Why chefs can rest easy about the microwave meal

What would a chef take to a desert island? No, it’s not the start of a cooking-themed joke. And there is no one clever answer. But if Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs is anything to go by, there is one thing you can guarantee a chef won’t ask for: a ready meal.

Just yesterday, Michelin-starred Marcus Wareing used the show to warn the nation was “wasting time on our phones” rather than whipping up meals in the kitchen. Amid the collective social media obsession, he fears our cooking prowess will soon be limited to plonking a bit of plastic in the microwave.

It wasn’t long ago Angela Hartnett delivered a similar message on the BBC programme. She complained Britain was unhealthier than ever because most consumers don’t have the time, skills or cash to make a proper meal (which, presumably, would make us very poor at surviving on a desert island).

Survival fears aside, they’ve got a point. Wareing’s particular point of concern is that we’ve become overly reliant on ready meals. “Unfortunately, going to a supermarket and picking up a ready meal is probably one of the easiest things you can do,” he said. That ease is fuelling a growing appetite. Sales of ready meals have grown steadily over the past five years and by the end of 2018, the total market value stood at just shy of £4bn [Kantar 52 w/e 7 October 2018]. If it continues, he can foresee the nation ”losing the opportunity of learning how to cook”. 

It all sounds vaguely apocalyptic. You can imagine a world in which fresh fruit & veg is being left to rot, as a new generation of Brits is left confounded by anything that isn’t covered by a plastic film. 

Still, don’t panic just yet. The data isn’t all pointing towards a cooking apocalypse. Last year, growth in ready meals slowed to less than half that of the year before. And when Brits do venture beyond the microwave, they are getting more experimental. Traditional cooking sauces are giving way to culinary pastes and meal kits. It’s not full-on scratch cooking, but it is a step in that direction.

As Wareing says, much of this is down to ease. Consumers may have the best of intentions when it comes to scratch cooking, but time constraints often make a mockery of plans to whip up something involving five different pans and twice as many spices. Especially when those microwaveable trays are just so readily available. Meal kits lie handily in between those two options.

That insight is fuelling optimism around the growth prospects of meal kit delivery services such as HelloFresh and Gousto, which has just secured a £30m cash injection. Retailers are also looking to make scratch cooking as simple as possible. There’s Waitrose’s Beautifully Simple initiative, which puts recipe ingredients all in one place to give customers “the inspiration and ease to cook simple and delicious dishes”. Then there’s the M&S meal kits trial, designed to make it “easy for our customers to pick up an evening meal for two in one bag”.

Admittedly, these concepts are still niche compared with the £4bn ready meal market. And nothing will ever quite beat the convenience of a meal that’s cooked at the touch of a button. But Marcus Wareing can rest easy knowing Britain is venturing beyond the microwave – albeit at a slow pace.