With increased consumer interest in eating healthily, the time is ripe for brands to offer nutrition and functional benefits
According to the latest research from Mintel, for 44 per cent Indians, one of the top reasons to use ready meals during the COVID-19 outbreak was that it was quicker than preparing food from scratch. In fact, 39 out of 100 people (39 per cent) use ready meals as an emergency meal solution.
The research highlights that over the next 12 months close to a third of Indians (31 per cent) plan to buy more products that speed up meal preparation. Indians are interested in eating healthily now, more than ever.
74 per cent of food/drink shoppers agree that there isn’t enough variety of healthy prepared food options and 34 per cent Indian consumers have indicated that they are more likely to buy RTE/RTC meals that are labelled as low/reduced salt.
With increased consumer interest in eating healthily, the time is ripe for brands to offer nutrition and functional benefits to drive relevance. Brands can include superfoods, traditional grains, and vegetables in ready meals to boost their healthfulness. Highlighting the nutritional positives of ready meals will give its health image a much-needed boost.
When it comes to frozen foods, more than one fourth (26 per cent) of Indian consumers associate frozen foods with being unhealthy. In contrast, more than one third Indians (32 per cent) claim to have increased their consumption of frozen vegetarian snacks and more than one in four (26 per cent) claim to have increased their consumption of frozen non-vegetarian snacks during the COVID-19 outbreak. However, according to Mintel Global New Product Database (GNPD) only four out of 100 launches (4%) in the ready meals space between March 2017 and Feb 2021 have been in the frozen category.