This evening is New Year’s Eve, the day families get together to eat New Year’s Eve dinner.
But this year’s New Year’s Eve dinner is a bit special, many 80, 90 stay in place for New Year’s Eve, only with Mom and Dad with video calls, the end of the world together this meal. Less company, less money, the ritual behind the New Year’s Eve dinner becomes more and more important. “Even if there is only one person, but also to eat the whole Family together the momentum” “As long as I stuff my mouth, miss it can’t catch up with me”, someone joked.
Meanwhile, in Beijing, for example, the dine-in New Year’s Eve dinner starts from a minimum of 4 people, and with the increase in the number of people, the price point also starts from 598 yuan, divided into 800 yuan, 1,000 yuan, 3,000 yuan, and even several grades of 10,000 yuan. Many restaurants this year also launched a New Year’s Eve dinner set for 2 people, but basically only a set of roast duck and 2 cold dishes, it is difficult to attract the original year people dining.
This also makes this year’s New Year’s Eve dinner has a little different way of eating, New Year’s Eve dinner semi-finished products and gift boxes in the e-commerce platform, takeaway and buy Food App, as well as offline supermarkets, almost “sold out “The New Year’s Eve dinner, as a must-have battle in the restaurant industry every year, is gradually showing a trend of retailing.
In this regard, Professor Li Changan of the School of Public Administration at the University of International Business and Economics analyzed several reasons for this: buy semi-finished products, consumers save Time, save time, but also enjoy the pleasure of their own cooking; semi-finished products are more fancy, consumers save part of the cost of purchasing raw materials; during the Epidemic, semi-finished products also increase the safety of food.
The choice may be different, but the thoughts and prayers that people inject into this meal are the essence of each year’s New Year’s Eve dinner. For the Chinese, New Year is a time for family reunion. There is a Home before there is a meal, and when you are with your family, whatever you eat is a New Year’s Eve meal.
Hard-working original New Year’s Eve people: buying half-finished products to take home
Like most young people, Sonic is staying in Beijing this year to spend New Year’s Eve in situ, working until the twenty-ninth day of the lunar month.
In the past, every year on New Year’s Eve, Sonic had to go to his grandparents’ house to celebrate New Year’s Eve, and a big table full of New Year’s Eve dinner was taken care of by his grandmother. For this year’s lonely New Year’s Eve dinner, there was no shortage of delicious food, so she started preparing a week in advance, ordering semi-finished dishes, beef and pork ribs from Boxmaster one after another.
Grandma always prepares the New Year’s Eve dinner without the “money string” – fried balls and vegetables fried vermicelli. It’s a good luck. The actual fact is that you will need to be able to make your own deep-fried meatballs. The actual fact is that you can find a lot of people who are not able to get a good deal on a lot of things. Her family has kept the custom of wrapping coins in the dumplings, who ate the year’s fortune, this year she is going to wrap a few dumplings stuffed with coins and keep them for herself.
As for her Sichuan roommate, from Taobao to buy the salami and Meizhou Dongpo out of the semi-finished gift box, as a New Year’s Eve dinner. “This year, my friends around me are also buying semi-finished products to spend New Year’s Eve at home with friends or roommates, this is the first time we spent New Year’s Eve outside and the first time we ate someone else’s New Year’s Eve dinner. “Sonic laughed and said that the most unfortunate thing is that he can’t receive the New Year’s Eve money this year.
“New Year’s Eve dinner can eat dumplings, so what to eat from the first day to the seventh day. The problem, Sonic, who basically does not cook, is worried, and after much consideration, she plans to buy some ready-to-eat dishes and self-heating hot pot on the grocery app back to stock up.
Looking around the country, many young people respond to the call to spend New Year’s Eve in situ, the New Year’s Eve dinner and how to solve the Chinese New Year period meal, has become a common problem. This Spring Festival, online shopping semi-finished New Year’s Eve dinner, New Year’s Eve dinner gift boxes, ready-to-eat dishes and other gradually become a major trend.
The major e-commerce platforms, buy food App has also joined the New Year’s Eve dinner track, separate opened up the New Year’s dishes, New Year’s goods area, do up the New Year’s Eve dinner retail. On the eve of New Year’s Eve, Tang Palace, Tao Taoju, Guangzhou Restaurant and other local long-established brands also shelved the New Year’s Eve dinner semi-finished gift boxes in Tmall Supermarket. The data of box show that this year, compared with last year, 10% of new semi-finished meals, sales increased by 5%.
Deep Burn in Taobao search “New Year’s Eve dinner semi-finished products” found that the flat price of about 150 yuan, store sales have broken 10,000, Jingdong and Poundland sales are slightly less, but also higher than The sales of Jingdong and Pindodo are slightly less, but also higher than the same period last year. From the sales can also be seen, Buddha jumping wall and flower gum chicken is this year’s explosive models.
Looking through the comments, it was found that most of the post-80s and post-90s consumers bought them for convenience and saving. “Thawed and heated directly to eat, very convenient, but also nourishing the body, a triple whammy. “One user commented.
Yue stack is a main food brand of Buddha jumping wall and flower gum chicken, the original sales mainly in the two regions, this year, Yue stack nourishing seafood marketing director Wang Di, but found that the brand in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei area and the whole of North China have a significant increase in sales.
“Because most of the New Year’s Eve in situ people are in this region, and in the user’s impression, the New Year’s Eve dinner to buy these two, convenient, sanitary, upscale. “Wang Di analysis said that a conservative estimate of the total sales before the year is 5-10 times more than usual, of which there is a 3-5 times increase in Beijing.
In Wang Di’s opinion, for the difficult New Year’s Eve dinner dishes, ready-to-eat / semi-finished gift boxes, is a very good way. “The original price transparency of abalone, ginseng, shark’s fin and tripe is relatively low, we have turned this dish into a standard product through our own factory production capability and transportation capability, which can help consumers greatly reduce the chances of stepping on the pit. “
Undoubtedly, the choice of most people to spend New Year’s Eve in situ is helping to accelerate the evolution and popularity of the semi-finished restaurant market.
More lazy original year people: move the restaurant home
Home in Henan Ling Ling, even buy semi-finished products back to do it themselves feel the trouble, she and her husband decided to take out the seabed hot pot.
In previous years at home, Ling Ling happy to be a child, New Year’s Eve dinner are Parents worry about, Mom is good at making buckle bowl, as well as a variety of handmade cakes, together with very delicious. She and her sister just played on the couch with their phones, watched TV, brushed their shakes, and waited to eat.
“My husband and I didn’t prepare anything this year. For one thing, cooking is not good, and the kitchen is our knowledge blind spot, so we can’t make a big deal about it; for another, we didn’t have time to prepare either. Ling Ling’s father also stayed at work for New Year’s Eve, leaving only her mother and sister at home, the family prepared a particularly simple New Year’s Eve dinner, without the rituals and atmosphere of previous years.
But half a month ago, Lingling received a big box of New Year’s Eve goods. “My mother fried crispy meat, dried bean curd, dried small fish, balls, as well as the hometown specialties Hoisin Soup, the whole three big boxes, still in the refrigerator did not move. “
Jiang Feng, who is in the postal district, belongs to the “too lazy to cook” camp. Previously home is the parents to prepare the New Year’s Eve dinner, they just have to accompany them to eat together. “Now you have to do it yourself, think about it and feel tired. I plan to go to the restaurant directly pack some home, while and parents video while eating, but will not eat too casually, afraid of parents worry. “
In fact, since the beginning of the epidemic last year, there are many restaurants have launched gift box products, the store sold good dishes processed into New Year’s Eve dinner gift packs. These gift packs need to be kept sealed and have a short shelf Life, but they are quite popular.
Last year, the epidemic came very suddenly, a well-known restaurant brand in Beijing for the preparation of the New Year’s Eve dinner and gift boxes prepared a lot of ingredients, after the cancellation of more than half of the New Year’s Eve dinner experienced the epidemic, the restaurant closed from the second day of the New Year, the gift box plate also suffered greatly, the revenue only 200,000, the rest are basically let staff internal digestion.
This year, in order to increase revenue, the restaurant, which has not been able to operate for nearly eight months, officially opened for sale a month before the New Year’s Eve dinner gift boxes, full sales plus online mall conversion, a month of sales of about 2 million.
“The dishes in the basin dishes, and the store’s signature dishes are the same, our idea is the store dine-in package to take home. The dishes are processed by our own back kitchen. “The head of the restaurant’s operations told Deep Burn.
Despite the good results, the gift boxes account for only 5% of its total restaurant revenue. In the New Year’s Eve dinner business, such a brand still relies on dine-in. In order to meet the needs of more people, the restaurant has divided the New Year’s Eve dinner into three periods, 10:00-13:00 first, 17:00-18:00 second, 19:00-22:00 third. However, according to the deep fire understanding, so far, this year’s New Year’s Eve dinner is only booked out 70%.
“The restaurant has 4 stores and 160 private rooms, a meal can receive a limited number of guests. If the New Year’s Eve dinner is packed for customers to take home, it can serve 500-1000 more families. “The person in charge said.
In addition, in the take-away platform and buy food platform to order food, order hot pot, has become a lot of the original year people to prepare the New Year’s Eve dinner “labor-saving way”. It is reported, hungry App on the “New Year’s Eve dinner” search volume rose four times year-on-year.
At the same time, this year, the box horse for the first time launched “small family New Year’s Eve dinner”, mainly to the box horse workshop hot dishes and semi-finished dishes. Sam, Carrefour, RT-Mart and other retail superstores have also launched New Year’s Eve dinner sets.
Traditional restaurants, as well as take-out, fresh food e-commerce, and retail superstores, are all rushing to do the big business of retailing Chinese New Year food.
More diversified choices for New Year’s Eve dinner
In the past, there were no other options for New Year’s Eve dinner than to consume in stores and make your own at home. But this year, let the original year people feel the trouble is that the New Year’s Eve dinner dine-in consumption, in accordance with the requirements of epidemic prevention, should take the initiative to cooperate with businesses to strictly implement a series of preventive and control measures such as wearing masks, scanning code registration, temperature measurement, a meter line, ventilation and disinfection. Various places are guiding catering enterprises to do a good job in the premise of epidemic prevention and control, but also in advocating the “home New Year’s Eve dinner” consumption model.
Data show that compared to last year’s 8-12 people dine-in booking type, this year to 4 people, 2 people or even single person copies of the majority. But the choice of dishes for 2 people is limited, and the number of 4 people can not get together, dining out, has become an embarrassing choice.
Semi-finished products, gift boxes, takeaway and other New Year’s Eve dinner multi-model rise, from 2021, the New Year’s Eve dinner formally moved from offline to online, towards the trend of retail.
Another factor behind the general trend of semi-finished New Year’s Eve dinner is that the number of small families and single people is now increasing. Especially after the 90s and 00s become the main consumer of the family, they originally do not cook much, much less like their parents, spend a day or two during the Spring Festival to prepare the New Year’s Eve dinner, they are basically considering the ready-made way to solve. “The epidemic has also accelerated this aspect of the shift. ” Bao Yuezhong, a new retail expert, told Deep Burn.
User habits aside, several interviewees mentioned that the retailing of New Year’s Eve meals is behind the boom of the whole prepared dish track. And pre-made dishes will not only appear in the scene of New Year’s Eve dinner, and not only serve the C-sides.
Since 2020, traditional restaurants such as Xibei, Haidilao, Laoxiang Chicken and Yang Guofu Spicy Hotpot have started to do digitalization and retailing, and their solution is to do pre-made dishes, especially semi-finished dishes.
With the explosion of pre-made dishes/semi-finished dishes during the epidemic, capital also began to focus on this windfall. in May 2020, the pre-made dishes R & D and supply chain platform looking for ingredients announced that it had received a total investment of 80 million yuan in the A and A+ rounds. It is revealed that the current monthly GMV of looking for ingredients is about 90 million yuan, with a customer unit price of about 3,000 yuan and a transaction scale of 700-1 billion yuan a year.
Among the pre-made dish platforms piling up To C, looking for food ingredients is mainly To B. In the view of Cui Hengliang, president of Looking for Food Ingredients, To B semi-finished dishes and pre-made dishes are a bigger piece of the market. Data from Guohai Securities shows that China’s prepared dish market, the current ratio of to B side to to C side is about 8:2.
“With pre-made dishes, restaurants do not have to purchase a lot of raw materials, they can add more dishes to attract more customers, on the other hand, they can reduce the number of chefs, reduce the kitchen area and reduce costs. “Cui Hengliang said, also therefore, semi-finished dishes and prefabricated dishes, in the future will certainly be normalized.
At present, semi-finished dishes have not only become a new solution for restaurant brands to run to a larger stage, but also led to the development of a longer supply chain behind. The New Year’s Eve dinner is also just the beginning, as Mid-Autumn Festival, Lantern Festival, and even every day in the future can be scheduled.
*The title image is from Unsplash. at the request of the interviewee, Ling Ling and Jiang Feng in the article are pseudonyms.
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