How did the “True Kung Fu” from Dongguan soar all the way on the prefabricated vegetable track?

The 7th China International Food and Ingredients Expo (hereinafter referred to as “the Expo”) and the first China International Prefabricated Vegetable Industry Expo will be held at Guangdong Modern International Exhibition Center on March 24-26. The prefabricated dishes that have become “sweet cakes” in recent years are known as the next “trillion level” new track and new outlet in the industry. It is expected that the market size will reach 1072 billion yuan in 2026. This year, the cultivation and development of the prefabricated vegetable industry has been officially written into the “Central No.1 Document”. Guangdong is also striving to build a group of strong counties with a prefabricated vegetable industry of 10 billion yuan and strong towns with a prefabricated vegetable production of 1 billion yuan.
In order to enhance the popularity and influence of this “Food Expo”, the Southern Metropolis Daily, in collaboration with the Dongguan Municipal Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, launched a series of reports on “Taste from the East, Preserve the Material in the Dongguan”. Through in-depth interviews with well-known brands, large-scale enterprises, and leading figures in the local prefabricated vegetable industry, it comprehensively promoted the regional brands, local characteristics, and geographical advantages of the food ingredients and prefabricated vegetable industry in Dongguan, Improve the popularity of Dongguan’s food ingredients and prefabricated dishes industry.
“Nutrition or steaming is better”, “the first Chinese fast food enterprise in China to achieve the development of a national chain”, “the world’s first to tackle the problem of Chinese food standardization”… Since the introduction of multiple Slogan’s “True Kung Fu”, it has continued to shine “new tricks”, solving the historical problem of Chinese food standardization, making it possible to chain Chinese fast food. In today’s booming prefabricated food industry, Zhengong, with its keen commercial perspective, has revealed its true skills to the prefabricated food industry and officially declared war.
1、 Become famous through “war” and create “new tactics” again
In 1997, Chang’an, Dongguan. In that year, Zhengong successfully developed a computer program controlled integrated steam cabinet, overcoming the standardization problem of industrial production of Chinese food in one fell swoop, and became the first Chinese fast food restaurant in the world to achieve “standardization”. Since then, Zhengong has become famous in one battle.
Starting from the “168 Dessert House” in 1990, after 32 years of development, genuine kungfu products gradually cover physical products such as food, semi-finished products, raw materials, group meals, and production and distribution, training and consulting services, aiming to create a large platform for the catering industry.
It is worth mentioning that Zhengong has established three standard operating systems for Chinese fast food – logistics production standardization, cooking equipment standardization, and restaurant operation standardization. In terms of quality, service, and cleanliness, Zhengong has fully integrated with international standards, truly realizing the industrialization and standardized production of the central kitchen. Currently, Zhengong has four major supply bases and two catering factories across the country, with a cold and hot chain supply capacity, and a central kitchen+SC+collective catering facility. It can independently complete the production and operation closed-loop and cover the entire country.
In recent years, on the Dongguan Prefabricated Dish Track, there have been “new tricks” in real Kung Fu.
Zhengong has made catering products retail and focused on creating prefabricated vegetable products, enabling them to enter online and offline channels such as traditional e-commerce, social e-commerce, large-scale supermarkets, fresh food supermarkets, and communities to “blossom at multiple points.”.
Nandu reporter learned that Zhengong prefabricated dishes have been incubated since 2021, during which they have incubated short shelf life, no-washing, no-cutting, and no-flavoring convenience dishes, frozen conditioning packages that help enterprises de-check and dekitchenize, convenience store boxed meals that meet the needs of mobile dining, and frozen prefabricated dishes that meet the needs of customers after the epidemic, providing a one-stop standardized solution from fresh food to clean vegetables and meat → formula clean vegetables → pre products → cooked products.
2、 Integrate resources and develop advantages
As the first Chinese fast food enterprise in China to achieve the development of a national chain, Zhengong has a primary advantage in prefabricated dishes.
“Four major bases, inherent offline promotion experience, the comprehensive ability of the group, and the nationwide coverage of 600+stores… Xu Weifeng, the marketing director of Zhenkungfu’s prefabricated dishes brand, told Nandu that Zhenkungfu’s accumulation and heritage of recipes, as well as years of sales data, flavors, and consumer needs and preferences of dishes, have accumulated, which is also greatly beneficial to its development on the prefabricated dishes track.”.
In 2010, when the takeout field rose, many enterprises were forced by cost pressures to invest in the construction of central kitchens, and the B-end of prefabricated dishes entered a large-scale period. At the same time, due to the impact of the epidemic, the consumption scene has shifted from offline to online, with the home economy and the lazy economy booming… “A variety of factors have catalysed the accelerated development of the prefabricated vegetable economy. The real trick is to seize opportunities, integrate resources, promote innovation, and once again achieve ‘great success’ in today’s prefabricated vegetable competition.” Xu Weifeng said that making prefabricated vegetables should focus on products. “Adhere to the principle of safe, nutritious, healthy, delicious and convenient products, based on simplified cooking, and create the concept of easy cooking for specific scenarios.”
At present, Zhenkungfu focuses on the promotion of frozen prefabricated dishes, of which 25 frozen prefabricated dishes, 35 SKUs, 8 product series and 4 joint names have been developed, such as the classic series of fragrant ribs, mushroom meat cake, pickled Chinese cabbage marinated meat, Zhenpin series Huadiao Braised pork belly, Cantonese pickled beef, seafood series of kungfu pickled Chinese cabbage fish, Japanese style braised eel, student meat cake and glutinous rice chicken developed according to specific scenarios and groups.
Zhengong also has its own unique views on addressing the key issue of low barriers to the production of most prefabricated dishes. Xu Weifeng stated that only with appropriate supply chain scale and production equipment investment, parallel channels online and offline, and rich e-commerce adaptability, brand recognition foundation, and consumer recognition can we achieve success.
3、 Made in Dongguan, “Backfeeding” Dongguan
The “Implementation Plan for Promoting the Development of the Prefabricated Vegetable Industry in Dongguan” recently issued by Dongguan proposes to rely on comprehensive advantages such as the grain and oil industry, food processing and manufacturing, and cold chain logistics to create a Dongguan prefabricated vegetable industry system that integrates “production and processing, R&D innovation, commercial logistics, and comprehensive services”. Using “Made in Dongguan” also enables and enhances the efficiency of the prefabricated vegetable industry.https://store.stoneitech.com/
At the same time, according to the Implementation Plan, Dongguan will build a prefabricated food industry chain with coordinated development of the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries. According to the upstream and downstream chain of “raw materials+processing+transportation+sales+equipment+packaging”, establish a high-quality prefabricated vegetable enterprise cultivation library, and regularly follow up the development of the enterprise. Organize and improve the list of key projects around the upstream and downstream supply chain, midstream food production chain, and other segmented areas. Adhere to the principle of “elements follow the project”, provide tracking services such as project introduction and implementation, capital increase and production expansion, and cultivate a group of prefabricated vegetable demonstration enterprises.
True Kung Fu is catching up with this “east wind”. Xu Weifeng said that the initial milestones of the enterprise, and even the future planning of the entire “pre cooked vegetable” industrial system, cannot be separated from the support of Dongguan Manufacturing. In 1990, Zhengong originated in Chang’an, Dongguan. Whether it is the independently developed computer program controlled steam cabinet, or the supply chain to achieve logistics production standardization, cooking equipment standardization, restaurant operation standardization, or the entire business chain from agricultural raw materials, clean vegetables, production, cooking, packaging, transportation, etc., it is all carried out in Dongguan.
Currently, the market size of prefabricated vegetables is expected to grow at an annual growth rate of more than 20%. Xu Weifeng said that the production process of Zhengong requires further exploration and development with the support of Dongguan. “The Dongguan Prefabricated Dish Track has great potential. Looking forward to the future, we hope that Zhengong can continuously ‘feed’ Dongguan with Dongguan manufacturing in its development path.”