Frozen meals may be going the way of rotary phones, VHS tapes, and AOL start-up discs, because Americans are finally ending their love affair with the TV dinner. It’s almost impossible to imagine future generations never knowing the feeling of disappointment one gets when it never looks like the picture on the box. The Atlantic reports:
TV dinners are losing their ubiquity. Just ask Nestlé, which is struggling with its Lean Cuisine frozen food line. The food giant is even considering unloading its $400-million frozen foods business entirely. And with good reason. After nearly 60 years of sustained growth, frozen ready meal sales have finally started to dip. Since 2008, they have either fallen or come in just about flat.
A number of factors appear to be working against the frozen food aisle—including the rise of dieting, consciousness of better portioning, and Americans’ growing boredom with ready-made frozen meals. But there are four reasons in particular which seem to stand out, according to the research firm Mintel: Americans say they are strapped for cash; they feel frozen food is no longer cost-effective; they prefer to cook for themselves; and they are increasingly skeptical of the health claims of frozen meals—40 percent of U.S. adults think frozen dinners offer no nutritional value.
Does anyone actually view frozen meals as a viable food source? I just thought they were mostly just for the elderly and the occasional backup lunch for office workers. I know I ate them sometimes when I worked in an office and it didn’t even break the top 20 sh*tty things about working in an office. In fact, if you told me I could never eat Lean Cuisine’s Butternut Squash Ravioli ever again in my life I might actually be sad. Right, somebody out there who I know is with me on this?