For on-the-go Aussie consumers with limited time between the end of the workday and dinner time, food boxes and prepared meals are invaluable.
Delivered directly to households, food box meal kits (such as Hello Fresh, Marley Spoon and Aussie Farmers Direct) include portioned ingredients and easy to follow instructions, allowing consumers to skip extensive meal preparation and dive right into creating their meals. Prepared meals, like Lite’n’Easy, are even faster, while still portion controlled and nutritionally balanced.
In aggregate, food boxes and prepared meals represent a small portion of the grocery e-commerce market (1.6% of value sales) and purchased by 3% of respondents. But these websites are not to be discounted, despite their current market share. On average, food boxes are purchased every two weeks and online spend per year is $1,084; ready meals are bought three times a month and these shoppers spend $453 per year. They are breaking traditional online grocery barriers – consumers are not worried about inspecting the produce before delivery and the service also reaches older demographics who are traditionally slower to online consumer trends.
