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Bord Bia

World Cuisines in the Chilled Ready Meal Category

13 March 2020

Fiona O'Shaughnessy & Estelle Alley, Bord Bia - The Irish Food Board

 

Image by: Bord Bia

 

 

Image by: Bord Bia

 

 

The UK chilled ready meal category is valued at £1.7bn and is in slight growth of 0.1% (Kantar Data Ending 14th July 2019 *latest Grocer figure from focus on World Cuisines*). The category is highly competitive, has a private label share of 92% and is heavily influenced by world cuisines. The chilled ready meals market reflects how British tastes are ever changing and innovation and differentiation is key to unlocking growth.

 

According to a recent Mintel report (The future of prepared meals and soups, 2019), ‘foodservice will drive innovation and retailers will continue to look to foodservice for inspiration in terms of formats, techniques and flavours as consumer exposure and expectations increase’. We are also seeing evidence in the UK that foodservice brands are utilising the retail channel to expand their presence into the in-home space. Current UK Foodservice market is estimated to be valued at £90b. With a steady growth trajectory of 1.5% each year, the total UK foodservice market will reach a value of over £100bn by 2027, further increasing to £106bn by 2030 (Simon Stenning, The Future of Foodservice 2030). As a result of this insight, we recently undertook a market study visit with client companies focusing on retail, foodservice and food halls to learn how specific world cuisines and flavours are shaping menus and product offerings.

 

The ‘Food People’ held their annual trends event in the UK, December 2019, calling out the trends which they see as likely to manifest across the food industry in 2020. Influenced by this, we focused our itinerary on three key cuisines; Modern British, Modern Asian and Modern Indian. These three cuisines were cited as evidence of trend setting influence as well as mass appeal.

 

Foodservice operators that we visited included Dishoom (modern Indian), Sticks n Sushi (modern Asian) and The Alchemist (modern British). Key insights from our market study visit included the influence of regionalism in modern Indian cuisines e.g. Goa, Kerala and Bombay. The growth in Japanese outlets was very apparent and according to foodservice operators, the upcoming Olympics in Japan will continue to drive interest in this cuisine. Modern British cuisine examples included traditional British dishes, adapted and influenced by the cultural diversity in the UK. Much of Modern British cooking also draws heavily on influences from the Mediterranean, and more recently, Middle Eastern, South Asian, East Asian and Southeast Asian cuisines. The traditional influence of northern and central European cuisines is significant but fading.

 

Image by: Bord Bia

 

Image by: Bord Bia

 

 

Market Study Visits provide an important opportunity for companies to keep up with trends in the market and understand they how can influence their innovation pipeline.  It is very important, especially for the chilled ready category, to stay close to the UK market and in particular the every changing influence of world cuisines on the foodservice channel.

 

 

Come along to our annual insight day for the chilled ready meal and soup category in The Thinking House, Dublin on June 17th for further exploration into the dynamics of the category. 

 

For more information please contact fiona.oshaughnessy@bordbia.ie, Estelle.alley@bordbia.ie

 

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