What are pre made dishes under the new regulations? The State Administration for Market Regulation, in conjunction with the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the Ministry of Commerce, and the National Health Commission, issued the "Notice on Strengthening the Safety Supervision of Prefabricated Vegetables and Promoting the High Quality Development of the Industry" in March this year, which for the first time clarifies the concept of prefabricated dishes from a national policy level, and clarifies that clean dishes, staple food products, and dishes made in the central kitchen do not belong to the scope of prefabricated dishes. After the adjustment of the new regulations, which products do consumers come into daily contact with are pre made dishes? What is the industry's interpretation of this policy adjustment? What else did the notice say? Pre made food safety ● Promote the use of pre made food in the catering process, ensuring consumers' right to know and choose. Research and develop safety standards for pre made dishes, and clarify and standardize the safety requirements for pre made dishes. Promote the development of quality standards such as terminology and product classification for prefabricated dishes. Urge enterprises to strictly implement their main responsibilities, establish and improve a strict food raw material quality and safety management system, strengthen risk control, and strictly control the use of food additives. Require market regulatory authorities to strictly control the production license of pre made vegetables, increase supervision and inspection efforts in key links, carry out pre made vegetable supervision and sampling and risk monitoring, and severely crack down on illegal and irregular behaviors. High quality industrial development ● Enhance the ability to guarantee high-quality raw materials and ensure the quality and safety of agricultural raw materials. Improve the innovation and research and development level of key technologies, and encourage the development of key common technologies. Accelerate the application of advanced production process equipment, improve the automation level of key processes and production circulation efficiency. Actively create a favorable industrial development environment and support local efforts to promote the construction of prefabricated vegetable industry clusters. The interpretation of new regulations shows that the prefabricated food industry has developed rapidly in recent years, with a long industrial chain, wide connections, and high technical requirements. It has positive significance in promoting deep processing of agricultural products, transformation of the food industry, consumption upgrading, entrepreneurship and employment, and other aspects. At the same time, prefabricated dishes also face problems such as scope generalization, inconsistent standards, inconsistent industrial policy support, and public concerns about adding preservatives to prefabricated dishes, posing new challenges to regulatory work. Prefabricated dishes should have and meet the characteristics and requirements of large-scale, standardized, clean and standardized food production and processing, and better leverage the advantages of food industrialization. Promoting the use of pre made dishes in the catering process is an important measure to protect consumers' right to know and choose, and to respond to social concerns. Not adding preservatives is to meet consumers' higher expectations for pre made vegetables and lead the direction of high-quality development in the pre made vegetable industry. It has gradually become an industry consensus that food additives should not be added unless necessary, and that the amount of food additives used in food should be reduced as much as possible while achieving the expected results. Pre made dishes are stored under conditions such as freezing and refrigeration, as well as post-processing techniques for sterilization, without the need for the use of preservatives. ——Since the State Administration for Market Regulation in 2023, there has been a continuous controversy over pre made vegetables. Although there are numerous group and enterprise standards in the industry, the lack of unified definitions and standards has also brought difficulties to relevant supervision. The Notice serves as a starting point, clarifying what pre made dishes are and what kind of pre made dishes should be made. The scope has been divided into "two reductions and one increase" - upstream, clean dishes, and central kitchens, as they already have relevant standards and management in place