Meal Deal

Frozen entrées can meet consumers’ requirements for health, taste and variety — but raising awareness is crucial.

The main meal is a big deal, in terms of the current state of the frozen food industry. A lot of attention has been focused on frozen meals and entrées in recent years, largely because of the slide in sales and volume of such SKUs.

Indeed, it’s because of anemic performance across many types of entrées that industry collaborations, promotions and new product launches have kicked into overdrive, emphasizing the quality and freshness attributes of frozen meals.

More on that later, but for now, the news is in the numbers. In a special report released in 2013 Chicago-based market research firm Mintel reported that the frozen meal market had dropped to $8.1 billion in 2012, capping a year-over-year decline; by 2017, Mintel projects that sales will sink to $7.6 billion.

The latest sales data from market research firm IRI, also based in Chicago, similarly reveals some red ink. IRI tracked overall sales of frozen dinners and entrées at $8.95 billion for the 52 weeks ending Dec. 1, 2013, down 2.7 percent from the year-ago period. Sales of multiserve and single-serve frozen dinners dipped the most: 4.48 percent and 4.57 percent, respectively.

The decline in dinners seems to hinge on consumer attitudes about frozen meals.

The Mintel report attributed the stagnancy to the fact that “consumers increasingly view frozen meals as less than nutritious.” Underscoring that point, a survey from Boston-based Experian Marketing Services found that four in 10 respondents agree that frozen foods have little nutritional value.

Getting the Message Out

The perceptions — and misperceptions — of nutrient composition and how frozen foods are made have been the impetus for individual manufacturers and the industry as a whole to educate consumers about their products, through elements like updated packaging, ad campaigns, and other marketing and educational initiatives.

Delivering the message about nutrition and quality was a lynchpin of the Frozen Food Roundtable of industry leaders formed last year with the American Frozen Food Institute (AFFI). It’s also the focus of the multimillion-dollar campaign set to kick off nationwide during Frozen Foods Month in March.

According to Corey Henry, VP of communications for McLean, Va.-based AFFI, the campaign’s messaging will emphasize that freezing foods is ultimately about capturing freshness. “It’s nature’s pause button — it’s ready for you when you’re ready for it,” he explains.

One company directly addressed such perceptions about the nutrition and freshness of frozen meals with a proactive promotion. Miami-based Eat Well Foods last year rolled out a campaign called “Break the Frozen Foods Stigma,” stressing how its from-scratch meals are prepared in a fresh way.

“A lot of people think of frozen foods as a necessary evil. They’re too busy to cook, so they pick up salty, greasy fast foods, or they choose some chemical-laden frozen entrée to pop into their microwave ovens,” explains Mark Lew, the company’s owner and chef. “We’re going to change public opinion about frozen food, one healthy meal at a time.”

As they aim to educate consumers that their frozen meals are freshly made, progressive manufacturers and industry leaders are also touting the variety available in today’s frozen entrées. “Innovation can cover the types of foods available, to how the foods are prepared, to how they are packaged. We’re seeing innovation within all types of frozen entrées, and I think food manufacturers have done a great job understanding how consumers are preparing food at home,” remarks Henry.

Even if the needle is stuck in current sales, there has been a steady flurry of product development that speaks to Henry’s point about innovation in frozen meals.

The Ethnic Experience

Ethnic frozen entrées are one example. Katie Strohbeck, assortment manager for KeHE Distributors, in Romeoville, Ill., says that “global cuisines made easy” is one noteworthy trend in frozen entrées. “Experimentation with ethnic cuisine is increasing, and the frozen foods department is a good entry point for consumers seeking ethnic flavors who want to try making them at home,” she explains.

In fact, Strohbeck asserts, the tide has already turned in terms of preferences. “We’ve seen statistics from Heartland Foods showing that ethnic passed traditional American in 2009 — more consumers are buying frozen ethnic foods than traditional American recipes like mac and cheese,” she declares.

To be sure, there are plenty of examples of successful frozen ethnic entrée brands, including the Ethnic Gourmet brand that spans Indian meals; Annie Chung’s, which recently launched new frozen pot stickers; and Saffron Road, to name just a few.

Some of the ethnic frozen entrées are breaking ground in other ways. Saffron Road, the packaged food brand of Stamford, Conn.-based American Halal Co., recently introduced a new Chana Saag with Cumin Rice, the first frozen entrée in the United States to be Non-GMO Verified.

Health and Beyond

That, too, speaks to an area of opportunity to attract new users of frozen meals. According to Strohbeck, third-party certification is a growing area within frozen meals. “Consumers are becoming more knowledgeable about Fair Trade, organic and Non-GMO, and those attributes fit very well with frozen foods,” she says, noting that information is important for retailers that sell such products. “Staff at retail need to be educated about the definition and importance of certification.”

Meanwhile and more broadly the potential is there for other health-and-wellness-oriented frozen entrées spanning natural, organic, “free-from” and other attributes.

Bluzette Carline, marketing director for Jacksonville, Fla.-based Beaver Street Fisheries, says that her company’s lineup now includes more all-natural offerings such as salmon, mahi mahi, tilapia, tilapia loins, tuna and sea scallops. “We understand that today’s consumer, more than ever, is looking for fresh, all-natural and, where applicable, local offerings. Because of our global procurement strategy, we certainly think that we can … address at least some of these concerns or focuses for consumers,” she says.

Another way to build interest in frozen entrées is to use other well-known brands to grab shoppers’ attention. To that end, frozen foods that are co-branded with popular foodservice brands, including PF Chang’s, TGI Fridays and California Pizza Kitchen, continue to expand in varieties. Last December, Minneapolis-based General Mills introduced nearly two dozen restaurant-style meals from PF Chang’s and the familiar pasta brand Bertolli.

Likewise, other types of trusted names can generate a frozen meal buzz. One case in point is a new line of entrées from celebrity chef and cookbook author Ina Garten, who teamed up with Commerce, Calif.-based Contessa Premium Foods in 2013 to create a new line of Barefoot Contessa Sauté Dinners for Two, in varieties like sesame chicken and noodles, beef bourguignon, and shrimp scampi linguine, among others.

In addition, the Barefoot Contessa Dinners for Two line demonstrates the different demographics of frozen food shoppers, namely, older consumers (traditional frozen entrée customers), empty nesters or young couples. Mirroring that trend, General Mills’ Old El Paso brand recently debuted a line of frozen meals for two.

As new product types add variety to the frozen food section at a time when all eyes are on sales figures, retailers can think out of the (frozen) box when it comes to merchandising.

Cross-merchandising is one way to marry fresh and frozen sections of the store and capture sales from shoppers who might not otherwise browse the freezer aisle for meal solutions. With ethnic foods, for example, Strohbeck suggests that retailers promote frozen meals from a certain global cuisine for a limited time and cross-merchandise them with other foods or beverages from that part of the world.

Carline agrees that different types of merchandising efforts can be rewarding. “In the frozen food space, you are forced to simply sell from the facing that you have on an item,” she notes. “Making sure that you are checking out all of the options available to promote is key. [Seek out] different coupon opportunities, different sampling and trial opportunities, different POS opportunities, and incorporate all of these into a promotional plan.”

“We’re going to change public opinion about frozen food, one healthy meal at a time.”
—Mark Lew, Eat Well Foods

“We’re seeing innovation within all types of frozen entrées, and I think food manufacturers have done a great job understanding how consumers are preparing food at home.”
—Corey Henry, American Frozen Food Institute