Cook – less Meals – A Macro Food Trend

The trend for cook-less meals is the result of consumers’ increasingly busy lifestyles which results in an increasing need for convenience:

• More than half (57%) of grocery shoppers are buying fresh ready-to-eat items (e.g. rotisserie chicken) often or sometimes.
• 44% are buying fresh heat-and-eat foods.
• More than a quarter (28%) of consumers say that they are preparing more meals in less than 20 minutes than they did five years ago.
• One-pot meals up 29%.

Oven baking is the most common cooking method, but there is a difference in age when it comes to who is more likely to be preparing dinner at home with younger consumers less likely to be doing so:

• Millennial consumers prepared dinner at home an average of 4.5 nights per week in 2014.
• For Gen Xers, the average was 5.0.
• Baby Boomers prepared dinner at home 5.1 nights per week.
• At 5.2 nights per week the most meals prepared at home per week were for those 65+.

While consumers may prefer to cook-less, whole food nutrition remains important:

• Half (49%) of shoppers are preparing more nutritious meals.
• One in five U.S. households—mostly affluent, health-minded couples —overspend on fresh convenience foods.