Tesco has introduced an ‘easy meal’ fixture in its ambient aisles to target home workers.
Sitting alongside pot noodles and canned soups, the fixture includes various quick meal solutions from brands such as Noodlehead, John West, Dolmio and Ben’s Original, as well as private label.
To coincide with the shake-up, Ben’s Original has launched two “cupboard ready meal” ranges – Lunch Bowl and Favourites – exclusively into the retailer. Both are packaged in microwaveable pouches.
Targeting health-conscious home workers, each Lunch Bowl dish contains a blend of grains and veggies and can be eaten hot or cold. The dishes are: Moroccan Buddha Bowl, Mediterranean Bowl, Spicy Mexican Bowl and Spicy Thai Curry Bowl (rsp: £2.99/220g).
Favourites, meanwhile, is made up of rice-based dishes with “familiar flavours from some of the nation’s most popular meals”. The range includes Chilli Con Carne, Paella and risotto dishes Chicken & Mushroom and Tomato & Italian Herbs (rsp: £2.49/250g).
They are the first launches in “a multi-year innovation pipeline for Ben’s Original and Dolmio”, according to owner Mars Food.
Mars Food’s existing microwavable meal ranges, Ben’s Original Plant Powered and Dolmio Pronto, have also been relocated to the easy meal fixture from the world foods bay in Tesco.
“We’re making the biggest change in the grocery category in the last 10 years in response to changing consumer eating habits, ensuring we provide an intuitive shopping experience for our shoppers,” said Tesco grocery category director David Coulshed.
“A key part of this space redesign is the creation of our easy meals’ destination, and Mars has been a leading partner as we have developed our thinking in this area,” Coulshed added.
Mars Food & Nutrition UK GM Nick Reade told The Grocer he saw “eye-to-eye with Tesco in terms of the scale of its ambition”.
“We’re expecting that over 35% of consumers will be enjoying a ready meal at least once a week by 2030, so we want to get ahead of that.”
Mars has launched a creative platform, ‘Real food, real fast’ to back the launch. The marketing push will be “mostly focused on social to start with”, along with retail media, said Reade.
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