The phenomenon of boxes, or a few words about dietary nutrition

There are more and more catering establishments on the market that offer different diets-all packed in boxes to make it delicious, fast and convenient. If there are already so many of them, then there is a great demand for them. But what does this actually follow from? What is the phenomenon of the "box diet"?” This is exactly what I will try to explain to you in this article!

By the word of introduction…

I started my journey in so-called diet catering back in 2015 while studying for my master's degree. The company I was working for at such an early stage of my career seemed like the pinnacle of my dreams. And time has shown that I hit the bull's-eye! This was undoubtedly the right decision, which led to me staying in the industry to this day.

The market of boxed diets in Poland continues to develop dynamically, and is in great demand among Polish consumers. Currently (October 2022), there are more than 850 companies operating in Ukraine offering this type of daily food, making more than 50,000,000 deliveries per year. NTFY itself has tripled the number of orders placed and, consequently, the number of customers over the past three years. What does this mean?

Why are we so willing to order boxes?

From my point of view, this consists of several important aspects. So I'll try to briefly approximate them here.

Lack of time

This is probably the most discussed argument of the public catering customers. People are so busy that they simply don't have time to do their daily shopping, stand at the Gar and prepare a nutritious meal. The choice seems simple - either eat something, fast, on the go, or make sure to have something healthy on hand and provide the right nutritional value for everyone.

Lack of skills

There's nothing to hide - not every masterchef is in its own kitchen. And this feeling often causes frustration and stress – especially if we need to follow a special diet, we have allergies or just a family "on the head". So why not curb this stress by giving nutrition questions to someone who understands it?

Catering companies ' offers are expanding along with the growing interest and needs of their customers. Today, every person should find among them a diet that will fully correspond to him.

Lack of knowledge

Healthy eating is in fashion-Fortunately! People want to live long and take care of their well-being, but they lack the knowledge of how to do it properly.

More and more public catering establishments in their ranks employ a whole staff of nutritionists, designed to ensure that the delivered dishes are not only fresh, beautiful and delicious, but also correctly formulated, providing all the necessary macro - and microelements*.

*ProtipA : for anyone planning on using boxed diets, I encourage you to check that the company is hiring specialists before choosing a catering service. We need to be sure that someone is really monitoring our food, especially if we pay for its delivery. 😉

Convenience

Here we get to the heart of the question, which is actually a summary of everything that has already been written above. People don't have the time, knowledge, or skills – so they choose diet food, which is just an incredibly convenient solution.

Price:

Price plays a key role, perhaps, in all aspects of life, and daily food is no exception. When I ask people why they decided to " live on boxes ", they usually answer unanimously: "Yeah, I go to a restaurant, buy one dish with a drink (unknown composition and caloric content) and pay more than 50 PLN. After spending the same amount, I have five balanced meals for the day. The choice seems simple!"

However, it is worth mentioning what is behind the price of such catering. Remember that it's not just the price of the product, so-called food costwhich is also growing in the current macroeconomic situation. We often forget that someone needs this food for us:

• cooking (human handiwork + rising energy prices),
• pack (this also includes the cost of packaging),
• delivery (transportation often to remote parts of Poland).

Looking critically at the delivered dish, we need to know that behind it is the headquarters of the people who made this food reach us in the first place.

How to "break through" with your suggestion?

Competitiveness in this industry shows how important it is to create an appropriate offer that meets the high requirements of Polish consumers.

This is very important close monitoring of the market - both Polish and foreign languages. It is from it that dietary and dietary news most often comes to us. Therefore, it is important to offer customers products that they will not find anywhere else.

And here, too, a few words " behind the scenes”…

At NTFY, first of all, we regularly conduct market research among existing and potentially new category clients. Such knowledge is invaluable because it comes directly from our users or people who would like to become them if we meet their requirements.

We try to create our offer so that it reaches a wide audience. The recently introduced vegan diet was also driven by market expectations. As indicated in the report Food for Thoughtup to 75% of consumers choose plant-based products because of the positive impact they can have on human health. As for the decision to buy such a diet, it is increasingly the taste that speaks in favor of eating plant-based dishes every day.

Other research conducted by GFK – Behaviour change 2022 - he talks about how consumer sentiment is changing these days. As it turned out, Polish society primarily pays attention to healthy, natural ingredients and the price for which high quality should go!

This is also an example of how we gain specific, highly specialized knowledge. Participating in international exhibitions or conferences, reading analyses and reports created by world-renowned research agencies such as Mintel, Tastewise or Datassential is my daily responsibility. We need to keep abreast of events and keep our finger on the pulse. 😉

To sum up

Diet food is very popular. There are companies that clearly differ in quality against the background of the market, and there are also those that attract those who want mainly an attractive price and endless big discounts. This leads to an erroneous, and sometimes very erroneous, approach to this industry and its functioning.

Therefore, I think that the category of boxed diets will undergo many changes over the years. That is why it is so important to have a skillful market observation and analysis that allows you to quickly respond-implement appropriate solutions in response to its needs. This is what I do every day in one of the leading food service companies in Poland, and it is my knowledge and experience in this area that I want to share with you. Therefore, I encourage you to read in advance!