Supermarket Prepared Meals Eat into Fast-Food Chains

CHICAGO (Blue MauMau) - According to a survey of some 1,500 consumers from food service consultant Technomic, 62 percent of consumers that purchase more supermarket prepared meals than a year ago are doing so at the expense of fast-food restaurant purchases. The survey shows that family-style and casual-dining restaurants also were impacted, but to a lesser extent.

“Retail food chains, eager to recapture share-of-stomach, have been actively developing retailer meal solutions with strong consumer appeal, allowing retailers to reposition themselves as competitors to restaurants,” says Darren Tristano, Executive Vice President of Technomic, Inc.

Consumers are facing increasingly difficult economic choices, like balancing the higher cost of gasoline with the decision to dine out. The economic downturn may alter consumers’ food sourcing habits. To stay in the game, retailers and restaurant operators will have to continue to adapt their value equations to meet the market’s changing needs.” 

Retail meal prep stores seem to be changing their habits. Fifty-five percent of consumers surveyed think that retailer prepared foods have greatly improved over the past three years.

The findings come from Technomic’s Retailer Meal Solutions Consumer Trend Report, which provides an in-depth analysis of consumers’ purchases of retailer meal solutions.