The growing ready meals market in France is seeing plenty of innovation, driven not least by a government strategy to encourage healthy eating. Peter Crosskey reports on recent developments.
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Conventional wisdom would have it that the notion of the ‘ready meal’ would be anathema to French consumers, given the country’s fine gastronomic heritage. But as in most developed markets where consumers live increasingly pressured lives, ready meals represent an important category in the food market in France, and what is more sales are growing.
In fact, long before frozen and then chilled ready meals began to take off in developed markets, France had a strong tradition for ambient prepared meals, sold in cans and jars. And while ambient ready meals are a mature market in France, the increasing popularity of prepared meals has encouraged innovation even in this established category.
William Saurin, the leading player in the category with a 37% market share, identified a new opportunity last year, when it launched the first range of ambient poêlés. Literally meaning ‘panful’, a poêlé is a one-pan mixture of vegetables cooked with a base cereal (such as rice, pasta, potato) and a keynote ingredient, such as beef or mushrooms, with an appropriate sauce.
“As well as not needing any additional energy input until the product is about to be eaten, our poêlé range is fast,” says William Saurin marketing director Bruno Heyberger. “It takes just three minutes heating in an ordinary non-stick frying-pan with no extra fat. Today’s canned foods are much more sophisticated than the basic commodities older generations remember.”
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By GlobalDataThe ambient ready meal market in France was worth EUR880m (US$1.12bn) in 2006, down 4% year-on-year in value, but up 1.6% in volume. The gap can be explained by the growth in retailer own-label sales and aggressive marketing by discounters, both of which have eroded margins.
This is a trend which has been observed in other ready meal categories too as the market has expanded.
Nielsen figures for value-added frozen meals point to year-on-year volume growth of 1.9% in 2006 but a decline of 0.3% in value to EUR855m. In the frozen ready meal sector, supermarkets have lost market share to hard discounters on basic lines and at higher price points to specialist freezer centres, which can offer a far wider range of premium lines.
While frozen pizza sales are rising steadily, margins are under pressure. According to Nielsen data, this sub-category grew by 5.7% in volume terms last year but by only 3.3% in value.
Salads are an integral part of the total ready meal market in France, especially in the self-service convenience market. The prepared salads category was the second best performing sector in the ready meals market in 2005, according to Euromonitor International, with volume sales increasing strongly. However, once gain value sales increased at a slower rate due to fierce competition and the introduction of larger pack sizes which pushed down unit prices.
Salads have become an even more important area of the market following the launch of the French government’s healthy-eating policy Programme National Nutrition Santé (PNNS), and the sector is seeing a significant amount of related innovation and new product activity.
For example, the salads specialist Pierre Martinet recently engaged the services of medical nutritionist Frédéric Saldmann and three-star Michelin chef Guy Savoy to develop a range of new products.
“All these new recipes were inspired by PNNS,” says Pierre Martinet spokesperson Christel Canard Volland. “In addition to Concept Five, a sturdy five-vegetable salad made of white cabbage, sweetcorn, carrots, red peppers and courgettes, there is a four-strong salad snack range, Mon Repas Sur Le Pouce (quick meal).”
This range comprises two light salad meals based on grated carrot, with either ham or surimi and cherry tomatoes, along with two couscous-based salads for more active consumers. “Our pack sizes go from 180g individual portions up to 1kg entertaining packs. For each format we give different indications of portion sizes, depending on whether it is served as a starter or main dish, since taboulé (a couscous-based salad) and grated carrot have different calorific values.”
Another company adopting this approach to on-pack information is the Breton firm Primel Gastronomie, part of the Breton Sill group. “Quite a lot of our products can be served as starters or main dish, so we are in the process of adjusting our nutritional data panels to reflect this,” explains Flora Balcon, Primel’s marketing manager. “Later this year our packaging will say something like ‘For a balanced diet, serve either 100g as a main dish, followed by a salad and fruit, or 50g as a starter, followed by a light main course, salad and fruit’.”
