Australian Consumers and the Appeal of Ready-to-Eat Meals

We surveyed 500 Aussies who buy ready-to-eat and on-the-go meals to understand their purchasing decisions.

The ready-to-eat and on-the-go meal sector is a growing market, and this year at Field Agent Australia, we wanted to find out more about the habits, mindsets, and cravings of consumers of ready-to-eat meals. Here are our survey results!

For our survey, we defined ready-to-eat and on-the-go meals as: Meals purchased at supermarkets or convenience stores that have already been prepped and are ready to eat upon opening the packaging or heating in the microwave.

The majority of our survey respondents are most likely to consume a ready-to-eat meal for lunch (57%) or dinner (35%). The remaining respondents say they usually eat these meals as a snack (6%), or breakfast (2%).

The most common reasons for purchasing these meals are their convenience and time-saving qualities. Some also cite them as a way to keep costs down, as these easy meals are cheaper than dining out!

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When we asked our Field Agents to rank various factors that influence their choice of ready-to-eat and on-the-go meals, taste and flavour top the list as most important, with price and minimal prep both closely following.

As far as the amount they are willing to spend on a serving of these meals, 6% want to keep it under $5, 64% budget up to $10, 26% can stretch it to $15, and only 4% would pay more than $15.

Sales and promotional offers can greatly sway our consumers: 69% look for discounted meals and 15% are drawn to meal deals. However, 16% will routinely pay full price.

Over half of the respondents to our survey like the idea of seeing more sustainably sourced (67%) or organic (53%) ready-to-eat and on-the-go meal options on the market. 39% would be interested in more vegetarian options, and 21% would like more vegan options. 30% would appreciate more gluten-free meals, and 18% halal.

With plant-based and alternative protein ingredients being more widespread, we also enquired about how open our respondents are to these options. 35% are keen, 48% say they might consider it, and 17% are a straight no.

Finally, we welcomed any additional comments that our respondents would like to share about ready-to-eat and on-the-go meals. Recurrent themes include a desire for reasonable prices, more variety in healthy options with good nutritional values, minimally processed and straightforward ingredients, a little less salt/sodium, and availability of different portion sizes (with most wanting bigger and more filling single serve meals). Is the ready-to-eat meal sector ready to step up to the plate to cater to these requests? We’ll see!

To see more data from this survey, just fill in the form below to get the full report emailed to you!

Want to gain business insights specific to your company goals? Contact Field Agent Australia here to discuss building a customised survey with us.

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