Sample survey of 1,000 people: Do you accept pre-made New Year's Eve dinners? Pastries and desserts become a "safe zone" Seafood cools down

Chinese New Year is approaching, and the New Year’s Eve dinner is the core ritual of family reunion. In recent years, semi-finished pre-made dishes for the New Year’s Eve dinner have become popular. Public data shows that by 2025, the sales of pre-made dishes during the Spring Festival will exceed 20 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of over 50%. However, the pre-made dish controversy in 2025 has caused some catering industry practitioners to become somewhat wary of the term “pre-made dishes.”

Recently, a First Financial reporter conducted an online survey of about 1,000 respondents. When asked whether they would accept pre-made dishes for the New Year’s Eve dinner, 40% of respondents said they would not accept them, 20.95% said they were unsure, and 39.05% said they would accept.

As the 2026 Spring Festival approaches, on one side is a consumer boom driven by convenience, and on the other side is trust anxiety triggered by food safety concerns. The market for pre-made dishes for the New Year’s Eve dinner reflects the industry’s deep logic and the pains of transformation.

New Business Opportunities and Concerns

Modern society’s fast pace has led young people to face dual challenges of “cooking anxiety” and “time pressure,” and the quick-heating, ready-to-cook nature of pre-made dishes perfectly meets these needs. Data from a lifestyle service platform shows that in 2025, sales of pre-made “hard dishes” such as Buddha Jumps Over the Wall and Eight Treasures Imperial Crab surged year-on-year during the Spring Festival. For small families or single households, pre-made dishes can avoid food waste and provide a rich “multi-flavor” dining experience. With an average price of 200 yuan per table, they save more than 60% compared to booking at offline restaurants, making high cost-performance the main attraction.

However, controversy also arises. The three main concerns among consumers are the freshness of ingredients, the use of additives, and processing hygiene. The 2025 incident involving Xibei’s pre-made dishes pushed the issue into the spotlight. Under such circumstances, will pre-made dishes for this year’s New Year’s Eve dinner still sell well?

In the online survey mentioned above, when asked whether the Xibei incident affected their willingness to buy pre-made dishes for the New Year’s Eve dinner, 60.48% of respondents said “yes.”

“To say, a few years ago, the sales volume of pre-made dishes grew rapidly, especially for New Year’s Eve and gathering sets, which performed very well. Based on past years, sales data almost doubled each year, reaching 100% growth. But in 2026, this figure has dropped significantly. It’s still increasing, but only by about 10%. We estimate that the controversy over pre-made dishes and increasing consumer demands are the main reasons,” said Zhang Wei, who has been a procurement manager at a large retail company for many years. He told First Financial that he has been researching and selling pre-made dishes over the years and is currently busy preparing for the Spring Festival market. This year’s market heat for pre-made dishes for the New Year’s Eve dinner is indeed not as strong as in previous years.

Several large retail companies also told First Financial that this year’s popularity of pre-made dishes for the New Year’s Eve dinner has declined compared to previous years, especially some previously popular “seafood” pre-made dishes, which are now less favored because their taste and freshness are somewhat “compromised” after heating.

When asked which categories of pre-made dishes they could accept for the New Year’s Eve dinner (multiple choices), 66.19% of respondents accepted dim sum, 53.81% accepted cold dishes, and 51.9% accepted desserts. Other categories such as seafood, meat, vegetables, and soups had acceptance rates below 50%. It is evident that people are more receptive to pre-made dim sum and desserts, while other categories are preferred to be freshly made.

Industry Urgently Needs Regulation

Perhaps because of the Xibei incident, when interviewing multiple catering companies and chain hotels, almost all said that the New Year’s Eve dinner is freshly prepared and does not involve pre-made dishes.

A representative from a large chain restaurant told reporters that the Xibei incident had some impact on the industry. Consumers are now more concerned about whether dishes are pre-made or come from central kitchens. In some consumers’ minds, dishes produced by central kitchens are also considered pre-made dishes. When the incident first broke out, many consumers asked restaurants whether their dishes were pre-made. The aforementioned person called for the quick introduction of national standards.

It is understood that in 2024, six national departments jointly issued the “Notice on Strengthening Food Safety Supervision of Pre-made Dishes and Promoting High-Quality Industry Development,” which clearly defined the scope of pre-made dishes for the first time, excluding dishes from central kitchens and simple cut-and-wash vegetables, thereby clarifying category boundaries. In January 2026, the draft of the “National Food Safety Standard for Pre-made Dishes” was publicly solicited for comments, establishing unified standards from raw materials, processes, to labeling, accelerating industry regulation.

When asked whether supermarkets or restaurants should sell pre-made dishes, over 50% of respondents believed it depends on the dish. This indicates that there is no outright rejection of pre-made dishes; some dishes can be pre-made, but transparency and more standardized operations are necessary to inform consumers.

Tianyancha’s professional business information shows that as of now, there are over 77,000 related companies involved in pre-made dishes in China, with more than 12,000 new registrations in 2025 alone. Regionally, Shandong, Henan, and Jiangsu provinces have the highest number of related enterprises, with over 9,500, 8,400, and 7,100 respectively. Anhui and Hebei follow.

Capital trends reflect a shift in industry development logic. According to IT Juzi data, after the hot financing in 2022, the market cooled in 2023–2024. No new financing events occurred in the first four months of 2025. The average single financing amount dropped from 150 million yuan in 2022 to 55 million yuan, indicating a shift from “scale chasing” to “value screening.” Industry insiders believe that the pre-made dish sector may undergo reshuffling in the future, moving from rapid growth to more regulated development.

(Note: The name Zhang Wei in the article is a pseudonym.)