The Rise of the Ready Meal

According to a recent news report, in the UK we eat a whopping 3 million ready meals a day! That means 1.3 billion ready meals were consumed in the UK in 2015, with shoppers spending £3.2 billion on them – wow!

That is actually an increase of 5.5% on the year before, with every major grocer seeing sales rise in the category. Marks and Spencer did particularly well – one in five ready meals are bought from them.

With 25.5 million British households regularly buying ready meals, the most popular are fairly uninspiring and traditional, it has to be said – Shepherd’s Pie and Lasagne!

So what is fuelling this increase? Less time? Less skills in the kitchen? A wider choice? Who knows. But if you are looking for some quick and easy dinners, we’ve got lots of ideas which we can guarantee will be just as tasty as a home cooked meal.

Check out our freezer section for lots of lovely fish dishes – from fish pie made from smoked haddock, prawns, white fish & salmon in a rich bechamel sauce topped with creamy mash and cheese. To  fish cakes in seven varieties  and the totally scrumptious  fish Wellingtons in 3 varieties including salmon and dill.

We have lots of meal kits, to help make cooking dinner a doddle – why not try one of the tasty authentic curry kits from Rafis of York or a Moroccan spiced stir fry  from Alfez, just add the meat or vegetables.

Of course we have lots of tasty pies and pastries, which are perfect served with some potatoes and vegetables or a nice salad. Or what about a hearty soup with some crusty bread – takes minutes to prepare, but takes some beating!

So ready meals don’t have to be full of salt or tasteless – there’s plenty of delicious and nutritious choices at Hunters!