My Food Bag moves into ready-made meals market

Kevin Bowler, chief executive of My Food Bag. Photo / Supplied

Subscription meal kit company My Food Bag has branched out and is now selling ready-made meals under the brand name Made.

Made is a subscription service similar to My Food Bag, however, the meals are already prepared and only need to be heated. The new subscription service has options of four, six, nine or 12 meals to be delivered each week.

My Food Bag chief executive Kevin Bowler said the meals were an alternative to takeaways and were designed for people who were more time poor than the traditional My Food Bag customer.

The company conducted a survey among 370 customers and found that 64 per cent were having takeaways at least once a week, often due to getting home late from work and so it set out to service that need.

It found that convenience was the reason most opted for takeways, though 39 per cent said they were too expensive.

"Ready-made meals are proving a significant trend in many overseas markets, so we're looking forward to providing Kiwis with similar nutritious, time-saving options," Bowler said.

"We know that modern family living means it's not always possible to get in the kitchen to cook dinner every night, so we wanted to offer customers a healthy, ready-made meal solution that's tasty and easier on their pocket."

My Food Bag was founded by Cecilia Robinson and her husband James, along with chef Nadia Lim and Theresa Gattung in 2013. In less than 10 years it has grown from just an idea to be the third-largest food retailer in the country - after the two big supermarket chains.

Until now the company has sold more than 50 million meals.

View this post on Instagram

Unpack 📦, heat up 🔥, eat up 😋. It's that easy! 👌

A post shared by Made (@getmadenz) on May 23, 2019 at 5:28pm PDT

My Food Bag co-founder Nadia Lim said Made meals offered the same taste as a My Food Bag meal that you would cook yourself.

"These meals are the perfect solution for those busy nights or weeks when you'd usually resort to beans on toast or a takeaway," Lim said.

She said the meals were different to the "old-school" ready meals found in supermarket freezers.