2024 Spring Festival Observation ｜ Chef who comes home to make New Year’s Eve dinner： Earn five or six thousand dollars a day and go home to eat instant noodles.
Cctv news(Reporter/Written by Du Anqi/Kan Chunyu): "Cooking is too tiring, and the table is too expensive." During the Spring Festival, the business of home cooking is booming. CCTV News+reporter interviewed three chefs. In Jiuquan, Gansu, two tables of 18 dishes are charged in 500 yuan, and in the suburbs of Chongqing, a table of 13 dishes is charged in 300 yuan, but some chefs have received 2— A large-scale family banquet with three tables will earn five or six thousand yuan a day.
Two tables of New Year’s Eve dinner, 18 dishes charge 500 yuan
Repeatedly shirked, however, Wang Liping of Jiuquan, Gansu received an order for New Year’s Eve dinner. No way, the relationship needs to be maintained. Wang Liping is always asked to cook for the daily reception of the client company. This time, the client asked her to "help" during the New Year, and she could not refuse. The chefs in the team have all returned to their hometowns for the Spring Festival. Before that, Wang Liping had already cancelled more than a dozen orders.
Dinner will be served at 6:30 p.m., and Wang Liping needs to come home at 3:30 to prepare. Make a family dinner for more than 20 people in a family, set two tables, and serve 18 dishes, large and small, and charge 500 yuan. "On this single order, the customer is an acquaintance and there is no price increase." Wang Liping’s hands are tied, and she plans to let her husband go with her.
Wang Liping is not a professional chef. She has a regular job, and cooking at home is only a part-time job. At the beginning of 2023, she saw such a business model on social platforms. In March, she began to take orders, relying on her own home cooking skills and relying on the hard work of carefully pondering food videos. "Sometimes there are four or five orders a day, and sometimes there are no orders."
While taking orders, she runs her own social account and regards short videos as her own advertisements. Some people I know began to follow Wang Liping to take orders, and others found them from social platforms. Slowly, the number of orders and teams rose. At work, Wang Liping sends out the list, and at rest, he goes to the door to cook. Near the Spring Festival, "telephone calls for ordering food from all over the country are received from morning to evening".
Customers have different requirements. According to the quantity of food, Wang Liping charges 200— 300 yuan, a year down, she earn up to 7000 yuan a month. Wang Liping said: "No investment, low risk, free time, and hard money."
Make some pocket money for children by cooking at home.
Liu Li, who lives in the suburbs of Chongqing, received two orders on New Year’s Eve, and the customers prepared their own ingredients, a table of 10— 12 dishes, each door-to-door service 2— 3 hours, a day can earn more than 700 yuan’s manual fee. During the Chinese New Year, she raised the price of each order by 20%.
Before becoming a substitute chef for home cooking, Liu Li opened a beauty shop in the county town. In 2018, she had a child. Due to the pressure of rising rent and labor costs, she transferred the store. In 2023, she found that cooking at home can not only bring income, but also set aside time to pick up and drop off children and take care of housework.
On weekdays, Liu Li can pick up 3-mdash a day; Four orders, one for cooking, and the other for bacon soup pots, can earn seven or eight hundred yuan a day. Friends around her came to help, and she took out 30% as a commission.
Liu Li’s schedule is very full. After finishing the housework at home in the morning, she goes to the client’s house to cook, and she is busy until around 6:30 pm. After eating the New Year’s Eve dinner at home, she will continue to wash the dishes. "In fact, if you think about it, you have earned it by yourself. You have to rely on your own hands to do it. If you do it, you will get it."
Photo courtesy of respondents
Earn five or six thousand dollars a day and go home to eat instant noodles
In contrast, He Xie’s team is larger and the charging standard is higher. "There are 50 chefs, including me, and the fees for chefs of different grades are different. Some are home-cooked dishes, some are star-rated products, and some are local specialty dishes, ranging from several hundred yuan to several thousand yuan." On New Year’s Eve, He Xie holds more than 60 home cooking orders, and the chefs in the team can earn up to five or six thousand yuan a day.
At the end of 2022, He Xie, who had worked hard in the catering industry for many years, noticed that cooking at home was on fire. He and his partners are planning to form a team. "Some of the chefs we recruited think that this industry is more promising, and some people have lost money in the catering business before and want to make some money."
In a year, the order volume has soared from a dozen orders a day to hundreds a day. "Many families pay more and more attention to health or the atmosphere at home, which is basically in a state of continuous growth." The monthly income of chefs in the team is 10 thousand — 30,000 yuan.
This time, He Xie and the team members made preparations from the twelfth lunar month to the fifteenth day of the first month: "The Spring Festival is our busiest time. We also hope to provide services to those families who need help and bring them warmth and joy. " Although his reunion with his family needs to be postponed, He Xie thinks it is very meaningful. "Most of the chefs in the team are men, and they are husbands and fathers in the family. In order to earn some money to subsidize the family and make the family live better, I will earn more money during the New Year."
Photo courtesy of respondents
On New Year’s Eve, He Xie began to buy food at six o’clock in the morning and went to the customer’s house to start cooking at eight o’clock. 12— An order for 16 dishes often takes 4 hours. The latest table of New Year’s Eve dinner was set at 7: 00 p.m. He Xie still needed to clean up the kitchen. When he got home, it was already 10: 00 p.m. He didn’t want to fire again and bought a bucket of instant noodles to satisfy his hunger.
Although it is very hard, He Xie feels that his career is very valuable. "99% of the owners are very enthusiastic about us and will ask you if you drink water. Some people say that they can help us with chores and even let us eat together." At this moment, He Xie always feels very proud.