A FAMILY AFFAIR.(The marketing of meal solutions is discussed.)(Statistical Data Included)

Frozen Food Age, October, 2001 by Warren, F. P.

Families are now the prime consumers for meal solutions, and they have healthy appetites for frozen food.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, prepared meals in supermarkets were viewed as a lure for those most elusive of non-shoppers--young, single professionals who were choosing restaurants over the supermarket deli counter for dinner. It made sense in an era still influenced by generations of at-home, sit-down dinners, once a staple of American family life.

So much for stereotypes. Today's buyers of ready-to-serve meal solutions are decidedly family men and women. And they're not all suburbanites with large disposable incomes, either. From three-acre zoning to 300-square-foot-apartments in the heart of the inner city, working parents are...