Growth potential in the “prepare yourself” meal market

As specialist Food and Beverage executive recruiters, Connect Search understands the increasing preference for home-cooked and chef-cooked food among millennials. That’s why our team of international  search and FMCG  Search experts are taking a closer look at the major factors contributing to the growth of the global meal kit delivery market. This emerging  market size was valued at USD 15.21 billion in 2021  and is expected to witness a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.4% from 2022 to 2030.

The COVID-19 pandemic has offered a huge opportunity to the market for meal kit delivery services as almost all the restaurants, eateries, and hotels were shut down across the globe. Consumers have started focusing on a healthy diet more than ever to increase their immunity and to maintain a balanced diet. As a result, an increasing number of people have been looking for healthy and easy meal options.

Meal kit delivery services are an ideal solution since meal planning in advance significantly helps reduce food wastage. Meal kits have ingredients in the exact quantity that is required to prepare a meal since each portion is pre-measured. Several delivery service companies offer larger portions, but still provide calorie count and nutritional information based on the portions.

Diet Specialization

A key reason why many people opt for meal kits is to make following a diet easier. This has not gone unnoticed by the meal kit industry, in fact, in 2019, Blue Apron engaged in a limited partnership with Weight Watchers. Other kit services are concentrating on particular diets. For instance, some meal kit services offer keto, paleo, or vegetarian meal plans. Over the course of the next year, we can bank on more meal kit services specializing in niche diets.

Catering to Lifestyle Choices

Appealing and catering to individual lifestyle choices is another growing trend within the meal kit industry. For instance, the vegan lifestyle requires an individual to avoid meat and any animal-based food. As a result, special ingredients are often needed to prepare basic meals. Meal kits make it easy to maintain a vegan lifestyle while offering a wide variety of choices. Other lifestyles, such as those that require fast or easy cooking but do not require special foods, or avoiding certain foods, are also met through meal kits.

Pre-Made Meal Choices

Another key selling point for this industry is convenience. When this industry began, meal kits just sent ingredients, a recipe for you to follow and you cooked everything yourself. Although handy, this still required a time commitment and required prepping, cooking, and clean-up. Recently, pre-made meal kits have become popular. These come pre-cooked and require no preparation or clean-up.

The heat and eat segment is projected to register a faster CAGR of 17.8% in the market for meal kit delivery services from 2022 to 2030. Heat and eat meal kit delivery service providers offer meals prepared by chefs to consumers. The consumers can either choose their ingredients for the food or select from the already available recipes on the website. For instance, Freshly Inc . offers customized meals as well as its signature collection that includes Dijon Pork Chop, and Traditional Beef Stew, among others. The average refrigerated shelf life of prepared these are around 3-5 days and it takes around 5-15 minutes to heat and serve them.

Speaking recently, Daniel Begg, Director of the Grocery Retail Division at Connect Search commented, “As the research suggests this market has a very bright outlook. We all strive for reduced food waste, controlled expenditure over food, healthier lifestyles and greater convenience, direct meal delivery ticks every box. There will be a tipping point of market saturation, it will be interesting to see what M&A activity emerges and who has the right infrastructure to survive.”

If you’d like to learn more about the meal kit market, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Connect Search today. Speak to one of our industry specialists on contact@connectsearch.com or head to our Contact Us page.