Packaging
HIGHER QUALITY READY MEALS OPTIONS OFFER GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES IN FOOD
Thursday 11. November 2010 - On September 22-23, 74 food producers, retailers and food service leaders, from 17 European countries, attended "Bring Taste Anywhere", a Sealed Air event at Packforum, our permanent European customer care center in Paris. Participants discovered new ways to provide consumers with quality ready meals anytime at expert-led seminars, technical workshops and packing demonstrations.
Ready meals on the go, at home and on the shelf
The event focused on satisfying todays consumers, who are looking for convenient, gourmet products that meet their diverse meal needs, from dinners at home to weekend celebrations.
During the Consumer Mealtime Tour, 12 students from the French Lycee Hotelier of Saint Quentin en Yvelines helped cooking and serving high end recipes elaborated by the Chefs of the world reknown Alain Ducasse Training and Consultancy.
Participants visited a series of booths presenting convenient vending machine for quality ready meals delivered hot, high-end “dining-out” options, and everyday home meals. Each stand featured attractive, sustainable Cryovac packs that preserve freshness and reduce preparation time, offering consumers a delicious gourmet experience anywhere, anytime.
In the evening of Sept 22, all delegates were invited to enjoy a unique cooking experience at the newly opened Alain Ducass Culinary School in Paris.
Participants also benefited from a supermarket demonstration that showcased innovative ways to merchandise (display and organise) ready meals.
A growing market
Still a relative novelty in most European countries, ready meals are attracting more and more consumers and should gross 22 billion in the EU this year, Rabobank Internationals Associate Director Processed Food & Retail, Sebastiaan Schreijen, told delegates. From 1998 to 2008, the market grew 5.2% on average per year, while chilled ready meals enjoyed an average 7% growth rate. The recession put this expansion on hold, but “ready meals benefit from the trade-down in categories, as more people decide to stay at home with an ultra-fresh solution than go to the restaurant,” Sebastiaan Schreijen explained.
Both a pull and a push market, growth in ready meals depends on national eating habits but also on the availability of attractive meal options from modern retailers. In Italy, where 70% of office workers go home for lunch, the leading convenience store and supermarket chain Conad recorded a 4.8% growth last year in prepacked and prepared foods. Successful innovations range from frozen pizzas to ultra-fresh lasagnas, Conads marketing manager Giovanni Panzeri reported.
In the UK, Europes most advanced ready meal market, top-end food retailer Marks & Spencer reengineers its range of products every six months to match consumer preferences. This years innovations include “dine-in for two for £10” solutions – including starter, main, wine and desert – and a Simply Fuller Longer range with high protein content and balanced carbs that prolong the satiated feeling.
With Sealed Air Cryovac, M&S is exploring the future of ready meals: easy-to-handle portions with no excess packaging, labels that communicate with the microwave oven and augmented reality features offering multimedia recipes and more.
Increasing the appeal
Convenience may be the defining feature of a ready meal, but the key challenge is to make consumers salivate. In an in-depth survey of 480 shoppers in Paris and Leeds, market intelligence consultancy Mica Research compared their reactions to Sealed Air Cryovacs vacuum-packed foam CPET Simple Steps with competing products conditioned in a modified atmosphere. After a 15-second exposure to the shelf display, 23% spontaneously announced they would buy the Simple Steps product. Perceptions improved when consumers became better acquainted with the product: prior to cooking, they appreciated its visibility, safety, practicality, good preservation, solid feel and compact packaging. After cooking, they praised the packs coolness to touch, the easy removal of the film and the overall quality of the product, finding it significantly better than the competition.
The issue is therefore to secure the first purchase. Sealed Air Cryovacs in-house expert and guest speakers reviewed the options for appealing presentation. Color and shape are the two instant identifiers of a product and brand, explained Fabrice Peltier, Managing Director of packaging design agency PRéférence, but producers and retailers – especially larger ones – often lack the courage to leave the middle of the road. A pack has to tell the story of the product inside in a simple and striking way, he added.
At Packforum, delegates reviewed the innovations that help people enjoy restaurant-quality meals at home and on the go. Cryovac Simple Steps packaging, which extends product freshness and self-vents in the microwave without perforation, can be presented on a plate for gourmet meals and can be used – for instance – for ready meal vending in offices, hospitals and train stations. Cryovac Simple Steps also enables vertical display. Using Packforums new interactive voting system, 84.6% of participants at the event acclaimed vertical display as the best merchandising option.
A convenient, tasty meal has shoppers coming back for more. Easy to open and cool to touch, Cryovac n Oven also ensures that heat is evenly distributed inside the food. The Cryovac Oven Ease ovenable bag not only ensures excellent presentation for both foodservice and retail applications, but simplifies preparation and cleanup, reduces cooking time and preserves the meals natural moisture and flavor.
A pack above the rest
For EMEA Ready Meals Marketing Manager Annamaria Rizzo, the event succeeded in showing retailers and food service professionals how to set their products apart.
“Today, ready meals in Europe have quite a standard look and consumers demand for high quality ready meals is increasing” says Rizzo. “We wanted to show participants that there are many different packaging options that can make their ready meals stand out and taste good.”
Fighting prejudice
Consumers are increasingly sensitive to environmental issues and many have negative perceptions about packaging, despite its crucial role in extending shelf-life and therefore fighting food waste – a major cause of methane emissions from landfills. In fact, food waste has been found to have ten times the impact of packaging waste.
Sealed Air Cryovac partners with retailers and producers sustainability strategies by carrying out Life Cycle Assessments of its packagings impact on the environment and sharing this information. “Sustainability must be in our DNA,” said Sealed Air Cryovacs Executive Director, Strategic Marketing Food Solutions Fabrice Roy. Marketing lighter, more compact, recycled and recyclable solutions is a top priority for the company.