here was a time when frozen fruit and veg was seen as the somewhat poor relation to fresh produce and something discerning consumers were likely to associate with C-list celebrities promoting the discounters’ own-brand family packs of processed food. How times have changed - these days a shopper perusing the frozen food aisles is the epitome of a savvy recessionista.
As a result, the category is booming. According to figures from Kantar Worldpanel, the year-on-year growth for frozen fruit in the past year was 9.1 per cent in value and 6.7 per cent in volume while for frozen vegetables it was eight per cent in value and 0.5 in volume [52 w/e 22 January 2012]. The frozen chip market is also in rude health, with a 14.2 per cent increase in value and 1.9 in volume.
British Frozen Food Federation director general Brian Young is pleased with the trend. “The retail market has shown accelerating growth for the last three quarters,” he says. “Generally when disposable income is squeezed people tend to turn to frozen, because it’s minimum waste, good value and locked-in goodness.
“The growth is accelerating. Back in March last year, the value of the market was growing by 1.2 per cent. By June it was up by 2.6 per cent and by September by 3.6 per cent. Now we’re up by 5.2 per cent, so the market is very much gaining momentum.”
Young believes it’s partly down to clever marketing campaigns and celebrity endorsement. “We are seeing more celebrities prepared to put their name to frozen and endorse it. Aldo Zilli has promoted frozen food on The New Ice Age website, while Jamie Oliver has partnered with Young’s. There has also been a great deal of publicity in the last few months about food waste and consumers are getting more savvy.”
One company that has invested heavily in marketing is McCain, the chip manufacturer. Its new outdoor campaign - featuring two-feet-high jacket potatoes made of fibre glass and fitted in bus shelters, which at the touch of a button release the smell of oven-baked spuds - is part of a £1.4 million multi-format campaign to drive sales. Bill Bartlett, corporate affairs director at the company, said: “McCain continues to invest heavily to grow the category through a strong marketing programme, including advertising, new packaging, and innovative and successful NPD and range extensions.
“The launch of McCain Ready Baked Jackets is the biggest for McCain in years and is set to revolutionise the way people eat jacket potatoes, in much the same way that McCain Oven Chips transformed the eating of chips in the home when they were launched in 1979. McCain Ready Baked Jackets combine the much-loved taste and smell of slow oven-baked jacket potatoes but are ready to eat from frozen in just five minutes.”
And therein lies one of the factors behind the category’s success - convenience. Heating up food from frozen is quick and easy, something time-poor consumers value very highly indeed.
With that in mind Birds Eye launched the Rice Fusions range last year, which combines vegetables, herbs and spices with long grain rice. The marketing campaign highlighted the fact that the range contained no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives, in line with the brand strategy to promote consumer trust in freshness, taste and quality. In a bid to combat consumer concerns surrounding freshness, the range carries a ‘picked to frozen within hours’ guarantee, as does the Field Fresh sub-brand, which last year saw the addition of two new family-sized ‘steamers’, a packaging revamp for 700g petits pois and the addition of broccoli florets to the range. The range features ‘steamer seal’ technology, which perfectly steams the veg in the microwave to retain more vitamins.
The thinking behind the range was to respond to consumer demands for bigger frozen food packs, following figures from Kantar Worldpanel showing that since 2007 there has been a 5.5 per cent increase in meals being eaten with the entire family present, creating a demand for products that provide constant quality for the whole family.
Birds Eye is not the only company spotting these shifts in consumer trends. Simon Baxter, marketing and innovation director at Ardo UK, has noticed a lot of change in the frozen food sector and says there are a number of drivers for this. “The value that frozen food offers is an important aspect but there is also growing awareness about the versatility and diversity of the products on offer. Advances in freezing techniques mean that we are now able to offer a much broader range of high quality products, including some traditionally thought to be ‘unfreezable’, such as avocado, banana and cucumber. We have also perfected a way of freezing spinach leaves individually, which results in a superior product both in terms of taste and texture.”
He points out that the wish to reduce waste is not restricted to consumers. “The use of frozen produce results in minimal waste for restaurateurs - a major advantage over fresh which has seen us take significant market share from fresh produce suppliers. Frozen soft fruit - such as raspberries, blackberries and cranberries - have always been popular owing to the seasonality and cost of fresh, but we are seeing a huge rise in sales of ready-prepared smoothie mixes in both the retail and catering sectors.”
And these offer a number of advantages to people in the catering industry, as well as consumers more generally, he adds.
“Ease of use, time saved in preparation, consistent quality, portion control and minimal wastage are important factors but so are the environmental advantages, particularly in the commercial sector.”
Companies like Ardo prepare in bulk and use highly-efficient cooking techniques that minimise energy use, he explains.
“The result for customers is that they can cut their net carbon footprint simply because, rather than cooking ingredients from scratch, all they have to do is defrost our products.” -
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