Ready meals in the supermarket win healthy and appeal to gourmet

The increased demand for ready meals have taken supermarket chains to diversify food kits lines, with more sophisticated options, and expand the physical spaces for rotisserias installation. The target audience are students and workers to urban centers. "From 2015, we have worked with large retail networks to the development of individual dishes, hot and cold. Our provision for supermarkets is still too big, but orders growing companies too, "said the owner of the distribution network and Sassa restaurant Sushi, Alexander Know, pointing out that the sales volume of those kits went up 200% Since 2016. He explains that, as the partnership with retailers was developing, the packages have been reworded. "We started to offer packages for individual meals and put across, within the gondolas, for food does not move inside the tray." In addition, Know that this is reported gradually migrating from the major urban centres to cities in the interior and coast of the State of São Paulo in Brazil. "Our operations are already in Santos, Guarujá and Bertioga. We believe that the movement of expansion to other regions will organically and as demand, including small supermarkets, "he explains. According to the Executive, installing refrigerators and kits delivery through bicycles have helped sales. In the evaluation of the General Manager of supermarket chain Hirota, helium Freddi, the demand of students who seek quick meals during the dinner is one of the movements which support the bet in this product category. "Currently, the sale of these kits represents 5% of supermarket revenues. In the segment express, that jumps to 40% of the total volume sold, "says Freddi. The account Executive that the ingredients used for the preparation of these dishes come from a factory of its own. "About 80% of our dishes come from this plant, including the Japanese food. The other 20% bought from other suppliers. We have an estimated production of 3 tonnes of food a day, "says, adding that this amount is distributed to the 36 stores in the State of São Paulo in Brazil. With a similar strategy, the supermarket chain Natural Earth stake in offering lines of salads to boost sales of that product segment. "We have developed a line of salads of the season in cups, in which clients can mount as they wish and take home or work," explains the nutrition area manager of the network, Juliana Costa. She claims that, due to the high temperatures of the summer, the network's portfolio has options of salmon dishes. "The consumption of this product category has been most frequent in units where there are counter. In addition, we see strong demand in regions with high concentration of offices ", added Juliana. The average ticket category varies between R $18 and R $25. Rotisserias one of the examples of food retail network has betted in physical spaces for the consumption of ready meals is the GPA group. "All the stores of the flags rotisserias Extra and Sugarloaf are prepared to meet the consumer, whether in your day to day with fresh and fast consumption or in seasonal periods such as Easter, mother's Day, Christmas and new year," says the Coordinator commercial rotisserie of Pão de Açúcar and Extra, Paul Garcia. The Executive mentioned that there is a move to diversify suppliers and also in assortments of current portfolio. "We estimate that, at regular intervals, the participation of category represents approximately 5% of the sales of the company's perishable. In seasonal events, the demand for these products increases, representing approximately 10%, "explained Paul, noting also that a portion of the category of products are prepared with ingredients of his own brand of the network, as Taeq and Qualitá.