Recently, the leading food company "Shuanghui" has a new move: testing the water self-service vending machine for pre-made dishes.

It is reported that Shuanghui took the microwave ready-to-eat series product "Bobo Bag Series" as the first product, and piloted it in schools, hospitals, scenic spots, high-speed railway stations and other places, which caused many industry insiders to discuss.

Recently, we found that there is also a "pre-made food self-service cabinet" next to the beverage vending machine in the community. Braised pork, Kung Pao chicken, instant noodles, rice balls are all available... There are both "hard dishes" that need to be cooked simply, and bentos that are ready to eat. Just scan the code to pay for the selected item, and you can take it home to make a feast right away.

After checking the information, I found that in addition to Shuanghui, many big brands are also testing the waters of self-service vending machines. For example, Delis develops pre-prepared meat products; other quick-frozen food companies such as Leyaoju, Guangzhou Restaurant, Fudibao, and Lake Foods have also joined it.

The sales forms of pre-made food self-service machines are similar, but the selection of products and locations are very different.

From the point of view of entering the bureau, the suppliers who master the raw materials are more inclined to cook pre-made dishes. For example, Delis chooses dishes such as fish-flavored pork shreds and Kung Pao chicken, which are combined with their original upstream meat industry lines. , to ensure a high degree of restoration after freezing; food processing companies prefer to use self-service vending machines to expand channels and reach the front line. For example, Leyaoju tried to sell rice balls and rice burgers with self-service machines; while Guangzhou Restaurant and other leading catering brands leveraged their brand potential and product advantages to test the waters with their signature products.

From a geographical point of view, most businesses put the pilot of pre-made vegetable vending machines in first-tier cities. The birth of pre-made dishes is to adapt to the fast-paced life. This buy-and-go, heating-and-eat-and-eat model meets the needs of today's young consumers and provides the soil for the development of pre-made vegetable self-service vending machines.

From the perspective of the scene, cooking products mostly choose communities, while microwave products focus on office buildings, schools, hospitals, high-speed rail stations, etc. In the community scene, people pay more attention to the taste and pot gas of the dishes, and the trial activities can attract many residents. However, in scenes such as high-speed railway stations, there is a large flow of people and there is no fixed dining place. The key point is to meet the cost-effectiveness and convenience of eating.

What is the logic of the pre-made vegetable vending machine?

Big brands are testing the waters of self-service vending machines. What is the "purpose" behind it?

1. Use the retail model to open up new sales channels. Self-service vending machines, to put it simply, are "catering by selling beverages", which is a form of retailing. No space, no manpower, and flexible site selection, these are the advantages that are visible to the naked eye. It is also for this reason that various fields hope to explore this kind of sales channel, such as the self-service machine for hangover medicine, the self-service machine for freshly ground coffee, and the self-service machine for fruit juice.

And pre-made dishes have retail attributes, which "coincides" with the characteristics of self-service vending machines.

2. Go "closer to consumers". Although pre-made dishes seem to be a big hit, this market is still in the development stage. In fact, it was not until the Spring Festival this year that pre-made dishes really reached C-end consumers on a large scale.

Since there are still multiple opinions on the definition and classification of pre-made vegetables, and there is no generally applicable and recognized norm to manage the market, the products of pre-made vegetables are varied, and the market is generally in a stage of free development. In this context, whoever is "one step closer to the customer" and "one step earlier to the customer's table" will have more opportunities to "get out of the circle".

3. Supply chain enterprises use their own advantages to reach consumers. The upstream supply chain itself has advantages such as production capacity and food safety, and the degree of industrialization, digitization, and operation and management efficiency are very high. In their view, the catering industry still has a lot of profit space and is a "fertile soil". These small food industry giants saw the high added value in the previous stage and were eager to try it. The outbreak of retail has given them an opportunity to vigorously "sink" and reduce dimensionality to crack down on inefficient stores.

This can be seen everywhere in the industry. For example, Sanquan Foods’ layout of “Sanquan Fresh Food” and Missing’s layout of “Love Cooking Rice” are typical cases of supply chain enterprises sinking into catering.

4. Catering enterprises, explore the "unmanned" efficient profit model. At present, the catering industry is facing multiple challenges, not only to fight against the epidemic, but also to be coerced by the cost pressure of "three highs and one low". Exploring a high-efficiency profit model has become a fact that every enterprise must face.

Many catering companies have invested in the exploration of "unmanned and intelligent". In the past, Country Garden spent a lot of money to build smart restaurants, and later, leading brands such as Haidilao actively entered the game. The vending machine is just a microcosm and branch of intelligence.

Is the self-service machine a "good home"?

In addition to Shuanghui and Delis, they have tried self-service vending. Recently, Nai Xue also used the "automatic milk tea machine" to make drinks. In some stores in Shenzhen, the manual feeding process is replaced by machines, and a cup of tea can be completed in less than 10 seconds, increasing the production capacity by about 40%.

It is reported that it is not only to research new machines, but to realize machine intelligence. No matter the brand or the tea equipment manufacturer, they are all concentrating on exploring.

So, are self-service machines a "good home" for catering? Please leave your opinion and let us discuss together.