods has increased since 2021, people are increasingly finding the takeout food they order is pre-made, creating feelings of being cheated and negative sentiments toward the food category.
Wen Zhihong, a franchise and chain management expert, told China Newsweek that pre-made food can increase the efficiency of restaurants and stabilize food quality. In the past, it took a large amount of labor to wash and chop raw materials such as vegetables at restaurants, which not only reduced the efficiency of the restaurant but also required a larger kitchen, increasing operating costs. Pre-made food is made by factories and can reduce restaurants' reliance on chefs and save labor and rental costs.
According to the China Hotel Association, restaurants that use pre-made food can reduce the time needed for preparing food and therefore save labor costs, improving the profit margin by 7 percent and reducing raw material purchase costs by 10 percent.
According to market consultancy iiMedia Research, the market scale of pre-made food reached 419.6 billion yuan ($57.5 billion), up 21.3 percent year on year. It is estimated that the pre-made food market will maintain a high growth rate and reach 1.072 trillion yuan ($146.9 billion) in 2026. According to Qcc.com, an enterprise credit inquiry system platform, there were 64,000 pre-made food-related companies in China as of late last year and in 2020 alone, there were 12,600 newly added pre-made food-related companies.
For such a mature industry, it seems unreasonable for the public to have such great concerns.
Ruan Guangfeng, an official with the China Food Information Center, told China Newsweek that instead of creating food safety problems, pre-made food should better guarantee food safety. Canteens are where food-borne diseases are likely to break out while factories producing ready-to-cook food can control the quality of raw materials and the temperature and time of cooking as they have a larger production scale, higher mechanization rate and professional workers, which reduces food safety risks.
An industry insider told financial news outlet Yicai that the liquid nitrogen freezing technology used in producing pre-made food can preserve its nutrients and reduce reliance on additives and chemicals.
Problems
Despite these benefits, parents' concerns are not unfounded. The pre-made food consumption report published by the Jiangsu Provincial Consumers Rights Association in last February showed that consumers are most concerned about food safety issues for pre-made dishes, including the freshness of the ingredients and whether the production process is clean and hygienic.
The report said some consumers encountered pre-cooked food that was made of stale ingredients, had passed its expiration date or even had gone bad.
Research by Essence Securities Co. Ltd., a Chinese financial services company, showed that as China is a latecomer in the pre-made food market compared with Western countries, more than 70 percent of pre-made food companies are small.
These companies often cannot make the high investments needed to develop new technologies and purchase new equipment for improving the quality and taste of pre-made dishes. For instance, a vegetable washing production line, which can better guarantee the cleanness of vegetables, costs tens of thousands of U.S. dollar and so many small factories still use manual labor to wash vegetables.
Also, pre-made dishes require cold chain transportation to preserve their flavor and maintain food safety standards. However, China's cold chain logistics infrastructure is not advanced and companies need to pay high logistics costs. Many small companies can't afford cold chain logistics and therefore the flavor of the food they produce cannot be guaranteed.
Zhu Xiaojuan, an associate professor with the Civil, Commercial and Economic Law School at the China University of Political Science and Law, told Beijing-based Legal Daily that related government departments should publish specific standards for pre-made food, including the standards for raw materials and finished products. Zhu said pre-made food companies should produce products that meet these standards, and industry associations should formulate industry rules for pre-made food companies to follow and fulfill their social responsibilities.
People don't like pre-made food not only because of concerns over its quality. Not being informed when such food is served in restaurants is another grievance.
According to data from the China Chain Store and Franchise Association, currently, food and beverage enterprises have the largest demand for pre-made food, accounting for 80 percent of the market. Over 80 percent of dishes at some top chain restaurants are pre-made dishes.
Fu Lei, a lawyer from Beijing Yingke (Hefei) Law Firm, told Legal Daily that restaurants should inform customers if they serve pre-made food and customers can decide whether to order it or not. Fu said if restaurants fail to do so, they are infringing on consumers' rights to make informed options.
Zhu said pre-made food and freshly made food at restaurants have different costs and should be priced differently to give consumers more choices.
It also needs to be noted that behind the disdain of pre-made food is a fear that China's culinary culture, with thousands of years of history, may be lost with food industrialization. How to strike a balance between the preservation of Chinese culinary culture and food industrialization is a question that needs more attention.
(Print Edition Title: Food for Thought)
