The preprepared food industry is on the rise as investment flows in.
Chinese food chain business LIHOO'S (Chinese: 利和味道) announced the completion of a series-D funding round. This round of funding was co-led by investors Huaxing Growth Capital and Hidden Hill Capital, followed by Welight Capital and others. The proceeds will be used for the research and development of new preprepared dishes and the improvement of industry chain aggregation capability to further enhance LIHOO'S advantages at the supply end.
Founded in 2012, LIHOO's is a product-centric food chain company that insists on continuously improving the overall quality of its products through supply chain capabilities. The firm's premium preprepared dish brand has launched several innovative products such as cheese beef roll, Wellington steak and kamaboko eel for customers.
Chairman of Huaxi Growth Capital, Bao Fan, said that "low temperature preprepared food is an important direction for upgrading China's food industry, and market penetration is expected to increase significantly in the future. On the demand side, this type of food has become an excellent choice for more and more young consumers to dine at home."
China's preprepared food industry has entered a golden period. The rising income level, and disruptions to dine-ins caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the growth of the 'lazy economy' led to significant market development. It is expected to maintain a high growth rate in the future and will reach a size of CNY 1,072 billion by 2026, according to iiMedia Research.
The firm's competitors in the industry include Anjoy Food (Chinese: 安井食品), Sanquan Food (Chinese: 三全食品) and ZWXMY (Chinese: 珍味小梅园).