Half of Europe’s ready meals are eaten in Britain

NEARLY half of all ready meals eaten in Europe last year were consumed in this country, latest figures have revealed.

With a growing appetite for quick and convenient microwave meals, Britons forked out a record £3billion on them in 2016 – or an astonishing £9million a day.

On average, people in the UK consume at least one ready meal a week – twice as often as the French and six times the number consumed by the Spanish.

The figures show that the UK market for prepared dishes grew by £37million last year as an extra 100,000 households went for the supermarkets’ offerings instead of cooking from scratch.

But rather than going for a cheap, frozen TV dinner, consumers are increasingly opting for chilled premium dishes that resemble a home-cooked meal, minus the effort. Experts said that once-popular frozen ready meals have now been leapfrogged by chilled dine-in deals, despite costing nearly twice as much.

Spending on chilled ready meals was up by £62million last year, while the frozen ready meal market was down £25million.

Research by The Grocer maga- zine found two in three adults felt dine-in deals tasted the same or even better than takeaways, while 82 per cent said that ready meals have recently improved. Curry was

‘Healthier and more up market’

the nation’s favourite ready meal, chosen by 18 per cent of respondents, followed by Chinese at 13 per cent. Pizza and fish and chips were both favoured by 10 per cent of people, and burgers at 4 per cent.

The ready meals boom has been driven by a move towards healthier and more upmarket dishes which use less fat and salt as customers become more conscious of the ingredients used.

Premium ranges from Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer and even the discounters Aldi and Lidl were the big winners last year, while offerings from WeightWatchers and Slimming World have attracted health-conscious but time-poor shoppers. Healthier meals based on seafood, such as fish pie, have also become popular.

A report by retail analysts Kantar Worldpanel found that upmarket ready meal brands such as Charlie Bigham’s had helped to push up the average price and appealed to a younger demographic.

Jackson Woods, an analyst at Kantar, said: ‘In a category dominated by older, empty nester shoppers, Charlie Bigham’s has stood out for appealing to younger buyers with moves in Thai and Indian cuisine.’