Survey: Meal kits, online grocery shopping reignite interest in home cooking

Meal kits and the spike in online grocery shopping availability is helping initiate an interest in home cooking, according to data in the new report Eating Trends: Cooking & Food Shopping from market research firm Packaged Facts.

The study found that most people who don't cook at home either have a lack of time to grocery shop and meal prep or they lack confidence in their cooking skills. The latter reason is especially prevalent among Gen Z adults (ages 18-24) and to a lesser extent millennials (ages 25-39).

Online grocery services provided by Amazon Prime Pantry, AmazonFresh, Instacart and Peapod, among others, have also proven to be time savers for aspiring home cooks. Since 2013, online sales of groceries have more than tripled from $6 billion to $20 billion in 2018 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26%. Through 2023, online grocery sales are forecast by Packaged Facts to rise 34% annually, more than quadrupling from the levels in 2018 and coming to represent 7% of the total grocery market.

However, the bigger growth opportunity in the space might be in food retailers developing their own brand meal kits.

According to market research firm Nielsen, meal kit users increased 36% in 2018 over 2017. In the last six months of 2018, 14.3 million Americans bought meal kits, a 3.8 million increase over the same period one year prior. 

Retailers such as Seattle-based Amazon, Cincinnati-based The Kroger Co., Boise, Idaho-based Albertsons Companies, Greensboro, N.C.-based The Fresh Market and even Dallas-based 7-Eleven have rushed to cash in on that continued momentum. Both Kroger and Albertsons acquired subscription meal kit companies, buying Home Chef (Kroger) and Plated (Albertsons) in 2018. And both grocers were quick to offer the branded kits in stores. (In May, Albertsons confirmed it has temporarily pulled Plated meal kits from some stores as it revamps its meal kit strategy.)

Sales of meal kits in grocery stores and other retail outlets rang up $93 million in sales in 2018, according to a March 2019 Nielsen report, up 51% from 2017. Retail stores accounted for 60% of all meal kit user growth in 2018, according to Nielsen, helped by the introduction of private-branded and branded meal kits by retailers.