Compared with the performance loss and decline of consecutive months, the performance of the third quarter of this year may give quick frozen food enterprises a "breather". It is worth noting that in addition to the traditional business, quick frozen food enterprises have begun to "roll in" new businesses.

In the third quarter of this year, the performance of frozen food enterprises recovered, and new business may be the key to performance growth.

The reporter of China Business Daily noticed that the "four dragons" in the industry are all eyeing prefabricated dishes. Among them, Sanquan Food, with the growth of both operating income and net profit, started business around microwave ovens and air frying pans; Anjing Food, the leader of the performance list, has successively acquired new businesses of prefabricated dishes; Haixin Food, which "sells frozen fish and meat", accelerated the expansion of prefabricated vegetable production capacity after turning losses into profits; Even Huifa Food, which handed over the loss report card, declared that the prepared dishes would become the key to driving its performance growth.

Traditional product sales or cold

"Except for frozen dumplings and wontons, it's hard to see new patterns of frozen food." Ms. Lu, who lives in the East Third Ring Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, spent half a day in front of the frozen freezer, and finally bought several bags of frozen dumplings and frozen hot pot food. She told the reporter of China Business Daily that at present, there are fewer patterns of quick-frozen food such as dumplings and wonton in supermarkets, and she is "tired of eating".

How about the sales of quick-frozen food? In a supermarket in the East Third Ring Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, a salesperson revealed that when the weather turned cold, more consumers came to buy instant frozen fish balls, crab sticks and other hot pot ingredients, but the sales of instant frozen dumplings and other pasta have been tepid.

"There are indeed some overstocked stocks." A Beijing quick frozen food dealer told the China Business Daily reporter that the purchase volume of their catering channels has been decreasing, and the sales volume of retail channels such as supermarkets is not much. Affected by the cost factor, the promotion activities of enterprises have decreased, and the consumption enthusiasm of the downstream may also decrease.

Or because of the cold sales of traditional products, quick frozen food enterprises are hot on the prepared dishes.

Sanquan Food told reporters: "Microwave fried rice series has been launched in June. At the same time, microwave pasta, microwave dumplings, microwave pizza and other products will also be near Time to market. In addition, the air frying pan series products covering meat, rice noodles, pastries and other single products were also launched in July, with good market response. "

In terms of Anjing Food, it also said that the business of the prefabricated dishes that the company focuses on has developed rapidly, and the second growth curve has achieved initial results. Among them, Xinhongye quick-frozen seasoned crawfish and other products included in the company's consolidated statements in August 2021 brought about an increase, and Mr. Anjing's frozen food products also saw a rapid growth.

Increase and expand capacity around prefabricated vegetables

"Because the prepared dishes are more popular with young people, they are sold well online and through supermarket channels. Many quick frozen food enterprises have launched new products of prepared dishes, and they have given great discounts. Quick frozen food itself is a semi-finished product, and enterprises also have natural advantages in preparing prepared dishes," said the above-mentioned dealers in Beijing.

Leading enterprises of quick-frozen food increase and expand their production capacity in the aspect of prefabricated dishes.

Haixin Food also released a fixed increase plan when it released its third quarterly report. It plans to raise funds of no more than 520 million yuan to expand the production of aquatic products and deep-processing and quick frozen dishes. Haixin Food said that the introduction of highly automated quick frozen food production lines in the deep processing of aquatic products and quick frozen dish products project of this fund-raising investment project will effectively help the company break through the bottleneck of production capacity, launch high-quality products that are more in line with consumer demand, and then meet the growing market demand. At the same time, it is also conducive to significantly improving the production capacity of medium and high-end products, and improving the profitability of products and the company's profitability.

In fact, it is not only Haixin Food that expects to increase its performance with the help of prefabricated vegetables. In the first three quarters of this year, Huifa Food suffered a loss of 76.0743 million yuan, which is the only enterprise among the "four dragons" of quick-frozen food to hand over the loss report card. At present, Huifa Food also plans to make efforts on prefabricated dishes. Huifa Food said that the company has formed a series of prefabricated dishes such as frozen, cold fresh and normal temperature, serving multiple distribution and catering channels. And in July this year, the company used its own capital of 150 million yuan investment To establish a wholly-owned subsidiary, the new company will focus on the main business development of Huifa Food in the future, especially will continue to develop the company's prefabricated vegetable industry chain channels.

Bai Wenxi, vice president of China Enterprise Capital Alliance, told the reporter of China Business Daily that for quick freezing enterprises, prefabricated dishes are a new growth point of performance and also a capital outlet. The advantages of quick freezing enterprises in laying out prefabricated dishes are mature supply chains, production technology bases, cold chain logistics and distribution systems, while the difficulties lie in product research and development, taste restoration and brand building of prefabricated dishes.

Can we break through in the fourth quarter of this year

From the third quarter financial report, the strategy of quick frozen food enterprises to arrange prefabricated dishes has achieved initial results.

According to the financial report, in the third quarter of this year, the new products of Sanquan Food microwave and air frying pan series contributed significantly to the company's performance growth; The net profit of Anjing Food increased by more than 60%, and it claimed that its performance growth benefited from the layout strategy of "self-produced+OEM+M&A" prefabricated vegetable business; Haixin Food also said in the financial report that the new products introduced have improved the company's product structure and will continue to work on the prefabricated dishes in the future.

Zhu Danpeng, vice president of Guangdong Food Safety Promotion Association, said that enterprises' control over the cost of prefabricated dishes, the improvement of efficiency, and the growing demand of distributors for prefabricated dishes have all boosted the popularity of prefabricated dishes in the industry. At present, the whole prefabricated vegetable market is a passive consumption. When the demographic dividend of the whole new generation continues to stack up, the prefabricated vegetable market will gradually become an active consumption.

"The threshold for entering the prefabricated vegetables race track is not high, but the cost of product preservation and logistics transportation is high, and it is unknown whether the enterprise's subsequent investment and return can be in direct proportion." The relevant person in charge of Chunxue food sales business told the China Business Daily reporter that capital is more concerned about prefabricated vegetables, and enterprises are willing to catch up with this craze, but after the capital boom subsides, Prefabricated dishes may face problems such as low consumer awareness in terminal sales.

Yuan Shuai, deputy secretary-general of the Rural Revitalization and Construction Committee of the Chinese Cultural Management Association and an expert in the digital field, said that despite the rapid development of the prefabricated vegetable market, the industry still faces some pain points, such as product taste, supply chain and large-scale, standardized production, etc. Yuan Shuai believes that in terms of logistics distribution, prefabricated vegetables rely on cold chain transportation, and the requirements of cost and freshness limit the distribution radius of products of a single enterprise. At present, the prefabricated vegetable business of enterprises can only be covered in a certain area, and has not yet appeared in the whole country nature The leading enterprise of prefabricated dishes. In addition, the diet in different regions of China is different nature It is also large, and it is difficult to produce a nationwide "popular" product. (Reporter Ma Jia)