Best of British

The overall market may be flat, but premium ready meals and ready to cook ranges are booming. Rebecca Green discovers how health and a rekindled love for British food are playing their part

A few years ago things looked pretty bleak for ready meals, which bore the brunt of several media scares and became a scapegoat for health campaigners. The market is still static, with growth of only 0.7% in the last year (TNS Worldpanel), but two areas are now really benefiting from our preoccupation with all things healthy: premium and ready to cook.

According to TNS Worldpanel, premium ready meal ranges, such as Tesco Finest and Sainsbury Taste the Difference, are growing ahead of the market. The reason for this, as a senior figure at prepared food specialist Greencore sees it, is down to a change in consumers' perceptions of what is healthy. "Premium is definitely the hero category. People are buying premium instead of healthy ranges when they want a healthy meal as they don't think healthy ranges taste as good," says the company. "Now there is a presumption that premium is healthier and less processed, which is being matched by manufacturers trying to clean up the label declaration."

Waitrose's ready meals buyer agrees, saying: "The less premium healthy ranges are now seen as diet food, with a compromise on flavour." The buyer believes the market is heading towards combining health and premium, and with this in mind plans to launch a premium range with fresher elements in July, which will "build on [the] Perfectly Balanced range, offering the consumer a premium 'healthier' option"

But while the words 'ready meal' tend to conjure up images of that old favourite, the chicken tikka massala, it is actually traditional British fare - think toad in the hole and shepherd's pie - that is tickling consumers' taste buds at the moment, says a spokeswoman for prepared foods company Geest (now part of Icelandic firm Bakkavör). "There is a nostalgia attached to these dishes, which are seen as comfort food," she explains.

Celia Wright, founder of food development consultancy Cheftech, adds: "When premium ranges were first launched you wouldn't have expected to see toad in the hole or cottage pie, but there has definitely been a resurgence in these traditional British meals. We are also seeing more fish dishes in premium ready meals, partly because fish is an expensive protein - you won't find it in your 99p dishes."

Healthy

With health being seen as the 'nirvana' for all ready meals, Mediterranean cuisine is also popular at the top end of the market, says Martin Clayton, European and American development chef at chilled ready meal manufacturer S&A Foods. Clayton agrees that consumers are favouring premium instead of 'good for you' ranges when it comes to choosing the healthy option. "We have strict guidelines [on fat, sugar and salt] from Asda anyway, so nothing in our premium range is vastly unhealthy, but the meals deliver the flavour profile without going to the 'good for you' range," he says. However, when it comes to taking out the 'baddies' it is easier with some cuisines than others, says Clayton. "You would struggle to take the butter and salt out of French cuisine without compromising on flavour, for instance, but with Mexican or Indian you can take out the salt and the fat and you've still got the flavour from the spices."

But that's not the only problem manufacturers face, says Clayton. Despite the focus on health, getting consumers to eat more vegetables isn't easy. "We are trying to use more fresh vegetables, like aubergine, but believe it or not, a lot of people have never tasted an aubergine. So we've done a four cheese ravioli with aubergine and tomato sauce, which is selling really well. But if we just presented consumers with aubergine on its own, instead of with familiar ingredients, they wouldn't try it.

"When we did a fennel and pancetta gratin it bombed because people didn't know what fennel was. It's a case of drip-feeding them new ingredients. People in this country aren't really as adventurous as we make out."

Conversely, Clayton has been doing a lot of work developing American dishes - not famed for their healthy image. "I've been quite surprised by how popular US cuisine is - it's probably my biggest area now," he says. "It's popular because it's quite customer friendly; things like pasta bakes and chilli con carnes are seen as offering value for money as they come in quite large portions."

Ready to cook

However, British food still reigns supreme when it comes to the £29.8M UK ready to cook sector, claiming a massive £20.4M share of the market. As the first retailer to tap into the market two years ago with its Cook! range, M&S's beef wellington is the most popular product. But in the last year, retailers such as Sainsbury and Waitrose have been the most successful in gaining market share.

The ready to cook market is interesting because it hits all three consumer trends - convenience, health and pleasure - says the Geest spokeswoman. "Good quality, colourful ingredients, which are visually attractive and 'on show' to the consumer are coupled with a high perception of health: for example, raw vegetables are cooked for the first time," she says. Another attraction with ready to cook, says Robert Kedzlie, founder of consultancy NPD Direct, is that it gives consumers the 'feel good factor' of feeling they have cooked the meal themselves. However, Geest does not anticipate ready to cook will steal significant market share from ready meals, simply because some dishes work better in the ready meal format. "Chicken that is cooked slowly in a marinade takes on a more intense flavour and is not impaired by being re-heated," says the spokeswoman. Likewise, she adds, it would be pointless to try and replicate something like shepherd's pie in a ready to cook format.

A major drawback to ready to cook ranges that will probably prevent them from taking an even greater market share is shelf-life, says Wright. "While the concept of freshness is good, they just don't have the shelf-life so it is difficult to develop a big range. As they get towards the end of their shelf-life you are better off buying a ready cooked meal anyway."

So, although there is undoubtedly a growing market for ready to cook, the ready meals reign supreme. But, as Waitrose's ready meals buyer points out: " [Ready meal] manufacturers are now repositioning their offer to include freshness." And Greencore says that as the premium ready meals market grows, it is finding consumers that had turned to ready to cook are now returning to ready meals.

Going forward, the firm believes that new packaging formats will appear on the market and says it is currently developing patents for the steam fresh concept - one that it says has yet to be fully tapped into - along with other new packaging technology.

Meanwhile, Clayton believes the next innovation will be in self-heating packaging, similar to that used on coffee cups. "Cost is the only thing that is preventing it from moving to ready meals, but that will eventually come down," he says. FM