Miniscoff plans chilled ready meals

Premium kids food brand Miniscoff is aiming to go head-to-head with Little Dish and Annabel Karmel in the fiercely contested ready meal market.

The business already supplies more than 400 restaurants and hotels and has been selling its organic children’s frozen ready meals (rsp: £3.39) through Ocado, and its range of chilled pasta sauces (rsp: £2.99) through Ocado and Abel & Cole.

Miniscoff plans to develop chilled meals for launch into supermarkets. However, it expects its initial foray into the multiples to be with its range of frozen meals – including shepherd’s pie, spaghetti & meatballs and ocean pie for children between one and eight years old.

Miniscoff co-founder Angus Oliphant said the development of the children’s ready meal market over recent years had given him confidence to target the mults.

“Our growth has been steady, but it is now about finding the opportunity for our retail brand – the market is opening up,” he said.

“We have been ahead of the curve for some time, but are now seeing chilled kids ready meals become a sector for more than one level of product.”

Oliphant said Miniscoff, which was set up 10 years ago and operates from a 3,000 sq ft kitchen in Wiltshire, had a two-year plan for developing its supermarket business and expected to launch the chilled meals “fairly soon”.

The company will be entering a highly competitive market. Two months ago, Tesco delisted Annabel Karmel’s chilled toddler meals lines while making Little Dish its exclusive brand and appointing it category advisor to help manage the toddler fixture