Convenience foods are flying off the shelves of chillers. You may think they are landing straight in consumers' fridges, but there's actually another internal flight taking place. It's all part of a reinvention of the category that is being forced to expand its frontiers.
David Rourke, sales and marketing manager at plastic packaging manufacturer RPC Bebo Plastik, explains that space in the refrigerated section of the supermarket is under the most pressure and manufacturers are looking for alternative places for products, especially in the snacks and ready meal categories.
Chilled Food Association (CFA) secretary general Kaarin Goodburn agrees that refrigerated shelving is highly competitive. "The turnover is very high in the UK," she says. "About half the floor space is dedicated to refrigerated in most supermarkets for a reason."
One company looking for a home outside the chilled section for its convenience snacks is Tillman's Fleisch & Convenience, a subsidiary of B + C Tönnies, the German meat producers. Jon Gymer, UK commercial director for Tilman's, believes the frozen aisle is the way forward for its new creation.
This month, Tillman's brings Toast Me!, a quick cooking frozen meat patty for the toaster, to the UK.
Of course, as Brian Young, British Frozen Food Federation director general, points out, other frozen snack options already exist, such as grillable sandwiches, oven pies and microwaveable items. However, what Gymer believes separates Toast Me from these is that instead of using the microwave or grill to cook the products, which would involve some cleaning up, Toast Me's ability to use the toaster makes it an extra convenient convenience food with little in the way of clean up and a short cooking time.
Gap in the market
And Young does see a gap in the market where Tillman's is trying to come in. He acknowledges there is nothing quite like Toast Me in frozen foods and he welcomes any company that can "offer consumers something that's new, interesting and innovative".
The fact that Toast Me has been designed for toasters is not the only innovation it claims to be importing into the freezer section. Many items from other retail areas use shelf-ready packaging (SRP), allowing shoppers to see clearly the nature of products being displayed. "To date, SRP has not happened in frozen," says Gymer. Young agrees, concluding that this is the first time he has ever heard of such a thing.
The idea from Tillman's is to provide Toast Me with a display stand designed to hold the boxes in an upright position while on the shelf. The packs will be non-slip and have been designed to fit two on to a shelf in a vertical freezer.
With most retailers now employing verticals, instead of the older bunker style freezers [flat freezers facing up], manufacturers have had to deal with the problem of limited product face.
"Originally most frozen food was in bunkers but now most retailers are using verticals, so what the consumer sees is the side of the box, not the front of the box, thus the products are less obvious," says Gymer.
"A high percentage of stores, for example Tesco Extra, use verticals. And in terms of monetary distribution, that is where you have got most of your investment."
Other manufacturers have tried different solutions. For example, some have experimented with designs that stretch across the side of multiple packages to form a large front, says Young. However, Toast Me is one of the first products entirely displayed top forwards for maximum visual impact.
It might not be a solution ideal for every product. Toast Me's small box size enables it to fit on to the shelves in its SRP whereas something such as a frozen pizza, for example, would not. But for Tillman's, Toast Me makes clear sense. As Gymer says: "The benefit from a product perspective is that the face of the product is standing up vertically so that then leads to a consumer benefit, as they can clearly see what they want to purchase.
"From a retail point of view, when it arrives, you take the lid off and there is the transit tray with the product already stacked up. The operator just has to put on shelf a tray rather than individual packs."
As for the manufacturer, SRP takes away some of the concerns over how and where retailers will display the product. Gymer says: "From a manufacturer's point of view, you lose control of the product from the moment you deliver it into the retailer's depot."
Toast Me's introduction into the freezer section could spark the start of a trend into vertical packaging for more frozen food manufacturers. It seems that as convenience food increasingly stretches its boundaries, the packaging inspiration it brings with it could prove equally convenient in tidying up what for many can easily turn into a messy fixture.
Moving way out
Also interested in vertically stacking packages, but for a different reason, is ready meal packaging manufacturer Sealed Air Cryovac, for which the freezer is just the tip of the iceberg for convenience food.
Through a new partnership with Jofemar, the Spanish vending machine manufacturer, Sealed Air Cryovac aims to encourage the sale of ready meals straight out of vending machines at locations across the EU. Dr Sidi Chouikhi, Sealed Air Cryovac's technical director for ready meals, likens the move to offering "a chef on every corner".
According to Automated Vending Association board member Brian Tustain the serving of hot food from a vending machine is another first for the convenience market. Sealed Air Cryovac and Jofemar unveiled the new product designs last month at a launch in Paris. But, in doing so, they had to overcome a number of technical difficulties.
For one, there was the issue of stacking the dishes vertically without their contents falling against bottom of the package. To overcome this, they moved entirely away from trays and into plates.
Chouikhi explains: "We're moving from trays to plates with a closer film to prevent the contents moving about for ready meals. Not only will it provide better visual distribution so you can see the meal, these allow consumers to heat, eat and process in the packet."
The closer film is also designed to be self venting, allowing the plates to be microwaved inside the machine. The film expands while filling with steam which aids the cooking process, before venting the steam, returning the packaging to its normal size.
Technical difficulties aside, the idea of a full hot meal and not just soup or a snack coming out of a vending machine is fairly novel. Although Chouikhi admits the idea is not entirely new, he believes it is at last achievable and the involvement of a big name such as Sealed Air Cryovac in such a project lends it credence. The firm aims to target such vending machines at locations where there are a high number of people in transit, with an estimated average of 40 seconds from order to service.
It will be interesting to see if Sealed Air Cryovac's idea takes off in the UK, which accounts for at least half the EU chilled ready meal market according to Goodburn. Chouikhi certainly has high hopes.