Eating the New Year’s Flavor and Shenzhen Flavor —— Exploring the New Trend of New Year’s Eve Dinner Consumption in Shenzhen
Shenzhen News Network February 6, 2024(Jing Bao reporter Kang Yanhui Liu Ling Ma Jiali Pan Lingxiao Intern Liu Miaozhen Zeng Zhaoru) With the approaching of the Spring Festival in the Year of the Loong, the "New Year’s Eve" market in Shenzhen catering industry is becoming more and more popular. According to the latest data of Meituan, in the last week, the number of catering merchants in Shenzhen who launched the "New Year’s Eve" theme meal package in Meituan increased by over 110% from the previous month. In the past few days, Jing Bao reporters visited many restaurants and restaurants in Shenzhen and found that the booking volume of New Year’s Eve dinner in most restaurants has reached saturation, especially in high-end restaurants in Futian and Nanshan, and the booking of New Year’s Eve dinner is even "hard to find". According to the data provided by Shenzhen Hotel Association, up to now, Crowne Plaza Shenzhen Railway Hotel is fully booked, with only 10% of the lobby remaining, and the rooms and lobby of Yafeng International Hotel, Liwan Hotel in Longgang and Grand Sky Hotel in Garden are fully booked. In addition, the scene of celebrating the New Year on the spot and eating New Year’s Eve at home has greatly increased. Compared with in-house meals, take-away, private kitchen visits and prefabricated semi-finished New Year’s Eve dinners have become new consumption choices and new growth.
Liu Yongzhong, president of Shenzhen Cuisine Association, said that consumers in Shenzhen have higher requirements on the quality of dishes, freshness of ingredients and cooking techniques, and pay more attention to cost performance. Some consumers even eat at the wrong peak in order to enhance the experience of New Year’s Eve and enjoy better services and dishes. "Ordering in moderation, CD-ROM action" has become more and more popular. Ordering by quantity, ordering by people and ordering on demand has become a beautiful landscape of New Year’s Eve, and it is becoming a new custom of New Year’s Eve not to compare with others and not to talk about ostentation and extravagance.
New Year’s Eve dinner should talk about "the taste of the year"
"There are only four people in our family staying in Shenzhen for the New Year. The biggest reason for choosing to eat out is that the decoration in the store is very’ year-old’, and the New Year’s Eve is’ year-old’." Ms. Lin told reporters. Manager Wang, the head of the marketing department of Shenye Shangcheng, said that in order to let the citizens and tourists feel the strong atmosphere of the New Year in Shenzhen, from October 2023, the promotion departments and businesses of Shenye Shangcheng began to carry out a series of activities. Planning. The 10-meter-high "Dragon" can be seen in the L1 atrium of Shenye Shangcheng, and the scene of "Fish Long Qian Leaping" can be seen in the west square and covered bridge of L3 small town. The background music and lantern ornaments of "Happy New Year" in the restaurant all pursue the "flavor of the year".
Unlike other citizens who can have a reunion dinner with their families, Mr. He, who is engaged in the catering industry, will have dinner with his colleagues in the store after the evening market. "As in previous years, this year’s New Year’s Eve, the chef will make a special staff meal for us. We have about forty or fifty employees together, eight people at a table, eight hot dishes and four cold dishes at each table, and fruit desserts. And when eating New Year’s Eve, the boss will give us red envelopes and lottery gifts. Although I don’t live with my family, it is still full of flavor and very warm and lively. " Mr. He said.
The food culture of "talking about meaning" is very popular.
"Eating fish means having more than one year; Pot dishes symbolize the fullness of pots; Eat a pig’s hand and get a windfall in the coming year; Lettuce means making money … "The person in charge of the Shenzhen Catering Chamber of Commerce told the reporter that Shenzhen citizens also prefer to choose potted vegetables, seafood, chicken, duck, goose and other dishes that symbolize good meaning when booking the New Year’s Eve dinner. The person in charge of the Golden Duck Season in Shangcheng, Shenye, said that in view of the market situation of the New Year’s Eve in Shenzhen, a special Fupen dish of 666 yuan per case was launched during the New Year, with abalone, sea cucumber, shark skin, preserved shrimp, pig’s feet, cuttlefish roe and scallop as the main ingredients of the dish, and rich ingredients composed of accessories such as mushroom, Pleurotus eryngii, fish tofu, tiger skin and bird’s eggs were fried, fried, roasted, marinated and marinated. Eating potted vegetables during the Spring Festival means "pots are full", "happy ever after" and "reunion". In the small program of Tan Chu Zhen Xuan Mall, the reporter also saw the prefabricated dish gift box of large pots of vegetables launched by the merchants, which is convenient for giving gifts and taking them home to share with their families.
In addition, there are many customs in Chinese during the Spring Festival, among which "paying attention to the meaning" is one of the major features, especially in the food culture. The names of dishes are auspicious and festive. In order to get a good start for the new year, catering businesses usually design a name with auspicious meaning for the dishes when making New Year’s Eve. Xingyihui, which is in Shenzhen and Shangcheng, has specially set up a set meal for 4-6 people with fish, 6-8 people with Dragon and Tiger Leaping, and 10-12 people with Dragon and Phoenix Chengxiang for the New Year’s Eve. Each set meal has 13 delicious dishes, such as tuna avocado salad, green lemon sour soup, bamboo shell fish and so on, and Wendong Hainan chicken.
New Year’s Eve related searches increased by 8 times year-on-year.
Every year, Ms. Cai will reunite with a group of relatives and friends for dinner, and the most convenient way for more than 20 people to eat is to order food outside. "Reservations for New Year’s Eve in previous years were very popular, so it is safer to book early." She told reporters that this year’s New Year’s Eve dinner had been booked at a hotel near her home two or three months ago. For the choice of dishes, she thought it was more important that everyone liked to eat, and they could get together with family and friends to raise a glass and have fun. Almost all the packages launched by the hotel for the New Year’s Eve dinner included home-cooked dishes such as chickens, ducks, fish and geese, which was also an important reason why she chose to eat out.
According to the relevant person in charge of the US Mission, the public comment netizens paid great attention to the "dinner reservation". Since January, the search volume of related keywords has increased by more than five times month-on-month. To this end, some catering merchants have launched low-discount New Year’s Eve dinner, reunion dinner and other store packages through platforms such as Meituan and public comments, so as to lock in the dining needs of citizens and tourists during the Spring Festival in advance. In the past week, the number of catering merchants in Shenzhen who launched the "New Year’s Eve" theme meal package in Meituan increased by more than 110% from the previous week.
The reporter searched for the ordering of New Year’s Eve dinner of nearly 30 catering businesses such as Cantonese cuisine, Hunan cuisine and hot pot in the Shenzhen area of Meituan, and found that almost every catering company has launched a full-fledged New Year’s Eve dinner package for its own characteristics.
On the Meituan APP, the reporter searched for "New Year’s Eve" and saw that the Nanjing big-name stall located in Zhuo Yue Center Store will set up three kinds of New Year’s Eve dinners: Xianglong Xianrui for 3 to 4 people, Fulong Gaozhao for 5 to 6 people, and Huju Longpan for 8 to 10 people. Yipinyuan Boutique Cantonese Cuisine (Longhua clear lake Store) has set up packages such as Family Prosperity Banquet, Family Prosperity Banquet, Family Harmony Banquet and so on. Merchants choose auspicious package names according to the number of diners and dishes, and almost all the packages include chicken, duck, goose, seafood, glutinous rice balls, jiaozi and other dishes.
According to the take-away data of the US Mission, in February, the search volume of "New Year’s Eve Reservation" in Shenzhen increased by 8 times compared with the same period of last year.
In the past week, the search volume and order volume of Shenzhen people’s favorite dishes such as potted vegetables, boiled chicken, roasted goose and dry fried beef river have all increased significantly. Among them, the search volume of "potted vegetables" rose by 400% month-on-month and the order volume increased by 80%. The search volume of "Dry Fried Niuhe" increased by 130% month-on-month and the order volume increased by 52%. The search volume of "Roasted Goose" increased by 70% month-on-month and the order volume increased by 50%. The search volume of "White Cut Chicken" on the take-away platform increased by 40% month-on-month and the order volume increased by 38%.
"Prefabricated" New Year’s Eve is sought after
For citizens who have to go to work on New Year’s Eve and are not going out to eat, it is a convenient and quick choice to prepare "prepared dishes" in advance. Signature squirrel fish, big pot dishes with abalone sauce, chicken pot with gelatin, pork elbow transfer … Open the APP of Pupu Supermarket and search for "New Year’s Eve", and various exquisite prefabricated dishes will pop up immediately.
You can also see in the shopping APP that 39 kinds of dishes in the selected column of the reunion family banquet list are prefabricated dishes, with a total sales volume of 806,000. The top three are chopped pepper fish head, tendon-headed brain pot and abalone Buddha jumping over the wall. "In recent days, the overall sales volume of prefabricated vegetables has reached its peak, with an increase of 40% from the previous month." The person in charge of buying food revealed.
"Although I don’t usually like to go to the kitchen, I still want to have a good meal on New Year’s Eve." Ms. Li is a post-00, from Harbin. This year, she spent the New Year with her boyfriend in Shenzhen for the first time. She told reporters that it is too noisy to go out to eat, and it is warmer for two people to eat at home while watching TV. Therefore, ready-made dishes that are convenient, quick and available immediately become their first choice. "In previous years’ New Year’s Eve, we didn’t cook the big dishes and hard dishes cooked by our elders, and the prepared dishes on the take-away platform have different cuisines such as Sichuan cuisine, Cantonese cuisine and Northeast cuisine, which can well meet the different taste needs of my boyfriend and me." Ms. Li said.
In addition, the take-away data of the US Mission shows that Cantonese dishes such as shrimp dumplings, shrimp dumplings, chicken feet with a hundred sauces, Hong Kong-style ribs, and fried beef river have become popular items in Shenzhen New Year’s Eve.
"Choose on Demand" for New Year’s Eve consumption
The reporter visited a number of hotels in Shenzhen that offer reservations for New Year’s Eve, and learned that some New Year’s Eve packages contain more expensive ingredients such as abalone, sea cucumber and lobster, and the price of some New Year’s Eve packages is higher than that of the previous per capita consumption, but consumers can still choose their own package consumption or more economical dishes.
In addition, the reporter telephoned oriental ginza Hotel, Beijiang Fishing Port Hotel, Guangzhou Restaurant and other traditional large-scale catering hotels, all of which said that service fees ranging from 10% to 15% would be charged during the New Year’s Eve; However, restaurants such as Green Tea Restaurant and Xiniuhui Beef Hot Pot, which are opened in the shopping circle, said that there would be no additional service charge for the New Year’s Eve dinner.
On New Year’s Eve, the business hours are generally until 10: 00 pm. In order to satisfy more consumers, many restaurants sell New Year’s Eve in different time periods. For example, Shengfengcheng Restaurant and Banquet Hall located in Daqianli, Bao ‘an set the New Year’s Eve box at 16: 30-19: 00 and 19: 00-22: 00, and Manle Chaozhou located in Shangcheng, Shenzhen set the box at 16: 30.
On February 5th, Shenzhen Consumer Council, together with Shenzhen Cuisine Association and Shenzhen Hotel Association, issued the initiative of "Creating a Good Consumption Environment and Creating a Peaceful Catering Atmosphere" to catering enterprises and citizens in Shenzhen, in order to create a good consumption environment, advocate a simple, moderate, healthy and rational consumption mode, stimulate consumption vitality and protect consumers’ legitimate rights and interests. Lead social fashion with table civilization, lead a happy life with rational consumption, and jointly create a civilized, healthy and environmentally friendly atmosphere for New Year’s Eve.