Healthy convenience foods in growing demand

Convenience is the driver when it comes to sales of fresh cut products.

A recent report by The Perishables Group indicates that convenience consumers are likely to purchase multiple items across convenience categories. Nearly 80 percent of packaged salad buyers also purchase deli-prepared appetizers, for example.

And those who purchase packaged salad, value-added fruit and value-added vegetables also buy most other categories in the convenience set, which includes deli-prepared chicken, deli salads and fully cooked chicken.

In 2011 alone, the report says, sales of convenience items in the fresh departments exceeded $19 billion. Going forward, the report says, understanding who these convenience customers are and the categories that are most important to them will provide guidance for where to allocate marketing and category management resources.

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Chart: The Perishables Group