Taking over the New Year's Eve dinner table, people complained about the lack of "emotion" in the prepared dishes.

"Pre-prepared dishes have become the new favorite of young people for New Year's Eve dinner", "Pre-prepared dishes have become the new favorite of Hangzhou people for New Year's Eve dinner", "Pre-prepared dishes have become the new favorite of Hangzhou people for New Year's Eve dinner"... Related topics have been read more than 10 million times on Weibo, sparking heated discussions.

While complaining, I ordered a large gift box of pre-prepared dishes. Whether at home or in a restaurant, for modern urbanites, it seems more difficult than usual to avoid pre-prepared dishes during New Year's Eve dinner.

In January this year, "prepared dishes" reached their peak in the past six months, with sales of 150 million yuan. Quite a few of them will be served on the New Year’s Eve dinner table.

Arranged by sales volume, "cold salads and cold dishes" type of prepared dishes sell best. Netizen Zanilia said that they may not always have it during normal meals, but it makes sense not to have cold dishes on the New Year’s table, and cold dishes are basically bought ready-made, such as cold jellyfish, hot and sour chicken feet, and braised beef, and they basically don’t know how to make them themselves.

In addition, Chinese people attach great importance to New Year's Eve dinner. It is not just a matter of stir-frying a few dishes. It usually requires a large table of dishes, and must also include "hard dishes" such as chicken, duck, and fish. If you go to the market to buy and cook each item, it will take up to four or five days. It cannot be completed. The best-selling gift box prepared dishes during the Spring Festival perfectly solve this problem.

According to a survey by iiMedia Research, online sales of prepared vegetable gift boxes reached 42.35 million yuan. Among them, there are many package gift boxes launched by well-known restaurants such as Quanjude and Longda Food.

Netizen "Lamplighter" said that the pre-made dishes made by the hotel are fully prepared, and the taste and quality are guaranteed. You can eat them at home, so why not buy them?

Although it is difficult not to encounter prepared dishes, some netizens still cannot accept them emotionally.

The results of an online poll initiated by Sina Finance showed that more than 40% of netizens cannot accept pre-made dishes for New Year’s Eve dinner.

We captured hundreds of discussions on Weibo topics such as "70% of consumers of pre-made dishes for New Year's Eve dinner are young people", "Will you choose pre-made dishes for New Year's Eve dinner", "Are you acceptable to eat pre-made dishes for New Year's Eve dinner"? , there are two main reasons why netizens oppose pre-made dishes:

What is the taste of the New Year? The taste of the New Year is the "form" and "atmosphere" of the New Year. In the final analysis, it is a traditional custom.

Many netizens said that if the New Year's Eve dinner is not "cooked together at home", it will lack the atmosphere and formality of the New Year and lack "emotional exchange".

Netizen "Muyuan Shares" believes: "Pre-made dishes may seize the dining table, but they may not seize people's hearts."

In the eyes of the public, the pre-made New Year's Eve dinner is like "quick-frozen dumplings for the New Year", which not only sacrifices the freshness and deliciousness of the ingredients, but also lacks the warmth of "making dumplings together" as a family.

When it comes to prepared dishes, “not fresh enough” is always at the core.

Because there are no unified mandatory standards, the production quality of prepared dishes is inevitably uneven, and consumers' right to know is not guaranteed.

Netizens believe that the freshness of the ingredients they buy can at least be guaranteed, so they would rather spend more money than buy pre-made dishes. Netizen @青梅子浜久 mentioned: “It’s only 299 to buy fresh crayfish, and 198 to buy pre-prepared lobster. It’s not necessarily fresh or delicious, so why bother?”

The groups that support prepared dishes are mainly concentrated in first- and second-tier cities, especially young people aged 22-40.

These groups have a fast pace of daily life and do not have enough time to prepare a large table of dishes. Therefore, pre-made dishes that are “no washing, no cutting, and no seasoning” are the first choice.

In the captured comments, almost all netizens who support pre-made dishes mentioned keywords such as "convenience", "time saving", and "price concessions".

Netizen "Maimai Tianmi" said: "New Year's Eve dinner that does not require DIY is very suitable for young people like us, so that we have more time to do other things."

Especially this year, due to the impact of the holiday policy, many people still need to go to work on New Year's Eve, so buying pre-made dishes in advance is a last resort.

Netizen "Factory Director" said that after buying pre-made dishes, he can assemble a New Year's Eve dinner covering several major cuisines and innovative dishes in less than an hour, which not only saves time but also enriches the dishes.

Some consumers also said that they can eat prepared dishes at home, but not in restaurants.

Netizen "Nian Nian" said that if you go to a restaurant to have New Year's Eve dinner, of course you want every dish to be freshly prepared. If it is a pre-made dish, then why not eat it at home?

Judging from current trends, the norms and policies of the prepared vegetable industry are becoming more and more perfect.

Shanghai has introduced the country's first prepared vegetable production license review plan, clarifying that 8 major categories and 23 subcategories of food in Shanghai are included in the scope of prepared dishes; Hangzhou has also released an implementation plan for the research and development of Hangzhou cuisine and the high-quality development of the prepared vegetable industry.

It is foreseeable that the market size of prepared dishes will continue to expand.

Data shows that my country's prepared vegetable market size will reach 560.56 billion yuan in 2023, and the market size will reach 892.49 billion yuan in 2025, with a CAGR of 23.2% from 2021 to 2025.

Like it or not, as a result of high-level industrialization, prepared dishes will account for an increasing share of our food, and the Spring Festival table is just a microcosm.