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Single-serve suppers

Dinner for one has always been, by its very nature, something of a downbeat prospect. Yet Tesco has revealed its intention to make a virtue of this modern habit by launching a new range of single-serve meals, from which diners can buy a solitary salmon fillet, four meatballs or a lone quarter pounder.

Such products will, they say, cater for the timepoor lone eater, families who can’t agree on what that night’s dinner should be, and cut down on food waste in the process.

Nearly half of all people in the UK eat alone, a 2016 study reported, while Waitrose’s Food and Drink Report 2017-2018 found that a third of people had eaten dinner by themselves at a restaurant in the last month. So it’s no surprise that the call for a single-serve dinner option has been answered – and the environmental aspect in the current age for hating all things plastic (yes, we all saw that episode of Blue Planet II) is likely to boost its popularity. Nonrecyclables aside, this focus on meals for one seems to push the image of a family gathered around the dinner table for a roast even further into distant memory. “Families might be eating together, but they want that meal for themselves,” said Kate Ewart, Tesco’s director of product development. “It’s about choice.”

Though likely to be a popular choice for shoppers, this new launch is something of an eyeopener. With work hours growing ever longer, and rates of stress and loneliness in the UK on the rise, perhaps a renewed focus on the joys of communal eating would serve us best.