An array of premade food in a supermarket in Beijing. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The eastern coastal city of Qingdao, Shandong province recently launched a three-year (2022-24) action plan to promote the high-quality development of the precooked dish market.

According to the city's development goals, there is expected to be 100 precooked dish industry players above designated size in the city by 2024, with the scale of the whole industrial chain exceeding 100 billion yuan ($14.33 billion).

Three key tasks were put forward: carrying out the whole industry chain cultivation project for precooked foods, accelerating the construction of the technology and standard system of the industry, and cultivating the consumer market within the industry.

Qingdao, Shandong province [Photo/VCG]

In recent years, domestic consumers have shown an increasing appetite for ready-to-cook dishes as the stay-at-home economy has not only changed people's consumption and eating habits, but also propelled e-commerce grocery platforms to accelerate their involvement into the burgeoning precooked foods segment, according to industry experts.

According to iiMedia Research, a mobile internet consulting firm, the scale of China's premade cuisine market was 345.9 billion yuan last year, with a year-on-year growth of 19.8 percent. It is expected to maintain a high growth rate in the future, and the market scale could reach 1 trillion yuan in 2026.