• Mobile version
  • Follow us on Wechat
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • App

Expats explore pre-prepared food in Zhanjiang ahead of Chinese New Year

Ahead of the Spring Festival, or the Chinese Lunar New Year, two YouTubers, Neslihan Kilavuz from Turkey and Rafael Saavedra from Venezuela, went to Zhanjiang, a city located in the southwest of Guangdong province. They explored the pre-prepared food industry in the city by visiting several leading enterprises there and looked for some pre-prepared dishes for a New Year's Eve dinner.

China is seeing a booming appetite for pre-prepared foods as they serve as a quick alternative to homemade dishes without losing the authentic flavours. Therefore, they are ideal choices for special occasions such as Spring Festival, especially among young consumers.

Pre-cooked food refers to finished or semi-finished dishes that are prepared in a factory and preserved by freezing or vacuum packaging after pre-processing. Consumers can make dishes in a short period of time by heating them up or simply cooking them with the ingredients in the package.

During the three-day trip, the two foreign expats explored the whole industry chain of pre-prepared food from the source to R&D, processing, retail and distribution, made several pre-made dishes themselves, and enjoyed a pre-prepared New Year's Eve dinner.

Neslihan Kilavuz visits the R&D center of Guangdong Evergreen Conglomerate Co., Ltd.

After exploring how Zhanjiang's local enterprises make pre-prepared food from the farm to the table, Rafael Saavedra believed that pre-prepared food companies have carried out “strict control and rigorous production of each process from raw materials to finished products”. Most of enterprises that expats visited breed fish, shrimp, chicken and more raw materials themselves to ensure their quality. Eugene Zhang, vice president of Aquatic Division of Guolian Group, told Neslihan Kilavuz and Rafael Saavedra that after being further and scientifically processed and preserved, pre-prepared foods are available both online and offline at home and abroad.

Learning that there are some integrated quality control systems in these enterprises, Saavedra was amazed at the widespread use of high technology in the industrial chain.

"The company's investment in upstream resources in the supply chain, and the industrial technology innovations have become the driving force of their continued growth to achieve the successful transformation of kitchen dishes to industrial manufacturing", he said, "they have upgraded the optimized intelligence processing technology."

In addition to up-to-date technology, quicker and easier cooking with a quality taste of pre-prepared food also help it win the favor of the two YouTubers. Neslihan Kilavuz believes that such products are "lifesavers" for those who often work overtime and don't have time to cook, and it is a good option for people who "want to have different kinds of dishes on the table for the Chinese New Year."

"It's not different to the fresh one," Kilavuz added after trying the pre-prepared fish in her latest Vlog.

Neslihan Kilavuz and Rafael try making pre-prepared food themselves (Photo: Zhang Qida)

Nowadays, due to the epidemic and the faster pace of life, pre-prepared food has become a more popular option, which also allows a lot of high-quality agricultural products to maximize their value.

Some pre-prepared food enterprises have cooperated with fishermen and farmers, who have suffered from difficulties of dull sales as a result of the pandemic, by purchasing farm produce and sideline products and processing them into pre-made food.

During the outbreak of COVID-19 in Xi'an recently, some enterprises such as Guolian Group and Evergreen immediately donated pre-prepared foods worth over 1 million yuan to support Xi'an.

In addition, Zhanjiang Customs issued Guangdong's first RCEP certificate of origin for agriculture to export pre-cooked seafood to Australia and Singapore. In the near future, pre-prepared dishes will further promote China's agricultural products to build their own brands and go worldwide.

Click on to know more details: Pre-prepared New Year's Eve dinner in Zhanjiang


Author | Holly, Abby

Video | Zhang Qida

Special | Mia, Sun Dewei

Editor | Wing, Olivia, Monica, Jerry

Related News