Time-starved consumers fill up on ready meals
Adventurous UK taste buds leave Europe behind
February 19 2003
New research from Mintel shows the UK is the largest market for ready meals in western Europe.
In 2002, the UK accounted for some 42 per cent of total sales by value, ahead of the French market in second place with 21 per cent, Germany with 20 per cent, Italy with 9 per cent and Spain on a 7 per cent market share.
More than three quarters of UK housewives have served ready meals, compared to a third of Italians. Some 30 per cent of the UK adult population eat ready meals more than once a week compared to just 16 per cent of the French.
Mintel says changing lifestyles means changing habits. New work and family patterns, with fragmented family meals and an emphasis on eating out, snacking and lighter meals have increased families’ reliance on convenience foods. Ready meals represent the ultimate convenience food, requiring no preparation, and delivering a full meal once heated.
This prompted strong growth in the market during the 1980s and 1990s, and between 1998 and 2002, sales of ready meals in the five major European markets rose 29 per cent, from €5.4bn to €7bn.
Demand for convenience is more pronounced in the UK than elsewhere in Europe, with some 80 per cent of the population owning a microwave compared to only 27 per cent of Italians.
Ready meals are much more likely to be eaten by younger consumers, but usage is relatively broad, with only the oldest consumers showing lower usage. Consumption is at its strongest among consumers in the highest income bands and is markedly above average in households with children and among working consumers.
Anne Bourgeois, European consumer goods consultant for Mintel, said: “This supports the industry view of consumption patterns – younger and middle-aged consumers are the most likely to experience time pressures resulting from trying to balance home and work.”
While convenience has been a major growth factor, manufacturers have encouraged ready meals uptake by exploiting other current trends, such as the burgeoning interest in ethnic cuisine, the trend towards a healthier diet and the high media profile currently enjoyed by cookery and by celebrity chefs, several of whom have lent their names to ready meal recipe ranges.
Bourgeois said: “As the market has become more diverse and more sophisticated,purchasing decisions are no longer based primarily on convenience, but take into account a wide range of other factors including the price to value equation, cooking method, portion size, authenticity of flavour, perceived health issues, quality of ingredients, and packaging and product design.”
Total retail sales of ready meals in the UK were valued at some €2.9bn at current prices in 2002, a rise of 44 per cent on 1998. Between 1997 and 2001, sales of chilled ready meals rose by 90 per cent at current prices, while the value of the ambient sector rose by just 32 per cent and that of the frozen ready meals sector by just under 14 per cent.
Bourgeois said: “In the UK, the ready meal has undergone a change of image from being ceemed as unhealthy, lazy food to being repositioned as a premium, indulgent option, and retailers have further enhanced the image of chilled meals by using premium packaging and premium positioning.”
Frozen and ambient ready meals fare better on the Continent where there is a very strong market for canned ready meals, with a variety of traditional stews and meal centres being sold in this format.
Indian, Chinese and other Asian recipes ? now account for more than 40 per cent of the chilled ready meals sector, and international cuisines claim almost 50 per cent of frozen ready meals. The increasing visibility of ethnic recipes has helped to attract new consumers to the market, attracted by the possibility of enjoying meals often otherwise bought at takeaways and in ethnic restaurants.
Bourgeois said: “The traditionally insular British are becoming ever more cosmopolitan, a trend initiated by the spread of cheaper air travel and the democratisation of foreign holidays, and reflected in the wide range of ethnic restaurants mushrooming in high streets across the land.”
Ready Meals in Europe is published by Mintel.
