In this interview I had with Chief Executive of the British Frozen Food Federation, Richard Harrow, we tackled issues currently impacting the UK frozen food industry and also the Brexit and its effects in the future.
By Dan Orehov
Can you briefly characterize where the UK frozen food industry is situated right now?
I think we are actually in a very good position, even if we have seen a slight slowdown in growth in 2019. In 2018 we saw a phenomenal increase in the category, but much of the growth was driven by the ice cream market. We had quite a good summer in 2018, which is quite a rarity in the UK, and of course we saw phenomenal ice cream sales which weren’t replicated in 2019. Having said that, we are still at the second highest sales volume we’ve been in recent years. For me, the standout thing is that frozen is growing faster than the chilled category, which is the main area of competition.
Ice cream aside, what are the other best-selling categories of frozen food in the UK?
Free-from and vegan is growing massively right now. I think we confidently say now that free-from and vegan is no longer a niche area, it’s going mainstream. One of the areas, I think frozen has a great advantage over chilled is that lot of people who buy frozen due to the sustainability agenda. They recognize that eating meat products damages the environment more than eating plant-based products. I think frozen has a great story to tell here, because obviously, these products don’t go out of use so quickly. If you look at the chilled products, there’s a real conundrum there, that people buy the product for sustainability, yet the wastage in the category is high, which contributes to negative sustainability. Additionally, we’ve seen bakery growing quite a lot because of factors such as convenience (for example, croissants which you can take out the freezer and bake). To this end, we’ve seen some premium ranges like Gino d’Acampo make an appearance in Iceland supermarkets. We’ve seen a number of categories working quite well for us. I think those that aren’t working are actually similar categories that we are seeing in fresh – meat is taking a bit of a hit, with more and more people moving into plant-based.
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