Der Milliardenmarkt für Gruppenverpflegung explodiert: Die Anzahl der Kochroboter steigt jährlich um 120 %, die Politik investiert 5 Milliarden Yuan. Wer wird eliminiert?
In the staff canteen of Shanghai Caohejing Science and Technology Park, the flow of people during the lunch rush never stops.
Different from the past, there are no longer chefs waving spatulas in the kitchen. Instead, there are several intelligent cooking robots with stainless - steel shells. The staff put the prepared ingredients into the baskets, touch the screen to select the recipes, and three minutes later, a steaming plate of shredded pork in fish - flavored sauce is ready.
Li Wei, an office worker in the park, sighed when getting her meal: "Previously, we had to wait in line for at least 15 minutes. Now, it only takes 5 minutes from ordering to getting the meal, and the taste is exactly the same as yesterday."
This scene is being replicated at an accelerating pace in group - meal scenarios across the country.
From university canteens to hospital canteens, from corporate logistics to airline catering, cooking robots are occupying the kitchen back - ends of canteens at a speed beyond expectations.
When the industry penetration rate approaches the critical point of 25%, a profound transformation regarding efficiency and cost has already begun.
The Arrival of the Critical Point: The Industrial Background of the Efficiency Revolution
China's group - meal industry is standing at the crossroads of intelligent transformation.
Under the traditional model, problems such as the aging of chefs, difficulty in recruiting workers, and low standardization have long restricted the industry's development. Statistics from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security show that chefs have been on the national list of "most labor - short" occupations for three consecutive years. Compared with food delivery workers with an average age of 25, the average age of the chef group is close to 40.
Meanwhile, the cost pressure continues to rise. The monthly salary of chefs in first - tier cities has exceeded 8,000 yuan. The labor cost of traditional Chinese restaurants accounts for as high as 20% - 25%, becoming a "black hole" that devours profits. The emergence of cooking robots happens to provide a technical path to solve these pain points.
The policy support has accelerated this transformation.
After "new - quality productivity" was written into the government work report in 2024, local governments have introduced support policies one after another: Beijing and Shenzhen offer 15% - 20% purchase subsidies for intelligent catering equipment; the central government has set up a special fund of 5 billion yuan to support technology research and development; the "Action Plan for the Development of the Intelligent Kitchen Equipment Industry" clearly sets the goal of the industry scale exceeding 100 billion yuan by 2025.
The Efficiency Account: The Digital Code of Cost Reconstruction
Behind the cooking robot penetration rate approaching 25% is an efficiency account that has been completely reconstructed.
The real - world operation data of a government canteen in Tangshan reveals the economic logic of this transformation: After investing in 4 cooking robots priced at 80,000 yuan each, the number of kitchen staff was reduced from 12 to 5. The proportion of labor cost dropped sharply from 22% to 8%, and the single - store annual savings exceeded 600,000 yuan.
The efficiency improvement is even more astonishing. Through the precise temperature control system, the serving time of Kung Pao Chicken was reduced from 5 minutes and 20 seconds to 3 minutes and 15 seconds, and the oil temperature control error was less than ±2°C.
At the Jiangxi stir - fry stall in the Huawei canteen in Hangzhou, three robots work together. A plate of stir - fried pork with chili over rice can be completed in 3 minutes, and the peak - hour reception capacity has increased by 150%.
The breakthrough in standardization has brought about a quality revolution. The biggest pain point of traditional Chinese cuisine - "thousands of people, thousands of flavors" has been completely solved. A certain technology's robot can reach a stir - frying temperature of 300°C in 26 seconds with a high power of 8700 watts, and the taste consistency reaches 98%.
Xiaocaiyuan stated in its IPO prospectus that after using robots, the profit cycle of new stores was shortened from 12 months to 8 months.
Comparison of cost - effectiveness between cooking robots and traditional kitchens
The Butterfly Effect of 25%: The Chain Reaction of the Industrial Ecosystem
When the industry penetration rate breaks through the 25% critical point, the industrial ecosystem begins to undergo a qualitative change.
The market pattern shows a distinct feature of "commercial use first, household use lagging". In the commercial field, a certain cooking - machine technology company has entered 1500 stores and serves buffet restaurants from Full - Season Hotels to Hilton.
In addition, the leasing model solves the problems of small and medium - sized catering enterprises.
In response to the pressure of a single - store renovation cost of 300,000 yuan, the market has innovatively launched a monthly rental model - the monthly equipment rental fee is 1000 - 2500 yuan, saving 5500 yuan compared with the monthly chef salary, allowing cash - strapped small and medium - sized enterprises to operate with ease.
Third - and fourth - tier cities are becoming new growth poles.
The price war has pushed the equipment cost down by 12% annually, and the penetration rate in third - and fourth - tier markets has increased at a rate of 120% per year, forming a dual - wheel drive with the first - and second - tier markets.
During the trial operation of a restaurant in Kuqa City, Xinjiang, a robot equipped with hundreds of recipes can handle various cuisines such as Sichuan, Hunan, and Cantonese cuisines.
Regional market penetration characteristics of Chinese cooking robots (forecast for 2025)
Challenges after the Critical Point: Rebalancing Efficiency and Experience
Standing at the 25% critical point, the industry still faces three challenges.
The bottleneck of technical adaptability comes first. Flexible cooking of complex dishes remains a difficult problem. For example, "stir - fried pig kidneys" in Shandong cuisine requires precise control of the knife cuts, and steaming fish in Cantonese cuisine needs to dynamically adjust the heat according to the thickness of the fish.
A smart engineer of a certain cooking machine admitted: "It's easy for the robot to master the wok qi, but it's difficult to convey the craftsmanship."
There is a cognitive gap at the consumer end. A survey in the group - meal industry shows that the resistance rate of people over 35 to robot - cooked dishes reaches 42%, believing that "it lacks the flavor of a real kitchen".
After a state - owned enterprise canteen in Hangzhou introduced robots, although the efficiency improvement was obvious, some old employees still insisted on queuing at the traditional windows.
Meanwhile, the cost structure hides implicit costs. The equipment maintenance cost accounts for about 15% of the procurement cost, and the annual software upgrade fee is 20,000 yuan per unit.
What's more troublesome is the skill gap among operators - there is a shortage of compound - type talents who understand both catering operations and equipment management. In a restaurant in Shenzhen, the robot "turned twice - cooked pork into fried dried meat" due to an operation error.
The Future after the Critical Point: The Evolution Path of Human - Machine Collaboration
The industry that has broken through the critical point is evolving along three paths.
Firstly, technology integration accelerates the intelligent leap. The new - generation cooking robots are evolving from execution tools to decision - making centers.
Secondly, the application scenarios continue to multiply. The elderly - care field has become a new blue ocean. Jia Nan, a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, specifically pointed out: "The application of robots in elderly - care communities can achieve the combination of freshly cooked food, nutritional health, and affordable prices."
The pilot project of elderly - care meal - assistance points in Beijing shows that after using robots, the protein waste rate has been reduced by 23%, and the rationality of dietary collocation has been increased by 35%.
Thirdly, the industrial ecosystem extends to both ends of the smile curve. In the upstream core - component field, Huawei HiSilicon's special AI chips for kitchens have occupied 30% of the market share; in the downstream service end, food pre - processing enterprises, seasoning factories, and robot manufacturers jointly build an ecosystem, forming a solution of "prepared vegetables + robots + compound seasonings".
A group - meal enterprise in an industrial park in Longgang, Shenzhen, has just completed an intelligent transformation. 36 cooking robots operate day and night in a 3000 - square - meter central kitchen, delivering 20,000 meals to 15 surrounding factories every day.
General Manager Wang Lei's account clearly records the transformation: The proportion of labor cost has dropped from 25% to 7.2%, the meal - serving efficiency has increased by 3 times, and the quarterly profit has increased by 2 million yuan.
But what surprised him the most was not these numbers.
During an open - day event last month, several retired chefs observed the robot for a long time and sighed: "The heat control is even more stable than that of humans."
This article is from the WeChat public account "Group - Meal Industry". Author: The editorial team of Group - Meal Industry. Republished by 36Kr with permission.