Im November 8, the FHC Shanghai Global Food Trade Show kicked off at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre. Dieses Jahr, several new faces made their debut at the event, among which was Dingdong Maicai’s “Zhaoqi Fresh Food,” a pre-prepared meal brand aimed at external channels.
At booth N1P05, “Zhaoqi Fresh Food” showcased products like starch-free, colorant-free, original-flavor large pork sausages, shrimp paste with a shrimp content of up to 90%, and trending crayfish made from high-quality fresh shrimp. The booth was crowded with consumers and buyers who couldn’t stop praising the products after tasting them.
Dingdong Maicai, a leading food supply chain company in China, began its pre-prepared meal business in 2020. Over the past three years, it has developed a comprehensive industrial chain covering raw material supply, processing, Produktion, and market sales, resulting in numerous star products with sales reaching tens of millions. By 2022, the business scale of Dingdong’s pre-prepared meals division had exceeded 3 Milliarden RMB.
Launched in 2022 and operated by Dingdong Maicai’s pre-prepared meals division, “Zhaoqi Fresh Food” focuses on external sales channels and boasts a professional recipe development team, standardized self-operated production plants, and an independent brand marketing team.
According to Ou Houxi, CEO of Dingdong Maicai’s pre-prepared meals division, the “Zhaoqi Fresh Food” brand was created to offer customized pre-prepared meal solutions that help restaurant partners solve operational challenges. By leveraging high-quality pre-prepared meals, the brand aims to free up kitchen resources, improve operational efficiency, and deliver highly standardized food services.
Momentan, “Zhaoqi Fresh Food” offers a diversified product range including ready-to-cook, ready-to-eat, heat-and-eat, and microwave-ready meals. Supported by a comprehensive chain of R&D, procurement, Produktion, packaging, logistics, and marketing capabilities, “Zhaoqi Fresh Food” can provide “turnkey” multi-category, all-time solutions, as well as customized supply chain services tailored to specific customer needs.
For instance, in the case of crayfish, Dingdong Maicai’s self-operated crayfish factory in Xuyi can process 40,000 pounds of live crayfish daily. The factory not only has a mature production line for frozen crayfish pre-prepared meals but also operates the first domestic production line for ready-to-eat cold crayfish. A crayfish can travel from the fields of Xuyi to a consumer’s table in as little as 24 Std.. Thanks to its strong R&D, Produktion, and supply chain capabilities, “Zhaoqi Fresh Food” can customize exclusive flavors and specifications of crayfish pre-prepared meals for its clients, building on existing products like garlic, spicy, and thirteen-flavor crayfish.
So far, “Zhaoqi Fresh Food” has established a comprehensive industrial chain layout, backed by Dingdong Maicai’s supply chain, with three self-operated pre-prepared meal factories dedicated to crayfish, fresh vegetables, and meat. It has also formed deep partnerships with several upstream bases and factories, enabling it to offer complete solutions for pre-prepared meals.
Ou Houxi stated, “In my view, pre-prepared meals are rapidly advancing into the 2.0 era, where safe, healthy, high-quality pre-prepared meals are the industry’s inevitable trend. While building a customized service system, ‘Zhaoqi Fresh Food’ is also increasing its investment in healthy products, launching series such as ‘low-oil/no-oil,’ ‘low-sodium/no-salt,’ ‘calorie-controlled/low-calorie,’ ‘clean-label,’ and ‘low-carbon/low-GI’ pre-prepared meals. We are very much looking forward to using the FHC Shanghai Global Food Trade Show as a bridge to find more like-minded partners to join us in promoting the standardization and normalization of the pre-prepared meal industry in China.”
