How far is the fresh-cut vegetable industry from rapid development?
In Beijing, where Chinese-style fast-food restaurants and Western-style fast-food restaurants are everywhere, eating a burger and buying a vegetable shake cup is, for many people, a convenient way to dine. Going into a supermarket to buy two boxes of semi-prepared vegetables, or ordering fresh-cut vegetables delivered to the door through a mobile app, and then taking them home and directly tossing them in the wok, has also increasingly become part of the daily routine for some office workers. While fresh-cut vegetables provide convenience for modern urban life, they also enrich the processing methods of vegetables and have become the "new elite" of the vegetable industry.
Market demand supports the rapid growth of the fresh-cut vegetable industry
It is understood that fresh-cut vegetables in China began in the late 1990s. With the entry of fast-food restaurants such as McDonald's and KFC, fresh-cut processing plants began to appear. In Beijing, there are more than 10 fresh-cut fruit and vegetable production enterprises, including Yunong Quality Agricultural Products Planting Company. In recent years, market demand has driven the rapid growth of this industry.
Developing fresh-cut vegetables is an objective need of the catering industry. Statistics show that Beijing has more than 100,000 catering outlets, and about 20,000 tons of unprocessed vegetables are reprocessed every day, of which nearly 40% is wasted. Catering outlets spend a great deal of manpower and financial resources on reprocessing unprocessed vegetables. In addition, the tradition of relying entirely on the chef's feel for the ingredients used in a dish and the amount used also troubles the standardization of products and services in the catering industry.
As an important part of promoting "prepared vegetables," fresh-cut vegetables have a notable impact on saving costs in the catering industry. According to estimates, washing 1 jin of vegetables requires 7-14 jin of water, while moving the washing process forward to the processing stage and using assembly-line operations uses only 1 jin of water for 1 jin of vegetables. The back kitchen must be equipped with dedicated vegetable-cutting staff, which increases expenditure costs and results in low labor efficiency. If the cutting process is moved forward to the processing stage, one vegetable-cutting machine can cut 10 tons per hour, equivalent to the workload of 50 people. Putting all the links that can be centrally produced into a central kitchen can save 25%-35% in costs after comprehensive calculation.
At the same time, changes in the family structure and lifestyle of Chinese residents are also changing the traditional practice of "buying groceries and cooking." In the past, a large family cooked three meals a day at home; today, simplicity and speed have become the lifestyle favored by office workers. In addition, foreigners working in China, returnees and others have already formed the consumption habit of ready-to-eat vegetables in Western diets.
In addition, developing the production and sales of prepared vegetables, including fresh-cut vegetables, also plays an important role in reducing urban waste and relieving urban functions. Data show that Beijing's annual vegetable supply is about more than 7.7 million tons, and each jin of vegetables produces an average of about three liang of waste, bringing the total annual waste to 2.3 million tons.
Achieving "explosive growth" still requires comprehensive supporting measures
Compared with developed countries abroad, where fresh-cut vegetables already account for more than 60% of the vegetable market, China's fresh-cut vegetable industry can still only be regarded as an emerging industry.
"The first ten years were all about promotion; the next ten years will be the period of explosive growth for the fresh-cut vegetable industry." said Chang Xiguang, general manager of Beijing Yunong Quality Agricultural Products Planting Company. The company is the only enterprise under Beijing Capital Agribusiness Group covering the entire vegetable industry chain, and its vegetable sales cover 40 chain fast-food restaurants and nearly 5,000 stores in Beijing.
It is understood that there is currently no unified national standard for the production of prepared vegetables, including fresh-cut vegetables. Few enterprises have prepared-vegetable processing capacity and sales capabilities, and the supporting facilities are incomplete. According to data from the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Agriculture, Beijing currently has more than 100 vegetable processing and distribution enterprises, with an annual vegetable processing volume of about 600,000 tons, accounting for only about 20% of the total vegetable production in the suburbs.
Industry insiders analyze that the following problems urgently need to be solved in the development of fresh-cut vegetables in China:
Extend the shelf life of fresh-cut vegetables. According to Chang Xiguang, taking iceberg lettuce as an example, after harvest it is rapidly pre-cooled, and after 40 minutes the core temperature of the vegetable is lowered to 1-4°C. The shelf life of iceberg lettuce in the United States can reach 30 days, while in China it can reach only 7 days at most. The reason is that domestic vegetables are generally placed in a normal-temperature environment after harvest, greatly shortening the shelf life. Therefore, the quality of the food at the source has a very large impact on the shelf life of fresh-cut vegetables.
The disinfection stage of fresh-cut vegetables needs improvement. Abroad, in the processing after vegetable harvest, less disinfectant is used, improving the safety factor of vegetables. In China, after harvest, non-standard disinfection procedures lead to an increase in the amount of disinfectant used later. At the same time, disinfection procedures generally use ozone, electrolyzed water and other methods. Which disinfection method is used for different vegetables and what concentration is most suitable require systematic research by experts to obtain scientific results.
The current situation of relying on imports for processing equipment urgently needs to be changed. Abroad, different vegetables have different washing, disinfection and cutting equipment, which can meet the needs of most vegetables with different appearances. In this regard, China started relatively late. Especially after vegetables are cut, breathable bags have a huge impact on the shelf life of vegetables. At present, all fresh-cut vegetables with a shelf life of more than 6 days use imported packaging bags.
Technical research and development need collaboration. The fresh-cut vegetable industry started late, and domestic enterprises still have not established a database for processing vegetable varieties. At present, domestic enterprises have only some data on iceberg lettuce, and research on processing data for most vegetable varieties remains blank. Data research is relatively difficult for enterprises to undertake on their own, so a cooperation model of "enterprises + research institutes" should be adopted to improve the conversion rate of scientific and technological achievements.
The reporter learned that the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Agriculture has incorporated the development of the prepared vegetable industry into Beijing's 13th Five-Year Plan for the development of the vegetable industry. In addition, it will continue to promote the construction of prepared vegetable processing capacity in vegetable production areas, and plans to launch a total of 5 ten-thousand-mu and 50 one-thousand-mu village projects within 5 years to support the construction of prepared vegetable processing capacity in major vegetable production areas.