Ready Meals in Peru

PROSPECTS

Main limitation is tradition

Peruvians tend to cook their meals at home on a daily basis, using fresh ingredients that they also purchase every day from traditional small grocery retailers or market stalls. More affluent families purchase weekly from supermarkets or hypermarkets, which have a large variety of fresh products: fruit, vegetables, meat, poultry or seafood.

High unit price is a barrier for penetration

Cooking with fresh ingredients, instead of purchasing ready meals is cheaper in Peru. Unit price is very important, especially for medium and large families, which comprise the most common Peruvian households, being an important barrier for ready meals’ penetration.

Demographic changes help category growth

1- and 2-persons households are increasing, while large families are decreasing in size, which motivates consumption of ready meals in addition to the search for greater convenience since they have less time to cook, being dedicated to work, to study and also because traffic congestion means that some Peruvians must travel up to three hours a day. However, the main threat is economic deceleration since these products are more expensive than cooking with fresh ingredients, with several exceptions such as dried ready meals.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

New products and new manufacturers enter ready meals

Towards the end of the review period, new products entered ready meals, full of innovation such as frozen ready meals or shelf stable ready meals based on quinoa as well as “tamales” that are now available in metal cans or in doy packs. Interestingly, most manufacturers are not specifically dedicated to producing ready meals; it is only one extension of their core business, such as Pesquera Hayduk SA, which is mainly dedicated to shelf stable seafood, or Danper Trujillo SAC which originally was an agroindustry.

Domestic companies dominate ready meals

Domestic companies lead ready meals, dominating shelf stable and frozen products. Peruvian manufacturers offer frozen pizza, shelf stable meals and frozen meals.

Underdeveloped category

Ready meals remained a very small category in 2018, representing marginal share of overall packaged food. There are areas of ready meals that have not been explored such as chilled lunch kits, chilled pizza, chilled ready meals and dinner mixes.

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