Will moderate manual production become a trend of catering? Zeg has some ideas about this.

Moderate handcraft is a kind of "redevelopment"

In the first stage, in the era of food industrialization and inadequate industrial division of labor, a restaurant may be a complete chain integrating production, rough processing, fine processing, production and sales.

Most couples' shops, restaurants and big restaurants exist in the form of "front shop+back factory". We can understand that the front hall entertains diners, and the back kitchen is a miniature central kitchen without distribution function. Now you can still see many such restaurants, such as Lanzhou beef noodle restaurant, handmade dumpling shop and so on.

In the second stage, after machines replaced labor and broke through the bottleneck of efficiency, with the development of restaurant chain, restaurants were liberated from the manual process of processing and production, and efficiency came first.

Some restaurants even only keep sales, use cooking packages, convenient meals, and various functional terminals (such as noodle makers). It greatly improves the convenience for consumers to eat, reduces the cost of eating and meets new demands.

It's like coming to the third stage now. Facing the wave of consumption upgrading in China, the rise of the middle class and the change of overall consumption will and ability, restaurants began to re-examine the value of dining for consumers.

One of the changes is moderate artificial catering. In other words, some production and processing links will be brought back to the store, and human participation will be added in many links and displayed in public. Does it look like a "retrogressive" behavior? It seems that simple things have become complicated.

But Zege thinks this is a kind of "redevelopment", which is brought by the external market demand and catering characteristics. In the value composition of catering, handicraft is a module that cannot be eliminated, and occupies a large proportion, because it is an industry that cannot be completely replaced by machines.

What is "manual"?

Manual production is mainly reflected in two aspects, the existing system and the existing work, both of which are related to timeliness.

The current system is mainly reflected in the processing of raw materials, but also completed in stores, rather than the unified distribution of finished products. Usually, many flour/noodle shops will move their machines to stores and manually complete grinding, steaming and cutting procedures.

Do it now depends on the final production process, is it done on the same day or on the spot? At the moment of making transparency, it seems that everyone is making it now, but in fact there are still differences-for example, you can see the bone soup in the cauldron, for example, the China hamburger cake made on the spot.

So why increase the cost of these processes that can be done manually?

What is the reason behind moderate handwork?

Zeg believes that there are several factors worthy of attention:

1 quality difference

In the previous article, Zege mentioned the relationship between catering and time and space. The longer the time and the longer the distance, the greater the quality attenuation of the finished product. Moderate handwork can make up for the lack of quality to some extent. For many categories, whether it is Chinese food or western food, this difference is obvious: for a simple example, prepared bayberry juice is very different from boiled bayberry juice, frozen meat burger and handmade burger. Quality is more worth buying.

2. Different values

Catering not only satisfies the physical satiety, but also reflects the psychological level. At the moment when all kinds of industrialized and convenient products are flooding our lives, handmade products have become scarce resources, and handmade products have begun to be linked to value. It's a bit like in some foodies' hearts, chain brands have no food, but the streets are old and small but there are many shops. Because it is less, it is good.

Valuable, more willing to buy.

3. Premium ability

Products that can accumulate more value can enjoy a certain degree of premium, which is more prominent in simple and fast food formats, and products with high technology can sell at higher prices. Because both labor and time need to be spent, and these costs are transformed into delicious food, which naturally has its own premium ability.

There is a premium, which is acceptable.

4. Production process

For some categories or products, the machine still can't complete specific processing links, because the operation can't be standardized and quantified, and there are differences in the final presentation. For example, when noodles are pulled, the heat is large and small.

Handmade, it feels better than the machine.

Who is better, industrialization or handicraft?

Industrialization can effectively solve the problems of efficiency and stability, and manual work can better reflect the value and differences of products. Some old diners will criticize how things in the factory can be eaten, and the taste of the products is lost too much; At the same time, some new catering people will question the development potential of handmade shops, and even the standards of the two stores may be different.