08 May How We Fell Back in Love with Tinned & Frozen
Tinned food. Frozen meals. TV dinners. Once the epitome of convenience, the cheap, long-lasting foodstuffs were household essentials. But whilst tins and freezer food may have been an 80s housewife’s best friends, the modern millennial has eschewed these in favour of fresh and chilled, cooking from scratch and fresh meal kits. The very thought of frozen food was enough to send shudders down the spine – convenience had become a dirty word.
Frozen food was a victim of its own success. Cheap, long-lasting food was perceived as lower quality than its fresher, more expensive equivalents – who can forget Gordon Ramsay’s famous judgement on restaurants that use frozen foods? Lack of innovation in the tinned sector also set it firmly to the back of the shelf, with sales stagnating as consumers became increasingly uninspired. Tinned needed a PR coup, and fast.
And where did that come from? Innovation, of course.
Because although sales were struggling, it wasn’t due to any fault of the products. There’s a lot to laud in the frozen aisle, especially for a generation more determined than ever to eat clean and cut out preservatives. Vegetables are frozen within hours of being picked, locking in the vitamins and pressing a pause button on deterioration, which means they often arrive on your plate looking fresher (and tasting better) than ‘fresh’ produce, which has spent days deteriorating in vans or on shelves. Frozen food requires fewer or no preservatives – the only preserving required is access to the freezer – than fresh or chilled food, which is often filled with additives to keep it looking and tasting good.
With health a driving factor in consumer choice, some exciting innovation in the frozen aisle has introduced new category buyers. Vegan and plant-based diets are booming, leading to a huge variety of options in the freezer – it’s not just about the chicken nuggets any more! From Goodfella’s Vegan Pizza to Iceland’s No Bull Burgers, there’s an increasing variety of frozen food for all diets – aimed at the younger generation, who are falling back in love with their own freezers.
Tinned food is also making a comeback – and not just with the Brexit stockpilers. Cans can be recycled much more easily than plastic, and have better green credentials than their plastic pot alternatives. Plus, tinned food lasts pretty well forever, reducing food waste – saving the environment and your pocket!
As Brits fall back in love with tinned and frozen foods, there are more opportunities than ever to make a splash in this market. If you’ve got exciting innovation in these sectors, we want to hear from you!
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