The meal prep delivery service industry is growing. Because of the Covid pandemic, many people are staying at home and many restaurants have been forced to close their doors or shorten their operating hours. In today’s environment, people are also leading busy lives with little time to go grocery shopping, cook dinner, and clean up.
For these reasons, the meal prep delivery service industry is growing fast. Restaurants don’t have to suffer financially as they can switch their business model to delivery and consumers can still eat their favorite meals without leaving home. Meal prep delivery means no cooking or cleaning, saving the busy consumer time while guaranteeing delicious meals every time.
Here are nine trends in the meal prep delivery service industry to look out for:
Sustainability Commitment
While pre-prepared meals do use plastics in their packaging, a meal prep delivery service’s carbon footprint is actually lower compared to a grocery store. It takes a lot of farm equipment, fertilizer, packaging, processing, and delivery to get produce to a store, which produces a lot of emissions.
But while pre-prepped meals may have a lower environmental impact, consumers still want improvements. Meal prep delivery services in the future will offer more sustainable options such as fewer plastics used, more compostable packaging, and insulation made from recycled materials.
Diet Specialization
Using a meal prep delivery service makes it easier to follow a diet. The meal prep delivery service industry is taking notice of this. Some meal prep delivery services focus on specific diets, offering keto, vegan, paleo, or vegetarian meal plans. More meal prep delivery services will be specializing in niche diets in the near future.
Organic foods
Along with concern for the environment, consumers are also concerned with how food is grown. A growing number of consumers are interested in only consuming organic foods. Organic farming standards can be different from one district to the next but organic foods often share similar characteristics. These characteristics include ecosystem preservation, consideration for water supply, and biodiversity.
Finding organic produce and ingredients in grocery stores can be difficult, however, meal prep delivery services significantly lower this difficulty for the consumer.
Catering to Lifestyle Choices
Another growing trend in the meal prep delivery service industry is appealing and catering to individual lifestyle choices. For example, the vegan lifestyle entails never eating meat or any animal-based foods or products. This requires special ingredients, sometimes for even simple dishes.
Meal prep delivery services make it easier to follow a vegan lifestyle while offering a variety of choices. Other lifestyles could be consumers who need quick, fast meals, avoid certain foods, or adhere to certain religious standards. Meal prep delivery services make it easy for the consumer to follow these lifestyles.
Increased Meals
A primary selling point of meal prep delivery services is that it saves the consumer time. Instead of grocery shopping for ingredients, preparing and cooking the meal, and cleaning up, the consumer can just have their meal delivered to them pre-cooked. However, most meal prep delivery services only cater to dinner.
This means that the consumer still has to shop for and prepare breakfast and lunch, taking away the time-saving aspect. Meal prep delivery services are aware of this and are beginning to cater to every meal.
Competitive Pricing
Thanks to refined logistics and automation processes slashing operation costs, the prices offered by meal prep delivery services are becoming more competitive. Meal prep delivery services prices have been high in the past but as companies are finding ways to cut costs, they are able to offer more affordable prices.
Lower cost will appeal to more consumers who may have been turned off from meal prep delivery services due to the high prices.
Large Companies Buying Smaller Ones
Within recent years, more and more big companies have been buying smaller ones leading to a growing trend. By buying smaller meal prep delivery service companies, larger companies are able to expand their operations while at the same time lowering competition. As the meal prep delivery service industry continues to develop and grow, acquisitions and mergers will increase.
Extended Delivery Services
The convenience of having your meals delivered is a big factor in the reason people use meal prep delivery services. Meal prep delivery service businesses are realizing this and many meal prep delivery services are beginning to offer extended delivery services. Some meal prep delivery services are offering multiple delivery times throughout the day, catering for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Outside Investments
The meal prep delivery service industry is growing and growing and outside investors are taking notice. Meal prep delivery service companies are beginning to trend toward outside investment. Those meal prep delivery services that cater to specific niches are especially open to outside investment.
Conclusion
The meal prep delivery service industry has seen an explosion of growth and will continue to grow even post-pandemic. Many consumers are seeing the advantages that subscribing to a meal prep delivery service offers and this is set to grow. Look out for the trends mentioned in this article as you grow your own meal prep delivery service business.