Ready-to-Eat in Spain – a Rising Trend with Endless Development Potential

Significantly increased quality, healthy recipes, convenience, lack of preparation time, it’s “the trend to follow”, are some of the reasons we hear in surveys as to why Spanish consumers are so eagerly embracing ready-to-eat (RTE) meals.

In the last ten years, Spaniards have passed from consuming 13 kilos per capita of RTE products to 18 kilos, a 38% increase, according to the consumption panel of the Ministry of Food.

According to Kantar, the number of products available in mass supermarkets in Spain ready to eat and to consume at home or on the go (20% of the occasions and growing), has increased by 48% in the last 2 years with a significant penetration (1/5 of the population) already regularly consuming RTE meals.

As regards availability of those products, not only the deli and gourmet shops are developing increased offers but importantly big supermarket chains as Mercadona or Carrefour are also devoting increased space to RTE products on the shelves of ambient, chilled and frozen sections. But the differentiator concept is to also have special zones with the RTE meals of the day to take out being cooked at the moment. Mercadona has 1,200 of these in 75 % of their shops (out of 1600 stores) and Carrefour does thes same in 200 of their big supermarket and hypermarket stores.

Ambient, chilled and frozen solutions are being consumed across all Spanish households and quoting Grupo IAN (one of the main players in this league) a significant 95% of shoppers add a RTE product to their shopping basket.

The big question is:
Is the kitchen is starting to lose its central position of being the heart of the home? What are the strategic implications for other food and beverages offerings?

Antonio Obieta

Managing Director, Green Seed Spain