How to "blossom inside the wall and smell outside" in the quick-frozen fruit and vegetable industry
Under the epidemic, consumers' demand for going out to eat suddenly decreased, family cooking became more frequent, quick-frozen food stood out, and consumption increased significantly. Meanwhile, quick-frozen fruits and vegetables are gradually favored by the market due to their advantages of being free from seasonal restrictions, convenient processing and long preservation period. Taking quick-frozen vegetables as an example, the global quick-frozen vegetable market will reach 5 billion yuan in 2020, and it is expected to reach 5.8 billion yuan in 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 2.2%. Although China's quick-frozen fruit and vegetable market started relatively late, with its unique resource advantages, as well as the continuous improvement of freezing technology and cold chain logistics, the quick-frozen fruit and vegetable industry has accelerated its development in recent years, with increasingly rich product types and improved quality. It has not only consolidated and expanded the broad international market, but also accelerated the cultivation of domestic consumer markets. The industry has ushered in an unprecedented opportunity for development.
Who said quick-freezing is unhealthy, safe and nutritious
In addition to ice cream, frozen chicken, duck and fish, frozen dumplings, etc., all kinds of frozen fruits and vegetables have also become "permanent guests" in the freezer area of large commercial supermarkets in recent years, including not only the whole package of sweet corn, broccoli, peas, but also some well-matched "combination packs".
"In fact, quick-frozen fruits and vegetables are very safe and reliable." Industry insiders said that seasonal fruits and vegetables are usually pretreated after picking and processed in a low temperature environment. Before entering the quick-freezing workshop, the manufacturer will also use different methods to kill microorganisms. This also means that if the procedure is complete and the operation is standardized, the quick-frozen fruits and vegetables can effectively control the pesticide residues and microorganisms on the surface.
Even so, there are still many consumers who are skeptical of the nutritional value of quick-frozen fruits and vegetables, believing that only fresh vegetables and fruits have nutrition. "The vegetables bought at the vegetable market in the morning are the freshest, and the vegetables just picked must be better than those frozen for more than ten days." "Quick freezing is not healthy", and so on.
Is it true? Recently, the Shanghai Consumer Rights Protection Committee carried out relevant tests on quick-frozen vegetables. The results showed that most quick-frozen vegetables and fresh vegetables had little difference in nutrition, and the content of nitrite was similar. Experts said that in fact, the nutrition of vegetables has been continuously lost since they were picked. Washing and cutting will accelerate the nutrition loss, but quick-freezing can slow down the nutrition loss. Since fresh vegetables also need to be washed and cut before cooking, the effect of quick-freezing on nutrition is not significant.
Dai Chun, the chief nutritionist of the Nutrition and Dietary Center of Nanjing First Hospital in Jiangsu Province, also said, "Like β Carotene, vitamin E, minerals and dietary fiber in vegetables are not much lost in quick-frozen vegetables. And the storage of polyphenol antioxidant substances in vegetables after quick-frozen will have a better effect. "
So can quick-freezing be 100% fresh and nutritious? Dai Chun said that quick-frozen vegetables may cause the loss of some water-soluble vitamins such as vitamin C and B vitamins. However, it is worth noting that this kind of situation also exists in the transportation and storage of normal temperature vegetables. If we have to compare, the loss of water is probably the biggest difference between quick-frozen vegetables and normal temperature vegetables. However, this may only destroy the taste, and will not affect the absorption of human nutrition.
Industry insiders said that quick-frozen fruit and vegetable technology is a "preliminary processing of agricultural products" technology. The definition of preliminary processing of agricultural products in the relevant documents of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs refers to "a processing method that does not greatly change the shape of agricultural products and does not lose the internal nutrition of agricultural products". Therefore, the "incarnation" of fresh fruits and vegetables quick-frozen fruits and vegetables only involves the main processes of "harvesting - precooling - cleaning - sorting - peeling and coring - slicing - freezing". Not only will the microorganisms, dirt and pesticide residues on the surface of fruits and vegetables be effectively controlled, but also the nutrient loss is slow and the taste and flavor are relatively stable.
The domestic market needs to be cultivated and the development prospect is immeasurable
Recently, on the production line of the third workshop of Shandong Qingguo Food Co., Ltd., quick-frozen broccoli is entering the color sorter through the conveyor belt. Here, "substandard products" with short size and yellow color will be eliminated. After a series of quality tests, such as manual re-inspection, metal detector detection, X-ray machine irradiation, all qualified quick-frozen broccoli will be packed.
Liu Hongsheng, the manager of the quality management center of the company, said that after the raw materials enter the site, they must be processed on the same day. During the freezing process, the engine temperature is kept at minus 35 ℃. It only takes about 10 minutes from the beginning to the end of freezing, which can maximize the nutrient content of vegetables and ensure the freshness and crispness of the taste. Such quick-frozen vegetables and green fruit food can produce more than 25000 tons per year. More than 50% of quick-frozen vegetables are exported to Japan, the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East and other countries and regions.
Zhang Liang, founder of the healthy and light food brand Sufang, also said that "quick-frozen vegetables can achieve standardization, quality control and pesticide residue control from the source, which is beyond the reach of fresh vegetables. In fact, China has a large number of quick-frozen vegetables exported to foreign countries, such as Japan, the United States, South Korea and other countries, and the local people have a higher awareness of quick-frozen vegetables and a greater demand."
It is reported that the development of China's quick-frozen fruit and vegetable market started relatively late, but with its unique resource advantages and labor cost advantages, the development of ultra-low temperature rapid freezing, ultrasonic freezing and other technologies, as well as the development of cold chain logistics, the quality of China's quick-frozen fruit and vegetable products continued to strengthen, and the international competitiveness continued to improve. From 2016 to 2019, the export scale continued to expand. Taking quick-frozen vegetables as an example, according to the Research Report on Market Monitoring and Future Development Prospects of China's Frozen Vegetable Industry from 2021 to 2025 released by New Scientist, the export volume of quick-frozen vegetables in China was nearly 830000 tons in 2019. In 2020, affected by the epidemic, the logistics stagnated, and the export volume of quick-frozen vegetables in China declined, but it was still more than 800000 tons.
From the perspective of the domestic market, although the domestic consumption habits have not been formed and the consumer acceptance is low, as consumers pay more and more attention to food safety issues, quick-frozen fruits and vegetables are not subject to seasonal restrictions, do not use additives, convenient processing and other advantages, and the market prospect is inestimable.
"In China, consumers still lack relevant awareness. Quick frozen vegetables are more oriented to B-end catering, such as Haidilao, Pizzahut, Xibei and other chain catering brands, and some of the vegetables used are quick frozen vegetables." Zhang Liang said that before the establishment of C-end brand vegetable shop, the brand start-up team had been engaged in the import and export business of quick frozen vegetables for more than 20 years, and also provided broccoli and other products to domestic B-end catering enterprises, "The annual output of the self-owned quick-frozen vegetable factory is about 20000 tons".
At present, quick-frozen fruits and vegetables are mainly used in the domestic market. First of all, some take-out restaurants will choose to use quick-frozen vegetables to ensure the stability and efficiency of dishes; Secondly, quick-frozen fruit such as strawberries, blueberries, cherries and grapes can ensure the consistency, safety and stability of raw materials, so they are widely used in the milk tea industry; In addition, the jam processing industry, fruit juice processing industry, dairy processing industry, canned processing industry and dried fruit processing industry also have a large demand for raw materials.
According to the industry analyst of New Scientology, compared with the mature markets in Europe, America and Japan, the penetration rate of domestic quick-frozen fruits and vegetables market is very low and the potential market space is large, but the cultivation of consumption habits needs a long time, and export is still the main outlet of China's quick-frozen fruits and vegetables industry in the short term.
"Quick-frozen vegetables have many advantages that fresh vegetables do not have." This recognition requires a long time of consumer education in China. However, we initially sold the first batch of raw material products on multiple platforms with platform endorsements. After the sale, we got some data and found that some customers recognized our products and had high viscosity. "To this end, the team chose to accurately target customers, starting from the customers who just needed vegetables, Build product awareness. Zhang Liang said, "Our customers focus on young, first-tier and second-tier cities, and light eaters who pay more attention to health, including white-collar people, fitness people, and people who lose fat. First of all, vegetables are necessary for them to eat three meals a day; and many of them are office workers, and they prefer to choose vegetable products that are more convenient, can quickly solve a meal, and do not lose nutritional value." In the flagship store of Sufang brand Tmall, It has launched nearly 20 kinds of vegetables commonly used in home cooking, including corn shoots, rape heart and so on. The monthly sales of this raw material type product in the flagship store of the brand Tmall exceeded 2000, and the total online sales of the product exceeded 100000. "Through a generation of raw material vegetable products, we have targeted the target customer group at a stage. In addition to the fat reduction and fitness customer group, many young people are increasingly paying attention to their healthy diet of three meals a day, and this part of the customer group is constantly expanding," Zhang Liang said.
Do a good job in category segmentation and expansion to improve brand awareness
The quick-frozen fruit and vegetable industry has a huge volume, strong demand and excellent development potential, but as an emerging industry, there are still many problems. For example, in order to save money, some enterprises do not have complete refrigeration equipment and facilities, and the process is not perfect, and the sanitary conditions are not up to standard; The standards of quick-frozen food are not perfect and the supervision can not be followed, resulting in uneven product quality; The construction of cold chain transportation lags behind, and the temperature fluctuates greatly in the circulation process, which affects the quality of quick-frozen fruits and vegetables. Therefore, it is also necessary to improve the quick-frozen production technology, establish the raw material production base, improve the production specifications, improve the cold chain logistics system, promote the development of the quick-frozen fruit and vegetable industry, and constantly improve its international competitiveness. In addition, industry insiders have given different development directions for the two sub-sectors of quick-frozen vegetables and quick-frozen fruits.
Quick-frozen vegetables are greatly affected by the epidemic. Both domestic demand and export should be improved first and then increased. Influenced by the consumption concepts of health and quickness, the domestic market is bound to be the main market for the future development of relevant enterprises with the growth of the main force of post-90s, post-00s and post-10s consumption. Enterprises should stop blindly expanding, make more efforts in category segmentation and category expansion, cater to the tastes of new consumer groups, and develop new types of frozen vegetable products of prefabricated vegetables on the basis of meeting their consumption needs. In terms of exports, more attention should be paid to the indicators of pesticide residues, microorganisms and parasites in vegetables, meet the import standards of exporting countries, and control losses by reducing the return rate.
The quick-frozen fruit industry has enjoyed an explosive growth in the dividend of the milk tea industry, but it should calmly consider how long this dividend can last. Enterprises should expand technology and categories to meet the explosive growth of consumer demand. At present, the production category and consumption demand category of domestic quick-frozen fruits are highly concentrated on strawberries, peaches, cherries and blueberries. China is the largest fruit producer in the world, and also has extremely rich fruit resources. It is one of the keys to its high-quality development to expand its categories by developing new technologies. In addition, in the context of carbon neutrality and carbon emissions, more attention should be paid to the development of new freezing technologies with energy conservation, emission reduction and low consumption, such as dehydration and freezing technology. In addition, consumers' brand awareness is extremely low, so improving brand awareness is also a key development direction.