Should the restaurant be informed before use?, Concerns about the safety of prefabricated dishes

Should restaurants mention the use of pre made dishes?

"If we had known that the hotel used so many pre made dishes, we would definitely not have booked this one. It felt like it was out of class, and we were even more afraid that guests would think we were not sincere."

Not long ago, a newlywed couple in Hangzhou, Zhejiang chose a well-known hotel in the city to have an unforgettable wedding banquet for their friends and family. They ordered a expensive banquet package, but after the banquet, the couple was quietly informed by their relatives and friends that the wedding banquet was not cost-effective, with 70% of the 16 dishes being pre made.

After the couple posted a "roast" on the Internet, many netizens immediately responded: "Knowing that prefabricated dishes are popular now, I didn't expect that the wedding banquet that cost a lot of money is also mostly prefabricated dishes." More people mocked: "In the future, there is no need to recruit cooks. Eating in restaurants is all prefabricated dishes. You can heat them up yourself."

Prefabricated dishes have the advantages and characteristics of convenient cooking and fast serving, which are in line with the fast-paced lifestyle of today and are also loved by some young people. In recent years, the pre made food market has developed rapidly. According to relevant data, the registered number of prefabricated vegetable enterprises in China has reached 62000. Recently, the relevant national departments issued the "Measures for Restoring and Expanding Consumption", which mentioned "tapping into the potential of the pre made vegetable market and accelerating the construction of pre made vegetable bases.".

While the market is expanding, there are many controversies surrounding pre made dishes. A recent investigation by reporters found that many consumers express that they do not want to order pre made dishes when dining out, and some restaurants do not explicitly inform them when using pre made dishes. Problems such as poor quality of prefabricated dishes also caused frequent roast.

The interviewed experts said that there is currently a lack of national standards and definitions for prefabricated dishes, and there is also a lack of relevant supervision on their quality. The widespread use of pre made dishes has its positive significance, but consumers should be clearly informed and their right to know and choose should be respected.

Online and offline pre made dishes are popular

Food safety concerns

"Your covered rice is ready, please take your time. A portion of Oily bean curd braised meat that was prepared two months ago can be cooked in boiling water for a few minutes. The cost is 5 yuan, and the price is 15 yuan. The colorful soup is delicious, and such a prepared dish is ready to be taken out." This is a short video about the preparation of prepared dishes.

The reporter found in the interview that pre made dishes have penetrated many restaurants both online and offline.

The reporter searched on e-commerce platforms using the keyword "cooking bag" and found many pre made vegetable specialty stores with cumulative sales of thousands of yuan. The average price of a cooking bag is 5 yuan, ranging from "Brazilian grilled meat", "Mei Cai Jianrou" to "Wanzhou grilled fish" and "spicy cod fish", with a variety of dishes to choose from. Many of these stores will directly state "used for takeout" or "the same type of food/takeout", and there are also many stores that specifically list "merchant purchase links". As long as you provide store photos and business licenses, you can choose to try 5 or 10 packages free of charge.

A customer service representative from a store told reporters that they receive inquiries from dozens of food delivery stores every day, and their promotional page reads "cumulative supply of over 8 million to food delivery platform merchants.".

According to data from the China Chain Store Association, currently, the largest downstream demand in the prefabricated food industry comes from catering enterprises, accounting for 80%. Snacks and fast food restaurants, chain stores, food delivery restaurants, rural kitchens, and group cafeterias are the main scenarios for the application of prefabricated dishes. Among them, some top chain catering enterprises have a higher proportion of pre made dishes, with over 80% of the dishes in some restaurants being pre made dishes.

According to data released by third-party research institutions, the size of China's pre made vegetable market reached 419.6 billion yuan in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 21.3%. It is expected that the pre made vegetable market size will exceed 1 trillion yuan in 2026.

Associate Professor Zhu Yi from the School of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering at China Agricultural University told reporters that the healthy and orderly development of the pre made vegetable industry can meet the convenient, fast, and safe needs of consumers, as well as promote the iterative upgrading of the breeding and food industries. There will be a number of pre made vegetable industry bases with strong radiation, accelerating consumption upgrading.

Under the booming development of the pre made food market, many consumers have also expressed their concerns and dissatisfaction. In interviews, many consumers said that when they go to a restaurant to eat, they just want to eat something fresh and freshly made by the chef. However, some restaurants use pre made dishes, which "reduces the feeling". "Previously, it was said that eating overnight dishes was unhealthy, but now eating dishes prepared a few months ago is already healthy." "I don't understand why even cafeterias have to use cooking bags, and industrial food cannot be handmade." Similar comments can be seen everywhere below pre made food science popularization and news short videos.

The quality issues of pre made dishes that are occasionally exposed have also added fuel to consumer concerns. In February this year, the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Commission released a survey report on pre made vegetable consumption, which showed that over 80% of consumers reported encountering problems such as stale ingredients, spoiled dishes, damaged packaging, and expired products when purchasing pre made vegetables. Previously, some media exposed the production environment of a small-scale food bag manufacturer called "Ganggangxiang": a production room full of stains, expired ingredients continued to be used, and chicken dropped on the ground was directly thrown into the processing tank

During the interview, many consumers told reporters that many prepared dishes were not consistent with the pictures and words in packaging and publicity. For example, the packaging paper was painted with delicious Braised pork belly with fat and thin, but they found it was starch products after they bought it and opened it; Some pre made dishes still have a shortage of weight, and even some merchants use pre made dishes to impersonate freshly cooked dishes.

Professor Zheng Fengtian from the School of Agriculture and Rural Development of Renmin University of China said that there is currently no standard for prefabricated dishes in the country, and some provinces have plans to develop standards for prefabricated dishes. However, it is also a difficult problem to determine how many types of prefabricated dishes can be classified. There is still controversy over whether semi-finished dishes, pre prepared dishes, and central kitchen supplies can all be classified as prefabricated dishes.

The interviewed experts believe that the lack of a standard system has become a key issue affecting the development of prefabricated dishes. Due to the lack of unified execution standards, the quality of pre made dishes in the market varies greatly, and the flavors of dishes produced by different manufacturers vary greatly. This has given rise to many pain points that hinder the development of the industry, such as difficulty in ensuring dish quality, lack of detailed labeling, and significant price differences. Take pickled Chinese cabbage fish as an example. Some manufacturers implement the national standards for animal aquatic products, while others implement the standards for quick-frozen prepared food.

Merchants do not disclose usage information

Infringement of consumer legitimate rights and interests

Not long ago, Mr. Zhang from Qingdao, Shandong Province, while dining at a hotel, found that some dishes had a different taste than before. After investigation, he found that the ingredients were pre made dishes. Regarding this, the staff explained that pre made dishes are convenient and fast, can be cooked and eaten easily, and the quality is definitely not a problem. They can meet the needs of customers to eat food quickly, and the taste difference is not significant. The staff member hesitated and said, "There shouldn't be much difference between pre made and fresh dishes," in response to Mr. Zhang's doubts about their lack of nutrition.

"I didn't expect such a large hotel to also use pre made dishes, and without informing consumers, I won't ask," Mr. Zhang said he couldn't understand.

Prefabricated dishes entering restaurants is no longer a new phenomenon. In interviews, several consumers expressed dissatisfaction with the restaurant's use of prefabricated dishes without explicitly informing them. Mr. Zhao, an office worker from Tai'an, Shandong, said, "I have no objection to pre made dishes, but the restaurant should at least tell me that they provide pre made dishes."

To confirm the above statement, the reporter recently visited 30 hotels, takeaway shops and supermarkets in Beijing and Tianjin, and inquired about the online takeaway platform. Except for a supermarket in Hedong District, Tianjin, where the publicity page of the cashier wrote "Kung Pao chicken, a special today, is 9.9 yuan per serving, and the prepared dishes are not made on site", none of the businesses took the initiative to inform or indicate that they used prefabricated dishes.

At the end of August, the reporter visited a Chinese fast food chain restaurant in a shopping mall in Beijing. At that time, it was lunchtime, and the restaurant was fully booked. The delivery window was also filled with many takeout guys waiting to pick up their food. But the reporter found that only one staff member was busy in the kitchen.

"If you order now, how long will it take to make it?" When asked by the reporter, the ordering staff replied, "Place your order now, it will take 5 minutes to make it.".

"With so many people eating, there is only one person in the kitchen, and we can still ensure the speed of serving. Did we use pre made dishes?" Faced with a question, the clerk remained silent for a while without giving a positive answer, only telling the reporter that the honey sauce chicken cutlet is freshly fried, and the braised meat was previously "prepared".

Other visited restaurants, when asked by reporters whether they used pre made dishes, only one staff member from a small bowl restaurant replied that "some of the dishes were pre made dishes," while other restaurants were concerned about him. Like a grilled fish restaurant, without giving an answer on whether it is a pre made dish, it only indicates that the fish and boiled meat slices in the store are "delivery style". In a Rice noodles shop, the clerk told the reporter that the braised chicken was semi processed, and the chicken pieces were cooked in advance.

A merchant revealed to reporters that although they use pre made dishes, they dare not promote them to the public because some consumers do not have a high recognition of pre made dishes, feeling that they are not fresh or nutritious. In addition, the pre made dishes industry has indeed encountered many problems in recent years during its rapid development, which has had a certain negative impact on food and beverage stores.

Should merchants inform consumers when using pre made dishes?

Fu Lei, Director of the Management Committee of Beijing Yingke Law Firm, believes that customers have reasonable expectations for the dishes they choose and hope for value for money, which is also a service standard that businesses and consumers should have in their contracts. Because prefabricated dishes are a product of the industrialization of Chinese cuisine, their cost is much lower than that of stir frying and cooking, which will exacerbate the infringement of consumers' right to know and choose. If restaurants and takeout shops use prefabricated dishes, they should fulfill their obligation to inform and remind customers, and customers can choose to consume or not to consume.

In the view of Zhu Xiaojuan, the director and deputy secretary-general of the Commercial Law Research Association of the China Law Society, there is a cost difference between pre made and freshly made dishes, and restaurants can set prices separately to give consumers more choices.

"Operators should provide true information about pre made dishes and should not deceive and mislead consumers through false and exaggerated advertising. The pre made dishes provided by operators should also match the labeled quantity, and should not be cut corners or have insufficient weight, otherwise it may infringe on consumers' fair trading rights." said Chen Yinjiang, Deputy Secretary General of the Consumer Rights Protection Law Research Association of the China Law Society.

Establish standards and fulfill the obligation of disclosure

Strengthen the management and supervision of prefabricated dishes

The reporter found that although there is currently no national standard for pre made dishes, several provinces and cities have introduced relevant standards and specifications for pre made dishes since 2022. In April 2022, the Jiangsu Catering Industry Association released the group standard "Quality Evaluation Specification for Prefabricated Dishes"; In November 2022, the Chongqing Municipal Administration for Market Regulation issued the "Twenty Articles on Implementing Main Responsibilities for Food Safety in the Production and Operation of Prefabricated Vegetables"; In January of this year, the Shanghai Municipal Administration for Market Regulation issued the "Shanghai Prefabricated Vegetable Production License Review Plan" to explore and standardize the food safety of prefabricated vegetables.

The national level also attaches great importance to the development of pre made dishes. In 2023, the No. 1 central document clearly proposed to "improve the standardization and normalization level of industries such as clean dishes and central kitchens, and cultivate and develop the prefabricated vegetable industry". On July 31st, the State Council forwarded a notice from the National Development and Reform Commission on measures to restore and expand consumption, specifically proposing to expand consumption of catering services, cultivate a "breeding base+central kitchen+cold chain logistics+catering stores" model, and tap into the potential of the prefabricated vegetable market.

Recently, through coordination and coordination between the Shandong Provincial Administration for Market Regulation and the State Administration for Market Regulation, two items have been added to the standardized management system for business scope, namely "pre made vegetable processing" and "pre made vegetable sales". On August 3rd, the person in charge of Fude Lin Catering Management Co., Ltd. in Liaocheng City, Shandong Province received the city's first business license for "pre made vegetable processing" and "pre made vegetable sales" from the staff.

In Chen Yinjiang's view, there was no established and sound standard system for pre made dishes in the past, nor was it included in the scope of specialized food business projects. Generally, as long as one has a catering service license or a food business license, they can engage in related business activities. Including "pre made vegetable processing" and "pre made vegetable sales" in the specialized business scope can promote the establishment of a sound pre made vegetable standard system and promote the standardized and high-quality development of the industry in the future.

Experts interviewed by reporters believe that for pre made food companies, good taste determines how high they can go, and safety determines how far they can go.

Sun Juanjuan, a researcher at the Collaborative Innovation Center for Food Safety Governance at Renmin University of China, believes that pre packaged dishes for consumers are pre packaged foods, and the compliance management of producers and operators needs to pay attention to the legality and compliance of labeling information, including the principle of not misleading consumers, as well as specific information labeling requirements such as names, ingredients, and dates. It is worth mentioning that the intuitiveness of labeling information makes non-compliance with labeling an important object of consumer rights protection. Especially for pre packaged food producers who are transitioning from B2B to B2C, they need to pay attention to the compliance challenges brought about by scenario switching.

"Consumers can actively choose pre made dishes in B2C scenarios, or passively consume pre made dishes in B2B scenarios. The latter's informed choice has sparked controversy over consumer rights protection. The transparency of the supply chain is increasingly being concerned. In addition to food safety, consumers also pay attention to their consumption content from other dimensions such as economic benefits, including food production methods. Faced with competition brought by the industrialization of catering, handmade dishes still have their own existence scenarios. Information disclosure is undoubtedly a prerequisite for meeting consumers' different expectations and making informed choices." said Sun Juanjuan.

Fu Lei said that the emergence of a new thing will inevitably lead to changes in the upstream and downstream industries. It is essential to establish industry standards and regulate guidance. The development of prefabricated dishes needs to be controlled from the source. Production must have a food production license, and transportation and warehousing also need to be supervised simultaneously. Storage conditions and transportation equipment standards need to be updated synchronously for catering sales. Sellers who deliver them to consumer dining tables also need corresponding licenses.

In Zhu Xiaojuan's view, relevant national departments should formulate and issue specific standards for prefabricated dishes, including raw material standards and finished product standards; Prefabricated vegetable production enterprises should fulfill the responsibilities of producers and operators, produce products that meet standards and are healthy, and indicate the raw materials and cooking methods; Industry associations should also establish industry rules to encourage pre made food enterprises to actively fulfill their social responsibilities and establish a good social image.

"The relevant regulatory authorities need to implement supervision effectively, not only by increasing daily supervision and inspection efforts, but also by conducting targeted special supervision and inspection on issues that are more concentrated and prominent in consumer feedback, and cracking down on illegal, irregular or harmful behaviors that harm consumer rights in accordance with the law." Chen Yinjiang suggested.