New Chilled best-one Ready Meals Launch for Retailers

With ready meals one of the fastest growing categories in chilled at +16.9%[1] and with 45% of shoppers regularly purchasing ready meals in a convenience store[2], Bestway Wholesale has launched new chilled ready meals into its own label best-one range.

Traditional, Italian and Indian ready meals account for 67% of all ready meal sales in the UK[3] and so the range has been launched with 10 meals from across these sectors with the addition of Chinese too.

The meals include Beef Lasagne, Chicken Tikka Masala, Cottage Pie, Macaroni Cheese, Chilli Con Carne & Rice, Spaghetti Bolognese, Sausage & Mash, Beef Stew & Dumpling, Sweet & Sour Chicken and Chicken Korma & Rice. All meals are 450g, can be oven or microwave cooked and are suitable for freezing.

Shoppers are seeking great tasting meals and retailers are seeking a longer shelf life to reduce waste, so the best-one range has been developed with these needs in mind.

Steve Carter, Director of Trading for the Chilled category at Bestway Wholesale, says: “Our range of ready meals has been in development since November 2018 and we’ve prepared these dishes using ‘steam fresh cooking’ – this means the products are cooked under high pressure in a steam cooker.

“Prior to cooking, all chicken is marinated for at least 24 hours, the beef is slow cooked, dumplings are made by hand and oven baked, the mash is prepared fresh for each and every production batch, and all spices are blended in-house.”

Bestway has been able to launch the products with a longer shelf life compared to the average ready meal which reduces waste from approx. 5-15% on average to 1-2% for the meals in the best-one range. This ensures the products offer freshness for shoppers combined with reduced wastage for retailers.

Bestway Wholesale has planned to introduce such a range of chilled ready meals for a while and since acquiring Bestway Retail [which includes Bargain Booze, Wine Rack, Select Convenience and Central], and expanding the size of its Chilled Distribution Centre, it’s now possible for the company to do so.

Steve Carter continues: “With price point an important consideration for retailers, our best-one ready meal range has a price-marked offer of 2 for £5, which encourages consumers to make multiple purchases whilst also delivering a healthy return on profit for retailers. The RSP of a single meal is £2.99.”

“In addition, we’ve also launched a best-one range of chilled juices, available in four flavours – Orange, Apple, Tropical and Cranberry. We did previously have juices, but these were ambient and not chilled. These provide consumers with one of their five a day and we’ve ensured these can be offered at a competitive price, with an ongoing price marked offer of 2 for £2.”

Both the chilled ready meal range and chilled juices are available to all retailers now.

[1] Nielsen Latest 12 weeks August 2018
[2] HIM 2017
[3] Nielsen 2017