JD.com’s 2022 Ready-to-Eat Food Consumption Trends Report shows that consumers’ need for an “efficient kitchen”, together with the impact of the pandemic, has sharply lifted demand for prepared dishes: in 2021, prepared dish transaction value grew 156% year on year. Compared with 2019, the number of prepared dish brands in 2021 grew 1.5-fold and the number of prepared dish products grew 2.5-fold.
The prepared dish industry, however, still faces a good many problems: production standards, safety standards and quality-control procedures are lacking, processing practice varies widely between companies in different regions and of different sizes, and definitions, classifications and safety indicators are vague… While prepared dishes are becoming popular in the market, their problems are becoming more visible too. On the Black Cat complaint platform, consumers have posted things like “the firewood-chicken prepared dish I bought did not even contain chicken” and “the golden fried pork chop tasted off, there was a quality problem”, which shows how urgently prepared dish products need standards.
These problems call for government standards and specifications for prepared dish categories. At company level, the main management rules for prepared dish central kitchens and better prepared dish processes can also go a long way toward solving the problems of unhygienic prepared dishes and substandard quality. A prepared dish central kitchen can achieve unified purchasing, unified processing and unified delivery of raw materials, which ensures the traceability and quality of prepared dishes. Prepared dishes will therefore become a new track for central kitchens and open a new window of opportunity for their development. But building a prepared dish central kitchen is not simple: besides the investment, automated central kitchen equipment has to be brought in. Technologically mature, cost-effective automation equipment works like a capable assistant, letting a central kitchen move faster while the window is open.
Prepared dishes are pre-packaged dish products made from livestock, poultry, vegetables, aquatic products and other ingredients that are pre-treated — cleaned, cut and seasoned — and then industrially processed by packaging, quick-freezing or sterilization. The packaging step is especially important, since it covers the information labeling and freshness preservation of prepared dishes.
After five years of focused innovation, Wanzhi has stayed customer-driven, drawing on its own R&D strengths to keep investing and improving. The company’s WZ-609 inline fruit and vegetable weighing print-and-apply labeling machine has reached an industry-leading level and handles an important step in central kitchen automation.
(WZ-609 inline fruit and vegetable weighing print-and-apply labeling machine)
The WZ-609 inline fruit and vegetable weighing print-and-apply labeling machine weighs products and prints and applies labels in real time on the product surface. Top or bottom labeling can be selected, and advanced non-contact blow-on labeling is used, so the machine adapts to automatic weighing and labeling of boxes and bags of different heights (thicknesses): the label position adjusts to the product height, which protects easily damaged products and packaging because every action is completed without touching the product, at high speed and with high efficiency. The printing system is connected to a database and labels products on the production line; a packaging machine or film wrapping machine can be connected upstream for unmanned line operation;
“We cut the cloth of our own R&D to fit each customer’s needs, square or round.” Wanzhi Automation always puts customer needs first and develops automation equipment that suits each customer, so that customers can meet a constantly changing market, build their own brand in this field, become the industry leader and set the direction for the industry’s future development.
To learn more about print-and-apply labeling machines, visit www.wanzhiauto.com or call 400-8860822 / 13711954178.
