Whilst browsing in Sourced Market in St Pancras on my way home the other evening, I came across a package promising a meal of Chicken & Chorizo Jamabalaya cooked in one pan… from scratch.
Scratch is the clever name for a new business selling pre-packaged meals with fresh ingredients and instructions to cook a tasty, wholesome meal.
You get a box with all the chopped, washed and weighed ingredients as well as the instructions to cook your meal from scratch. The meals are for one and cook in around 15 minutes with one or two pans.
As they say, ‘We do the hard bits, you do the fun bits’.
I have to admit I was rather cynical and mainly tried it out in the interests of research, plus I really wanted see what Chicken & Chorizo Jamabalaya tasted like. I have to say that the product definitely lived up to its promise, being incredibly easy and fun to cook, with a tasty meal, and only one pan to wash up at the end – result!
From a business opportunity aspect, I find it interesting to see how Scratch are addressing the needs of the growing number of single householders. This is a trend identified in the How to become a cutting-edge retailer workshop I attended recently.
Changing family structure leads to convenience trend
– more singles than married in the UK by 2020
– more single person households in the UK – impacts how people shop – from weekly shop to convenience shopping. Growth from 19bn 2000 to 41bn 2015
– Asda have bough Netto
– Easier payment – Visa PayWave system
– Debenhams – mini-wok is most popular item
– Dinner for one packages
– Waitrose – small stores with fresh food, warm bread, deli