Prepared & Refrigerated Meals Category Expands

Brits are accustomed to purchasing refrigerated "ready meals" that range from raw to fully-cooked, but the frozens category has swamped chilled prepared foods in the States.

Part of the reason has been concern about safety, but that may be changing. Grocery chains are adding more prepared meals in their deli and chilled cases, with food research giant Technomic reporting consumers claims of purchasing such meals are up 25%. One factor may be the quest to trade down in cost from eating out without having to resort to cooking it yourself from scratch. The trend even has a name: the Whole Foods Effect, inspired by that retailer's plethora of prepared meal options, including Asian, Indian, Latin, and Italian "hot bars" offering shoppers creative alternatives to the usual take-out.

Publix and Winn-Dixie have jumped on the bandwagon with their own combinations of improved deli, salad bars and slow-cooked meats and soups. Restaurants are fighting back with more take-out and licensing: TGI Friday's has a new line of licensed skillet meals reported here in previous editions of this news source.

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