Packaged Facts: Frozen Convenience Food Market Report

ROCKVILLE, Md.Pizza, hand-held breakfast and prepared vegetables have kept the frozen convenience food category from nose-diving during the recession. According to a new report from Packaged Facts, Frozen Convenience Foods in the U.S.," those three categories led sales in the frozen convenience foods market, which is expected to grow by 2% by the end of 2010 for total sales of $16.8 billion.

"There is considerable activity in the frozen convenience food market and ample opportunities for growth within certain retail sectors and market niches," says Don Montuori, publisher of Packaged Facts. "So while we do not anticipate substantial overall growth, we do expect some segments and individual marketers to grow considerably over the next five years."

The growth is modest but does indicate that pizza, hand-held breakfast and prepared vegetable products were able to overcome the general view that frozen convenience foods are more expensive and less fresh than cooking from scratch.

The Packaged Facts report offers a look at how the frozen convenience food market competes with the fresh convenience food market, restaurant takeout and meals prepared from scratch by consumers. The report also identifies several diverse influences affecting the frozen convenience food market, including consumer lifestyles, Americans growing concern with health and wellness and higher nutritional demands, demographic shifts, growing interest in world cuisines, and the recession. For example, due to packaging that serves as an excellent canvas for information about nutrition and ingredients, frozen convenience food marketers have an advantage over their competitors in the fresh convenience food sector and foodservice outlets. Likewise, as ethnic foods become more accepted by the general public, frozen food marketers have been expanding their base by further tapping the diversity of Americas ethnic cuisines with new Indian, Japanese and Middle Eastern flavors, among others, while expanding their product range to encompass fusion flavors like Mexican-style, Thai-topped, and Jamaican Jerk pizzas.