"agricultural food docking": what is the difficulty of taking "materials" on the spot?

Recently, at the site of the bustling Chengdu Agricultural Expo in Sichuan, a signing ceremony with a scale of about 60 people was held in a low profile. One side of the contract is the major star farm music in Chengdu, and the other is the local ecological agriculture base in Chengdu, and the two sides have established a green channel for direct supply of food materials. Of the total turnover of 182 million yuan in four days of the Agricultural Expo, the "farm meal" docking project initiated by the Chengdu Rural Tourism Industry Chamber of Commerce reached 10 million yuan, attracting people's attention.

It is not a unique instance, but has its counterpart. An Maocheng, president of the Chengdu tourist Hotels Association, also brought a team to the agricultural fair. The leaders of these star hotels took the time to visit the agricultural fair, trying to find the best ingredients to do the hotel's catering business.

In theory, the direct docking of "agricultural meals" can not only shorten the intermediate links, but also help to ensure the quality and safety of agricultural products and achieve a win-win situation between agricultural producers and catering enterprises. So, what is the current situation of agricultural food docking? What are the difficulties? The reporter conducted an in-depth interview.

The base is the mainstream for distribution in a large market with a low proportion of food materials.

What are the main sources of food in the catering industry? Du Li, a professor at Chengdu Tourism College, who has been teaching in the catering industry for many years, told reporters that at present, the sources of food materials in catering enterprises are very complex, and some ingredients with large consumption may have fixed suppliers, and some with smaller consumption will go directly to the farmers' market to buy, no matter in time or in the source of agricultural products.

In a variety of different levels of catering industry, hotel catering is undoubtedly in a high-end form, and pay more attention to the selection and purchase of food materials, what are the main forms of their kitchen food supply? The reporter visited several hotels. Zhao Yanbin, general manager of Yuxiuyuan Hotel, told reporters that at present, the kitchen food supply of Yuxiu Garden is mainly purchased and distributed by cooperative suppliers, or purchased processed ingredients from Metro, but the cost is higher. Du Hua, general manager of Jingchuan Hotel, said that Jingchuan's annual food purchase cost is about 5 million yuan, mainly in the form of bidding to determine suppliers.

The reporter learned that some high-end hotels are already trying to establish cooperation with production bases, such as Wangjiang Hotel in Chengdu. Ren Lin, general manager of Wangjiang Hotel, said that Wangjiang Hotel is the only garden-style five-star hotel in Chengdu, with a total of 1600 seats, and the annual expenditure on the purchase of food is about 20 million yuan. In addition to the distribution of goods by suppliers, Wangjiang has begun to establish cooperation with local production bases in Chengdu to establish a dedicated supply chain.

"in fact, in high-end catering, examples of direct docking with the country of origin are not uncommon." Du Li told reporters, but this docking is more to ensure the flavor of a special dish, rather than in the management point of view of the supply chain.

An Maocheng said that because the demand for food materials in the catering industry is very rich, and the variety of the production base is often relatively single, and affected by seasonality, most hotels still buy in a large market through suppliers, and the proportion of the base specializing in food materials is relatively small.

Multi-demand coupled with the transformation of food supply in catering industry

"things are changing." Zhang Jiao, secretary-general of the catering branch of the Chengdu Tourism Association, believes that with the society's increasing attention to food safety and the popularization of the concept of healthy living, market consumer demand is escalating, which puts forward new requirements for food supply management of catering enterprises.

Taking note of the change in consumer demand, Wangjiang Hotel has made some attempts in the catering business-the creation of an ecological restaurant is one of them. "Ecological restaurant came into being with the vigorous development of ecological health industry." Ren Lin said that fresh agricultural products purchased from the big market naturally can not reflect the high requirements of ecological restaurants for ingredients, and it is inevitable to cooperate with production bases with traceable product quality.

At the same time, with the intensification of market competition, more and more catering enterprises have realized the importance of establishing a multi-level and multi-latitude food supply chain. "multiple-legged walking is an important idea in the management of hotel food supply chain." Ren Lin said that if the supply channel is too single, hotels can easily be passive in business negotiations, and in recent years, due to the large fluctuations in agricultural prices, the controllability of enterprise procurement costs has been weakened, and order agriculture with production bases can effectively control the impact of market fluctuations on enterprise operations.

With the development of society, the functional orientation of tourism and catering enterprises is also expanding. In addition to the traditional business, the major catering enterprises and tourism hotel industry are looking for new profit points. Selling moon cakes on the Mid-Autumn Festival and hairy crabs in the golden autumn season are typical examples of business development.

In the opinion of Huang Ting, director of the Market Department of the Chengdu Committee of Agriculture, this game of "chess" can be played even better. "Hotel and catering enterprises are the windows and images of the city, and the large number of high-quality passengers gathered by them not only means business opportunities, but also opens up a new model and carrier for the marketing of local high-quality and characteristic agricultural products." Huang Ting said.

Build a resource sharing platform and dock step by step step by step

Based on many considerations, the enthusiasm of the restaurant enterprise docking base is gradually increasing. For most production bases, to be able to establish long-term cooperation with big hotels and hotels means that stable income expectations are not available. However, how to solve the old problem of the richness of food materials and the limitation of base varieties? It is impossible for an enterprise to identify a supplier for several varieties, and the cost of ingredients alone may be lower, but the negotiation cost and management cost may increase sharply.

Du Li believes that agricultural food docking can not replace the logistics and distribution function of the big market, but the hierarchical and step-by-step agricultural food docking is not only conducive to the win-win situation of catering and agricultural producers, but also conducive to the guarantee of food safety and the enrichment and improvement of the circulation system of agricultural products.

"intensive and hugging docking is an important way." Du Li said that from the policy level, many governments hold a positive support attitude to agricultural food docking, calling on and organizing agricultural meal docking activities, but it is difficult to form a long-term mechanism; from a micro level, the information asymmetry between industries and individuals often leads to a high cost of time and energy for a single market subject to carry out agricultural food docking. Therefore, the huddling between market entities is particularly important.

Trade associations have taken action. A few days ago, Chengdu Agricultural products Market Circulation Association and Chengdu Tourism Hotel Association discussed the activity of "Chengdu high-quality characteristic agricultural products into hotels", trying to graft Chengdu agricultural resources and tourism resources to achieve a win-win situation. "the construction of platform resources is the primary task for the two industry associations." A person in charge of the Chengdu Agricultural products Market Circulation Association said that a platform for resource sharing will break the information barrier and create conditions for smooth and efficient "agricultural food docking."