Despite the rise in home cooking due to COVID-19, time-pressed lifestyles and convenience were still major factors driving sales of ready meals in 2021. As the second wave of the pandemic struck, consumers continued to work and study from home, as offices and educational institutions continued to be shut.
MTR Foods remained the clear leader in ready meals in India in 2021, accounting for more than a third of sales. This can be attributed to the strong presence of its MTR brand, primarily in the south, although it also has a lesser presence in the rest of the country.
E-commerce gained a high share of sales in the review period, with growth accelerated by the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Growth is also expected to continue over the next five years.
India has a huge potential audience for ready meals, with busy millennials and single-person households often keen to find quick and convenient meal solutions. COVID-19 has served to introduce even more consumers to ready meals, with some consumer perceptions around the taste and healthiness of these products changing after consumers become familiar with them.
The core reason for the accelerated growth of ready meals during the pandemic was convenience, as consumers had to adapt their routines, and thus fast meals, previously accessed in foodservice, were replicated at home. Although activities outside the home are expected to recover by 2022, habits and preferences acquired during the period at home in terms of ready meals will continue.
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Understand the latest market trends and future growth opportunities for the Ready Meals industry in India with research from Euromonitor International's team of in-country analysts – experts by industry and geographic specialisation.
Key trends are clearly and succinctly summarised alongside the most current research data available. Understand and assess competitive threats and plan corporate strategy with our qualitative analysis, insight and confident growth projections.
Data and analysis in this report provides further detailed coverage dedicated to a comprehensive range of core packaged food categories.
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Ready Meals
This is the aggregation of shelf stable, dried, chilled and frozen ready meals. They have a high degree of readiness and convenience. In most instances they are ready-to-heat or ready-to-eat. Ready meals are generally accepted to be complete meals that require few or no extra ingredients. However, in the case of shelf stable ready meals, the term also encompasses meal 'centres’.
See All of Our DefinitionsThis report originates from Passport, our Ready Meals research and analysis database.
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