Opportunities in the Global Prepared Meals Sector 2025

Provides an overview of current prepared meals scenario regarding the future outlook in terms of ingredients, product claims, labeling, distribution, and packaging. The analysis also covers regional overview across five regions - Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, Americas, Western Europe, and Eastern Europe - highlighting industry size, growth drivers, latest developments, and future inhibitors for the regions.

The global prepared meals sector was valued at $141 billion in 2024 and is forecast to record a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.7% during 2024-29, reaching $195 billion in 2029. The growing consumer affinity for healthy yet convenient meals is driving demand for prepared meals. With companies trying to mimic the taste of home cooking, the sector's products are emerging as a viable alternative to traditional meals, especially for time-constrained urban consumers. The Americas accounted for the largest value share of 44.6% in 2024, followed by Western Europe. Ready meals was the largest category, accounting for 71.8% of total value sales, distantly followed by pizza and meal kits. Among all the categories, ready meals is set to record the fastest value CAGR during 2024-29, at 6.6%.

Key Highlights

• The growing consumer demand for healthier prepared meals is pushing the growth of the sector. Rising focus on natural ingredients is enabling them to invest more on plant-based and herbal ingredients in prepared meals. Moreover, increasing concerns about the environment and animals is boosting the demand for sustainable and ethical ingredients in prepared meals. As a result, manufacturers are formulating products with such ingredients to capitalize on this trend.

Scope

This report brings together multiple data sources to provide a comprehensive overview of the global prepared meals sector, analyzing data from 108 countries. It includes analysis on the following -

• Global snapshot: Includes executive summary, current sector scenarios in terms of ingredients, manufacturer claims, labeling, and packaging. The section also touches on the key growth enablers and inhibitors for the prepared meals sector.
• Sector snapshot: The analysis provides a global overview, along with regional and category-level data and analysis. It also includes regional overview across five regions-Americas, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (MEA), and Western Europe-highlighting sector size and evolution, value and volume shares by category, and growth drivers for each region.
• Consumer trends: Provides an overview of evolving consumer trends, supported by GlobalData's in-house consumer surveys, and product examples.
• Country deep-dive: Provides risk-reward analysis of the top high-potential countries in each region based on market assessment, economic development, governance indicators, sociodemographic factors, and technological infrastructure. Provides a deep-dive analysis of 10 high-potential countries covering value growth during 2024-29, key challenges, consumer demographics, and key trends. It also includes regional analysis covering the outlook for each region.
• Competitive environment and brand shares: Provides an overview of the leading companies and brands at global and regional levels. Market shares of brands and private labels in each region are also detailed.
• Distribution overview: Provides an analysis of the leading distribution channels in the global prepared meals sector in 2024. It covers hypermarkets & supermarkets, health and beauty stores, e-retailers, direct sellers, department stores, parapharmacies/drugstores, convenience stores, cash & carries and warehouse clubs, "dollar stores", variety stores & general merchandise retailers, chemists/pharmacies, and other distribution channels.
• Packaging analysis*: The report provides percentage share (in 2024) and growth analysis (during 2024-29) for various pack materials, pack types, closures, and primary outer types based on volume sales of prepared meals.
• Select industry metrics: This section provides topline statistics and analysis for different alternate datasets, such as patent filings, job analytics, and deals in 2024.

Reasons to Buy

• Manufacturers and retailers seek latest information on how the market is evolving to formulate their sales and marketing strategies. There is also demand for authentic market data with a high level of detail. This report has been created to provide its readers with up-to-date information and analysis to uncover emerging opportunities of growth within the sector in the region
• The report provides a detailed analysis of the countries in the region, covering the key challenges, competitive landscape and demographic analysis, that can help companies gain insight into the country specific nuances
• The analysts have also placed a significant emphasis on the key trends that drive consumer choice and the future opportunities that can be explored in the region, than can help companies in revenue expansion
• To gain competitive intelligence about leading brands in the sector in the region with information about their market share and growth rates