Americans are eating less frozen dinners than in the past, according to an article in Quartz. It’s still a $9 billion dollar business, but the line on the chart is moving in the downward direction. Why?
A number of factors appear to be working against the frozen food aisle—including the rise of dieting, consciousness of better portioning, and Americans’ growing boredom with ready-made frozen meals. But there are four reasons in particular which seem to stand out, according to the research firm Mintel: Americans say they are strapped for cash; they feel frozen food is no longer cost-effective; they prefer to cook for themselves; and they are increasingly skeptical of the health claims of frozen meals—40% of US adults think frozen dinners offer no nutritional value.
We never ate many frozen dinners, beyond a frozen burrito or two for the teenager. Our food vice was burgers and pizza at fast food joints, sloppy Chinese food, and ready-made supermarket chickens. We’ve cut way back on all those things for the reasons listed in the article – expense and health. Also, taste. That food was pretty gross on the whole.
Now, I cook six days per week. It wasn’t easy to find time to plan, shop, cook, and clean, but we did it. And part of the key was the “we” part of that sentence. The planning, shopping, and cooking is in the “me” column. The cleaning is in the “husband and kids” column. I’m working on an article that talks about how I made that shift.
Are you cooking at home more than you did in the past? How do find time to cook, while managing work and family responsibilities? I’m not a crockpot person, but I know others adore that appliance. Are you a crockpot person?
Apt. 11d 
I cook less now than I did when my children were younger (as in, babies and toddlers) and way less than I did before I had kids. Cooking used to be a hobby for me but as my free time became more limited, things had to go, and cooking for fun was one of them. No more baking from scratch, no more futzy recipes with tons of ingredients. Now I’m a much more basic cook. I make my children the simple meals they enjoy and I make myself what I enjoy and none of it is very time-consuming. I also have stopped eating a traditional dinner, my main meal is lunch, so we rarely have family dinners anymore although we do hang out together and talk during dinner time.
For me, semi-prepared foods are what I’m looking for, things that I can piece together for an end product that is sorta homemade. Trader Joe’s is great for this kind of thing so I have a lot of go to meals for myself and my kids (Mr. Scantee fends for himself) that involve various items from TJs.
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I think that chart needs to be plotted against fast food receipts and restaurant receipts generally. Or plot the sale of frozen veggies versus fresh veggies. Otherwise, it’s not very informative.
For a family, individual frozen dinners are actually kind of a pain–both time-consuming to be popping stuff in and out of the microwave and relatively expensive as compared to say a delivery pizza.
My husband has been away this week and I’ve been rediscovering the charms of those frozen dinners, as I can just tell the big kids to microwave themselves something and then just deal with my dinner and the 1-year-old’s dinner. It’s spring break, the cafeterias are closed, my husband’s away, and I’m not going to strap the 1-year-old down or pen her up for half an hour so I can slave over a hot stove and then pen her up again so I can clean up for half an hour. No way.
We don’t eat that frozen stuff as a rule (too expensive and fussy), but I’m actually a huge fan of the quality of the frozen food aisle. Highights include:
–Aunt Jemima’s frozen French toast! $1.55 for a box of French toast! It’s perfect for feeding the baby.
–frozen waffles, of course
–frozen vegetables and frozen raspberries (I grew up on canned veggies, so I appreciate the quality you get from microwave steamed broccoli that’s grass green)
–HEB’s store brand Indian dinners (there’s Thai, but it’s not as good–I suspect curries are more suitable for the frozen food aisle)
–Amy’s Indian Vegetable Korma
–frozen souffle (it comes in cubes, and you cook as much as you need)
–ice cream
–gourmet mushrooms that aren’t available fresh
I’ve also seen very exciting looking high end ethnic stuff, but I’m not paying $5 or $6 for a frozen meal. I’ve also seen frozen basil–I don’t know how well that works, but it’s a fabulous idea.
I suspect that for dinners, the problem is that in the family market, at some price point (and not very high, either), you start being in competition with the delivery pizza people on price.
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The big frozen family meals do tend to be scary, and actually not that great.
Bear in mind that there’s more and more fresh prepared stuff available in grocery stores: prepared veggies, prepared fruits, rotisserie stuff, prepared salads, you name it. That would also be something to plot against frozen food sales.
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We eat a fair bit of frozen food. We have frozen pizzas once a week in the winter. In the summer, less often because we can cook a pizza on the grill. Also Trader Joe’s has lots of really good frozen appetizers. Also, frozen perogie. Also, frozen chicken. Also, frozen broccoli is our most common vegetable.
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I’m LOL because I was just about to close down my computer and head to Trader Joe’s to buy a crapload of frozen foods. Takeout or eating out is just annoying–too much food, too expensive, I have to take off my sweats and put on real pants to go out. I’ve been buying a lot of fresh pre-cut vegies because I hate cutting vegies. I have been guilting my husband into making salads for years.
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People may not be buying a lot less Swansen frozen meal type things, but I’m not sure that we should draw the conclusion that they are making full dinners from scratch every night like I’m doing. They may be doing a lot more grazing at night time. Scrambled eggs. Lunchmeat. Toast and cheese. Random this and that from the fridge. I have one friend who lives on popcorn and cookies.
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I think this is probably right, that people are more likely to be making meals that combine homemade with prepared foods. So, rice in the rice cooker, a frozen veggie maybe with a sauce already in it, and a cooked chicken from the store. That sort of meal is probably the most common for families, does it count as homemade? Pollan (who I loathe) would say no, I think.
When I was doing a lot of scratch cooking I was never able to figure out how to do it and save money. Our grocery expenses have gone down since I stopped that kind of cooking and I don’t think we’ve made a sacrifice in terms making sure we’re eating healthy. I think the key to making scratch cooking worth it is a good amount of meal planning. Of course, if you don’t feel like you have the time (or want to spend your time) for scratch cooking you’re probably not going to feel like you have the time for meal planning either.
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We eat fresh, local, organic (in general) and prepare almost everything ourselves. The exceptions? The only frozen foods are berries (TJ or Target, the latter is better quality) or ice cream (but we’ve even started making this!); red sauce (gasp, yes, I’m Italian-American but I think jarred or prepared sauces are decent); and canned beans of sorts though Pesto prefers “fresh” beans (if he has the time he can do this labor, not me!). Since Jan. 2014 we’ve been doing vegan before 6 PM which has worked out pretty well for us. And, we have done a remarkably good job of bring lunches to work. (With two working people this could easily run $100 if we ate out for lunch.) I think the biggest challenge for us is not eating out in NYC. Pesto has been away for work for 12 days, and the thought of cooking for just myself? Meh. I did some but not as much as I usually would.
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I use the crockpot about once a week because it’s really good for “shift” meals (ours has a warm setting) where some people are eating before martial arts when there wouldn’t be time to cook much and some people are eating during or afterwards. Our crock pot staples are a beef and mushroom stew, pea soup, chickpea and potato curry, and chilli. We also do crockpot ribs , pulled pork and a crockpot ragu on a regular basis but those require other components besides some naan or bread + salad. I gave up trying to do anything that isn’t by nature meant to cook all day.
We never ate a lot of frozen meals but I do know my own lasagne is more expensive than a frozen one. I like cooking although lately we’ve been more “cook to live” than “live to cook.” I find the more I’ve cooked from scratch the more fussy I’ve gotten about quality and so our costs have risen with the prices, although probably stay below the curve because I shop on loss leads a lot. Although the requisite wine for homemade pizza night might be inflating the numbers. 🙂
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We did a big dietary change in February that has me doing a whole lot more food prep from scratch since what we eat isn’t prepared on store shelves. It’s a hard change to make. I need to buy a new food processor because the old one expired. Until then, I spend a lot of time chopping veggies. My partner chips in (and can make a great sous chef) but works in the afternoon/evening so I’m still on my own for those dinner hour duties with Autistic Youngest as my aid.
I do like my slow cooker. It makes a great pulled pork or super-tasty whole chicken that falls apart from your fork.
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Perhaps some parents are able to cook at home, rather than buy convenience food, due to fewer work hours.
Or, does anyone know how many children are growing up in households with all adults employed? Could the number have decreased a bit?
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Lower y our standards! I’ve been going shopping in shlub clothes for years!
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Eating out requires non-sweats. I’ll shop (and have shopped) in sweats! What am I, a farmer?
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Laura, this an example of the betrayal by your software. The above was designed to be a reply to Wendy, who dresses up to go shopping.
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