Exposed! Are “food scraps” cheap and delicious? The truth is…

Recently, the term "food scraps" has gradually entered the public's field of vision, setting off a large shopping wave. With its cheap price and the same taste and quality as regular food, it has quickly become popular on major e-commerce platforms and is deeply favored by consumers.

01

Hot food scraps

Food scraps generally refer to the fragmentary materials that are cut and trimmed during food processing to ensure the product's appearance is beautiful and regular, but its processing technology and quality are the same as those of regular products.

Because food scraps are irregular in shape and cannot be sold as regular food, merchants usually sell them separately at a reduced price . With comparable quality and low prices, consumers naturally rush to buy them. On major e-commerce platforms, many foods marked with food scraps have become popular, with high sales and rave reviews.

On various social platforms, anchors have also been promoting some food scraps. Slogans such as "money-saving treasure", "cheap big bowl", and "easily achieve snack freedom" have greatly attracted young people. Among them, the particularly popular types include cheese crumbs, ham crumbs, seaweed crumbs, tiger skin cake crumbs, etc.

In the eyes of consumers , these food scraps are inexpensive and of good quality, allowing them to experience "little happiness" such as cheese baked rice and seaweed rice at a lower price. They are good things that can improve their quality of life .

The leftover food on the e-commerce platform has received a lot of positive reviews. Image source: a shopping website

In offline stores, many bakeries package bread scraps and biscuit crumbs and put them on the shelves, and some Japanese food stores also sell some salmon crumbs separately, which has also achieved good sales. On major e-commerce platforms, the sales of food scraps are even higher.

According to the "2022Q1 Magic Mirror Consumption New Potential White Paper", in one quarter of 2022, the sales of snack scraps on Taobao and Tmall alone exceeded 20 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1749.23%, becoming a new consumption wave and attracting the attention of the capital market.

It is expected that the market size of snack scraps will increase steadily in the future, with monthly sales expected to exceed 10 million yuan. The share of the snack market may reach about 3% to 5%, becoming an emerging force in the market.

02

Are there any safety risks associated with food scraps?

However, as the sales of food scraps have increased dramatically, some netizens have begun to wonder: where do so many food scraps come from? It is no wonder that everyone has such questions.

Industry insiders said that from the perspective of production costs, formal companies or businesses will try to reduce the loss of raw materials during the food production process, so the amount of scraps is actually not too large. In addition, if the quality of food scraps is to be ensured to be the same as that of regular food, a certain amount of cost must be invested.

Therefore, it is unlikely for food scraps to live up to the sellers’ claims of “cheap and large” or “you’re making a profit if you buy it”.

However, some unscrupulous merchants are secretly deceiving consumers under the guise of food scraps, taking advantage of consumers' inherent impression that food scraps are economical and affordable.

The reporter's investigation found that the food scraps on the market are mainly divided into two categories. One is the scraps produced and sold by regular manufacturers, and the other is some large-packaged foods that are packaged but have unknown ingredients and are wholesaled on a large scale . Many of the latter are "three-no products", and there is a mixture of good and bad, and food safety cannot be guaranteed.

Moreover, some products have a short shelf life and are almost expired when they are received. Large quantities of food scraps cannot be eaten at all, which easily leads to waste. Many online stores sell bulk food scraps in simple packaging, and some are not even sealed, posing a major food safety risk.

CCTV Finance reported that caution should be exercised when purchasing food scraps. Image source: Weibo screenshot

Professionals pointed out that many food scraps currently on the market are in a gray area. Regular food manufacturers rarely directly package and sell scraps, but instead hand them over to downstream manufacturers or channel dealers for production and sales. If the downstream companies have limited production conditions, food safety and quality cannot be guaranteed. Many netizens have also commented that they have suffered from diarrhea after eating scraps.

Moreover, with the expansion of the market scale, food scraps have gradually become a marketing concept. Some merchants clearly do not sell food scraps, but still label the products as "scraps" on their homepages to attract consumers. Some even go so far as to directly cut up regular products and sell them in the appearance of scraps.

In this regard, experts recommend: Try to purchase food scraps from offline channels to reduce the occurrence of "blind boxes" online ; if you buy online, try to choose stores that sell genuine products; when receiving the goods, be sure to pay attention to whether the product packaging indicates important safety information such as the manufacturer, production date, production batch number and shelf life, and do not consume products without any warranty.

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Food scraps such as meat jerky and ham mince may be the result of secondary processing by mixing minced meat from different batches. It is difficult for consumers to trace their production process, and food safety is difficult to ensure.

In summary, leftover food is cheap, but not necessarily good. You must keep your eyes open when purchasing it. It is always right to be cautious.

Source: Digital Beijing Science Center

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