Some people are rushing to buy "substandard" vegetables, causing a "new trend" in Shanghai: splitting a dish into two and selling them on the platform

At the dinner table in Shanghai, the concept of "Clean Your Plate Campaign" has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. "One less dish, one can't finish packing" has become a new fashion for many citizens. Outside the dining table, "Clean Your Plate Campaign" has gradually taken root in takeaway and e-commerce platforms. Many takeaway restaurants have more options for half dishes and small dishes. Fresh food e-commerce also tracks the source of waste through big data, and finds new ways to increase production while reducing the waste of food materials through "clean vegetables" reprocessing, order planting and other ways.

Half serving dishes are more popular among citizens

Whether on platforms such as Ele.me or Meituan, reporters have found that there are many takeaway restaurants that offer "one person meals", "small portions", and "half portions". The Haijinzi Ele.me platform offers two versions of the "Horseshoe Lion Head": normal and half versions. The normal version includes six lion heads, while the half version is halved accordingly, and the price is the same - the normal version is 42 yuan, and the half version is 21 yuan. In terms of sales, half serving dishes are more popular, with monthly sales exceeding 100 orders, while the normal serving only has 57 orders.

Although Wu Maoxing's noodle shop does not offer half of the main meal, it provides additional noodle service. Adding half of the noodles each time can meet the dilemma of some consumers who may feel hungry without adding noodles and waste adding one. Several Harlem noodle shops also offer half serving toppings and other options on delivery platforms. Similar to dine in, Hai Di Lao also provides half of the ingredients on the delivery platform, giving consumers more choices.

"Many takeout orders are for one person, and the normal amount of food is usually too much, making it easy to waste if you can't finish it. Small and half portions are not only cheap, but also can eat a few more dishes." Many consumers have reported to the takeout platform, hoping that catering companies can provide more small or half portions. Therefore, the takeout platform has added a "one person" column and a "small portion" section to encourage merchants to provide a variety of small portions, and the order volume of small portions has also significantly increased.

In June of this year, two departments jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Effectively Preventing Takeout Food Waste by Leveraging the Leading and Driving Role of Online Catering Platforms", which mentioned that online catering platforms should encourage and guide merchants to actively provide small meals such as small dishes, small meals, and small drinks. Guide merchants to vigorously promote green packaging, actively use small meal boxes, and advocate that the platform optimize the display of food information to facilitate consumers to order reasonably.

Reduce food waste by 110 grams per small meal

Whether it is a one-man meal on the takeout platform or a half dish of the hall meal, the catering industry still has the problem of unclear definition of small meal products and non-standard implementation of businesses when implementing the "Clean Your Plate Campaign", which has become the bottleneck of the industry in promoting small meal.

In the first half of this year, the China Hotel Association led Ele.me and a leading catering enterprise to jointly draft the industry's first small meal standard, "General Requirements for Small Meals in the Catering Industry.". This standard is the first in the industry to standardize the definition, classification, basic requirements, supply requirements, service requirements, cost saving requirements, labeling requirements, etc. of small meals.

The reporter learned that the standard provides a clear definition for small portions, which are generally 1/4 to 2/3 of the same regular meal. It also requires small portions to be consistent with regular meals in terms of ingredients, processing methods, and taste, except for portions lower than regular meals. Corresponding energy-saving requirements have also been formulated for small meals, such as requiring small meals to be sold in the form of packaging or takeout. Meal boxes that are suitable for the volume of small meals should be selected to avoid excessive packaging and resource waste.

Jin Yong, Vice President of the China Hotel Association, said, "In the process of formulating the standards, the operating characteristics of different types of food products in the industry were fully considered, and extensive research was conducted with food delivery platforms and a large number of catering brands. The characteristics of both offline and online food supply forms were taken into account, which has taken a solid first step towards the industry consensus and specific practice of small meals."

As of now, the number of merchants providing small meals on the Ele.me platform has exceeded 800000. Last year, orders for small meals increased by about 30% year-on-year, achieving a green and virtuous cycle.

The popularization of small meals not only reduces food waste, but also contributes to carbon reduction. The "Small Meal Food Loss and Carbon Reduction Assessment Report" by the Institute of Agricultural Information of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences shows that by using the "indirect calculation method" and "direct estimation method" to establish a calculation model, it is estimated that the average order of "small meal" takeout can reduce food waste by 110.23 grams, resulting in a 53.3% reduction in food waste. Taking 2021 data as an example, the annual reduction in food waste from Ele.me's "small meal" orders is equivalent to the annual food demand of 540000 people. The report also calculated the carbon footprint reduction caused by "small meals" by constructing a framework for estimating the carbon footprint of takeout food. The data shows that on average, each small takeout order reduces food waste carbon footprint by 365.07 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent.

High quality "substandard" products have become smooth selling goods

In addition to food waste on the table, e-commerce platforms also use big data to reverse lock waste to the source, and "Clean Your Plate Campaign" runs through the whole process from the field to food processing to the dining room.

"Chemical fertilizers and herbicides cannot be used in the process of growing organic vegetables, so the quality of vegetable products is closely related to the weather. We can guarantee the quality of vegetables and fruits, but we cannot guarantee their appearance, such as the size of fruits and vegetables being different, and the number of insect eyes in leafy vegetables, which cannot meet the purchase standards. The person in charge of an organic farm in Chongming District told reporters that in the past, we could only endure the pain of letting high-quality but substandard appearance vegetables and fruits rot on the ground, wasting a lot of money. Later, during the process of connecting with e-commerce platforms, we found that some" substandard "products with appearance that cannot meet the requirements can be processed into" clean vegetables "and put on shelves through peeling, reprocessing, and other methods. The sales situation was extremely hot.".

"Some citizens, due to their busy work schedules, find the process of washing and preparing vegetables too cumbersome. 'Clean vegetables' can be directly cooked, which is deeply loved by white-collar consumers. He said that the' substandard products' that used to rot on the ground are now often sold out, greatly reducing the waste of ingredients.".

In years of operation, Hema, a fresh e-commerce platform, has mastered a large amount of consumption data, thereby reducing waste behavior in both procurement and sales channels. Ge Dongsheng, the regional operations director of Hema Shanghai, told reporters that in terms of product specification design, Hema has always followed the small packaging route, setting product specifications based on the amount of "one meal per family". Vegetables and meat are mainly 300-350 grams, avoiding waste caused by customers cooking too much. At the same time, the accuracy of the automated ordering system is close to 90%, predicting customer demand and placing orders, reducing waste caused by inaccurate ordering.

In addition, Hema's multi format collaboration has also played a role, such as Hema's Olay business model, which can accept discounted products from fresh stores and sell these expired products at low prices through the Olay channel.

"More importantly, Hema's data analysis ability can feed back the source of the supply chain, share demand information with hundreds of source bases, engage in order agriculture, and avoid losses caused by blind planting that cannot be sold." Ge Dongsheng introduced that by making ice cream from Yunnan avocados with substandard specifications and appearance, and freeze-dried peach crisps from organic Pinggu peaches of different sizes, Hema has created a graded and maximized utilization combination supply chain model, reducing farmers' losses and agricultural losses, and achieving income growth for farmers. For example, the practice of freeze-dried peach crisps reduces fresh peach waste by an average of 200 kilograms per acre and increases net income by 1200 yuan.