The flavor of the New Year is first hidden in the delicacies of the Spring Festival. At present, the expectations of Chinese people for the New Year's Eve dinner have already shifted from "abundant surprises" to "definite happiness" - in the new New Year's cuisine supply network jointly woven by restaurants, supermarkets, and fresh food platforms, a consumption upgrade and industrial reshaping around "certainty" is making the New Year's flavor both smoky and new. Industry data shows that the market size of China's New Year's cuisine industry is expanding at an average annual growth rate of over 38%, and is expected to exceed 260 billion yuan by the end of this year. Behind these numbers is the common expectation of thousands of households for a worry free, reassuring, and comfortable New Year's Eve dinner. The reunion dinner presents a new scene, and the booking frenzy for the New Year's Eve dinner during the Spring Festival of the Year of the Horse has arrived earlier than in previous years. On the booking interfaces of major catering platforms, the options for the New Year's Eve period frequently "float red". According to Meituan data, as of January 29th, the number of restaurant bookings on New Year's Eve has surged more than three times year-on-year, and popular private rooms in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou have been booked early. As a representative brand of seafood restaurants, Xuji Seafood's New Year's Eve dinner bookings have continued to be hot this year. Its Xi'an store has already booked the fourth round of dining time on that day, and its Changsha store has also booked the third round. This year's booking volume is similar to last year, but the customer base structure has changed, with fewer business banquets and a significant increase in family dinners, "Xu Dan, CEO of Xuji Seafood, told reporters. In order to meet the needs of families, the store has replaced the previously promoted emperor crab with more cost-effective plate crab and bolong. At the Xiaodiao Pear Soup Beijing You'an store, the flavors of intangible cultural heritage blend seamlessly with the festive atmosphere. Store manager Du Mingwei served the Spring Festival limited edition sugar scallion and jasmine roasted duck. The duck skin was roasted until it was date red and shiny, and the "sugar scallion" paired with it looked like tender scallions, crispy and crisp. As soon as it was served, it attracted diners to take photos and record it. Du Mingwei introduced, "There is a saying in northern China that '23 is sweet and sticky.' Traditional roast duck is made by rolling scallions and loofah strips with cakes. This year, we collaborated with representative inheritors of intangible cultural heritage to develop crispy and sweet scallions, adding a complex taste to roast duck and allowing everyone to taste the Beijing flavor of childhood memories." It is reported that the 6-person New Year's Eve dinner set with Xiaodiao Pear Soup, priced at 988 yuan, has become a bestseller. All three rounds of dining on New Year's Eve are fully booked, and reservations for the Spring Festival holiday have accounted for 60%. Many customers are returning customers. The semi-finished New Year's food section of supermarkets has become the main battlefield for family purchasing. Entering the Hema Fresh Beijing Shilibao store, looking around, multiple counters have added "New Year's Day" signs. Some regular products have launched limited edition packaging that suits the occasion. In the baking area, a macaron is made in the shape of horseshoes, ingots, etc., and the outer packaging is printed with the words "money coming soon". A lychee wine is named "immediately smooth lychee". In the frozen counter of the noodle shop, special festival pastry products such as taro pudding fortune packs and Babaofan (Rice pudding with eight-delicious ingredients) shaped fortune bags were placed in a striking position. The core New Year dishes include classic southern banquet dishes such as Buddha jumps over the wall and big pot dishes, as well as old Beijing style sheep scorpions of Yueshengzhai brand, and local specialties such as pork belly chicken and pepper chicken. The reporter noticed that many consumers carefully selected in front of the freezer with their purchase list. Certainty has become hard currency. When booking, the dishes and prices are confirmed, and the dishes are served directly at the restaurant without ordering or waiting for them. The whole family can eat peacefully, which is what I want. ”Zhang Mei, who plans to take her family to a restaurant for dinner on New Year's Eve, told reporters. This requirement is precisely the core logic of current New Year's cuisine consumption: the customer group with families as the main body is using rationality to guide consumption choices and pay for a "fully predictable" experience. This also makes the restaurant set meal with clear price and the Kwai of supermarket with stable taste quickly become the mainstream of the market. What customers want is the certainty of the New Year's Eve dinner, not to open blind boxes. "Xu Dan has a deep understanding of this. Nowadays, when customers book the New Year's Eve dinner, they are no longer simply paying a deposit, but directly selecting a set meal on the platform. The dishes, prices, and services are clear at a glance." The previous model of not knowing what to eat and how much money to spend was a common pain point for the industry and customers. Now it is transparent, and everyone is at ease. On the Meituan platform, Xu Ji Seafood's 8-person New Year's Eve dinner set is priced at about 1800 yuan, including signature dishes such as plate crab, flower snails, and stir fried yellow beef. The quantity and usage rules are clearly marked. Since 2020, we have observed a gradual decrease in the unit price of catering customers, and the prices of in store set meals have also decreased significantly compared to previous years. Although the unit price has decreased, the quality cannot be reduced, and efforts can only be made in the supply chain and kitchen management. "Xu Dan said that consumers have increasingly high requirements for cost-effectiveness. Behind this requirement is that the consumption focus of the New Year's Eve dinner has shifted from vague" human face "costs to clear and measurable" family experience "payments, and consumers are willing to pay for real value. In addition to determining value, consumers are more willing to pay for a "zero risk" New Year's Eve dinner. I want to make some new dishes for my family, but I'm afraid it won't taste good in an afternoon, "said Yu Jing, who cooks the New Year's Eve dinner every year. The dilemma between seeking novelty and stability has been sharply amplified during the special period of the Spring Festival. According to the report of Mintel, 74% of consumers regard the Spring Festival as a "holiday to adjust their body and mind", and each family needs to prepare an average of 3.3 meals during the holiday. The contradiction between leisure and cooking makes Kwai New Year's food the best solution. According to research data from Hema, over 60% of consumers would choose finished or semi-finished New Year's dishes, 57% would prefer to order single dishes or small to medium-sized set meals, and only 3% would be willing to order a complete set meal. This indicates that the mainstream demand is not for complete outsourcing, but for precise outsourcing of the most complex and time-consuming dishes in banquets. This is the core value of Kwai New Year dish - eliminating the time cost of cooking with certain taste and convenient operation. The value focus of the New Year's Eve dinner is quietly shifting from showcasing culinary skills to ensuring the quality of the reunion time itself. Behind the concept of 'certainty' lies the transformation of consumer trust mechanisms. The more it's Chinese New Year, the more afraid I am to buy casually. Choosing a brand is just for peace of mind, "Yu Jing said. When the consumption scene of vegetables expanded from familiar home kitchens or old street shops to restaurants, factories, and platforms, consumers urgently needed a new and verifiable credit system to endorse their choices. Brand is equivalent to reputation, providing customers with a reason to 'not make mistakes'. In Xu Dan's view, the New Year's Eve dinner is a big test of the brand, and every choice made by consumers is a vote for the brand's quality assurance system. The competitiveness of supply chain reconstruction lies in the Changsha warehouse of Xuji Seafood, where Russian plate crabs, Canadian bolsters, Hainan tiger fish, and others are kept in constant temperature aquaculture ponds, and staff are busy counting the inventory. During the Spring Festival, the prices and quality of raw materials are prone to fluctuations. We have already made an annual order lock to set the price of large seafood, and have also built general warehouses and breeding warehouses in Changsha, Xi'an, and other places to store core ingredients in advance, ensuring that each store's dishes can be of high quality, quantity, and price. "Xu Dan said that in order to cope with the New Year's Eve dining peak, the store has also set up a dedicated butler to contact customers in advance through enterprise WeChat, assist in online pre ordering, and allow the kitchen to stock up in advance." This can not only ensure the speed of serving, but also stabilize the taste and craftsmanship of the dishes, and will not be discounted due to the large number of people. Transforming flavor techniques into industrial constants is the homework done by supermarket platforms for the "certainty" of New Year's dishes. Dingdong Maicai visited nearly 50 cities across the country and launched 72 regional specialty New Year's dishes, ranging from Shanghai Chongming white cut lamb, Henan Gushi style goose chunks and mixed pots, to Ningbo wine brewed steamed bream, turning a local local flavor into a standardized delicacy that can be served directly on the dining table. In order to replicate the repeated low-temperature oil immersion process in the production of "Roasted Pepper Sea Bass", the Hema R&D team transformed the production line and introduced a simulated constant temperature circulation system to transform the chef's "cooking experience" into controllable physical parameters. Every dish needs to go through multiple rounds of debugging, and famous chefs must personally confirm the taste before it can be put on the shelves, "said Kai Kai, the head of research and procurement for Hema ready to eat dishes. Encapsulating regional culture and emotions into "deliverable cultural products" adds an extra layer of warmth to the "certainty" of New Year's cuisine. Xiaodiaoli Tang seized the opportunity of family dinners and travel during the Spring Festival, created the "Fulu Festival" and designed related visual and activities, continued the co branding with "Menglan", launched the catering concept of "Menglan takes you to eat all over Beijing", and provided tourists traveling in Beijing during the Spring Festival with a "one-stop" Beijing flavor experience program, including roast duck, Zhajiangmian and other dishes. Liu Zheng, the brand official of Xiaodiao Pear Soup, told reporters: "We have launched a freshly cooked 'New Year's Eve dinner gift package' that can be taken out for the first time this year, covering more consumer scenarios." This shows that the competition in the New Year's food market, which revolves around 'certainty', has a significance far beyond the marketing volume of a festival period. It is not only a stress test, but also a reshaping of one's abilities. Although in the short term, the improvement of supply chain resilience, standardized quality control systems, and digital service processes means higher investment and more refined management, from the perspective of industrial development, this investment is becoming the hardest brand asset. (New Society)