All set for the table

"The pandemic has changed people's lifestyles, making pre-cooked food more popular as it can satisfy their needs for food storage and also meet their more stringent demand for food safety," he says.

According to iiMedia Research, there were 6,116 pre-cooked food-related enterprises in Guangdong province at the end of June. Shenzhen had the biggest number of such enterprises at 2,037, followed by Guangzhou and Foshan, with 1,808 and 661, respectively.

Guangzhou, Zhanjiang and Foshan took the top three spots in the province in the first half of 2022 with the highest level of development of the ready-to-eat meals segment, the report says, taking into account the number and scale of the enterprises, the construction of industrial parks, government support and their reputation.

"At the same time, the entry threshold for the mainland's pre-made food sector is relatively low. Although many companies are already in the business, most of them are small workshops, with only a few large industrial enterprises," Zhang points out.

According to Zhang, at present, there are 30 publicly-listed companies on the mainland engaged in the pre-cooked food business, with three of them in the Greater Bay Area. Leading players also include six in Hunan province, five in Shandong and three in Henan.

"The concept of pre-cooked food is nothing new as many catering enterprises, especially restaurant chains, have long used pre-made dishes or pre-made materials to enhance the level of standardization," says Fu Lihong, South China head at Freshippo Kitchen - a brand of e-commerce giant Alibaba's retail unit Freshippo that focuses on fresh and chilled food, as well as those with a short shelf life.

"But thanks to the development of the whole industry chain, there is now increased awareness among consumers. The pandemic, people's growing preference for dining at home, as well as the lack of time for them to cook, have fueled the industry's growth," says Fu.

Sales of pre-prepared dishes at Freshippo in Shenzhen in the first 10 months of this year had doubled compared with the same period a year earlier, according to Fu. "People aged 30 to 45 and those above 50 with small families make up the biggest group of consumers. Freshness and varied food combinations, as well as cooking convenience, matter most to them."

Dingdong Maicai - another online grocery platform - entered the fray in 2021. Ou Houxi, who's in charge of the company's pre-made food business, says the market saw "explosive" growth last year. "There were a lot of changes in the entire supply chain last year. Many factories that only supplied such types of food to businesses, joined the mass consumer market too," he says.

Despite the huge market potential, Shenzhen Cuisine Association's Liu warns that problems like homogenization, nonuniformed standards and substandard food quality need to be addressed.

He urges market players to step up research and development to create their own characteristics for growth, based on various types of cuisine.

Zhang from Deloitte says the pre-cooked food market is going through rapid development. Besides strict controls on the quality of food and promoting product innovations, greater efforts should be made to formulate industry standards and strengthen regulations throughout the process to ensure the industry's orderly development, he says.

Contact the writer at sally@chinadailyhk.com