Have Chilled “Ready Meals” lost their relevance?
Recently, The Grocer reported in its Focus section that the UK (Chilled) Ready Meals Category had taken the industry by surprise by declining in both volume and value by nearly 2% YoY(Nielsen 52 w/e 7th Sept 2019).
Chilled Ready Meals is a unique category, a stalwart of the UK Food & Drink Sector, worth just shy of £2bn in sales (Nielsen as above) and has long been a go-to fixture for busy consumers looking for simple, tasty meals they can heat and eat without much fuss.
Wandering down the ready meal aisles of most major supermarkets these days you could be forgiven for thinking that not a lot has changed over the last decade. Yes, we have witnessed another impressive, fair-share-busting array of vegan delights but in the main, it’s the same shelf layouts, the same product classifications, the same look and feel of the products and the same pitch to the shopper.
We all know that the last decade has conversely seen a significant amount of change, almost seismic in impact. So despite some Herculean efforts from some very talented supplier development teams (Chilled Ready Meals are over 90% own label) have ready meals been left behind?
The reasons offered for this decline in The Grocer article by the various industry experts are:
Reduction in promotional activity like multi-buys
Increase in consumer use of meal kits like Hello Fresh
Consumer perception of poor quality
Increase in take away deliveries like Deliveroo
All these factors are at play for sure, but the consumer perception is worth a deeper look as it holds the key to most of the issue.
Research by the Millennial Jury (Dec 2019) threw up the 3 main bugbears that the under 30’s cite for supermarket chilled ready meals:
"They don't inspire me"
“They are a pain to cook with mixed cooking guidelines" (I note M&S have tackled this)
"The category is a wall of plastic that makes me feel guilty when I buy them and eat ready meals." (This is despite the move by some retailers to a coloured substrate which makes it easier to recycle - consumers are anti excess plastic in their homes).
The last point is most interesting as consumers also referred to a “kitchen full of plastic rubbish” every time they prepared ready meals and a feeling of “shame at the checkout” when they purchased them.
It really feels that the decline in chilled ready meals is a bell toll for the need to radically accelerate the shift into more sustainable packaging solutions for this key category - but it will take some bold paradigm shifts with some breakthrough thinking if the consumers are to be won back.
Some examples of ready meal packaging innovation we are seeing:
Enterprise Brands is bringing a “revolutionary”, low-plastic, long-shelf life ready meal brand to the UK.
Charlie Bigham’s has developed the packaging to include recyclable cardboard sleeve and film. The wooden tray can’t be recycled but can be placed in garden compost, used as kindling or other uses.
Bol Foods are aiming to reduce their plastic as much as possible.
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