Fiona O'Shaughnessy, PCF Business Development Manager, Bord Bia - The Irish Food Board
According to Kantar, the chilled ready meals category in Ireland, valued at €150m, had a strong growth performance of 8.8% (value yoy) (Data for period ending 21st April 2019)
This growth is primarily driven by more trips to buy as shoppers return to the Chilled Ready Meal aisle more often. English/Traditional chilled ready meals are the most popular however Indian cuisine demonstrated the most growth at 8.4. In terms of retailer performance, Tesco have the highest share of Chilled Ready Meals at 23.4%, however Aldi recorded the strongest performance with their chilled ready meal value sales growing by 25.1% YOY (Data for period ending 21st April 2019) .Private label is also driving growth with a 78% share of the market.
After a long period of growth in the UK, the chilled ready meal growth has halted and it is currently declining at -0.1% (value yoy) (Data Ending 24th March 2019)
The total value of the category is £1.69bn with English/Traditional and Italian by far the largest cuisines accounting for 63% of spend. The category decline is driven by a reduction in volume per buyer with population growth preventing a volume decline. M&S’ changes in promotional mechanism, with the removal of the ‘Dine in for two’ offer and higher prices, has seen shoppers become less engaged, causing their sales to decline by 6.2% (-£27m) over the period. Spend instead is moving towards Aldi who are the best performing retailer, recording growth of 33% (value yoy) (Data Ending 24th March 2019. Similar to the Irish market, private label is dominant in the category with a 92% market share however brand shares have consistently increased over the past 5 years. Brands such a Charlie Bigham’s and Soulful in the UK have been large contributors to this growth.