Frozen food featuring its day in sunlight amid pandemic
In an instant of crisis, many touch base for comfort foods.
And that is accurately how urban residents are behaving as uncertainty about the future and morbid fear reign supreme, propping up the demand for frozen foods up at the same time when a huge selection of consumer goods and services have fallen prey to the global coronavirus pandemic.
As the coronavirus situation is only getting worse, restaurants and junk food joints, that could have satisfied their craving for comfort food, have kept their doors shut, shoppers are to the supermarket aisles to get ready-to-eat chicken and beef products, the closest substitute.
Sales of chicken-based foods are bested only by those of frozen parathas nowadays, according to industry people.
Yet, overall sales have remained well below the pre-coronavirus days.
"Two of our sales channels are contributing less now than in the pre-COVID period. But we see good sales through supermarkets," said Tanvir Haider Chaudhury, ceo of Kazi Food Industries, among the leading frozen foods and chicken products processors in Bangladesh.
Active for the last one and a half decades, the business has found a distinct segment among the convenience-seeking middle-class and working families.
Aside from marketing its frozen foods through supermarkets and neighbourhood shops, Kazi Food Industries has 150 quick-service restaurants. The majority of the kiosks are shut. Besides, limited opening hours for convenience and superstores are hampering sales.
The company can be facing difficulty in delivering products in lots of areas as a result of the countrywide movement control order, with its business now limited by only Dhaka and Chattogram urban centers.
"We see demand in these areas. From that perspective, frozen foods remain keeping us afloat. But things might have been much better," Chaudhury added.
The marketplace for ready-made foods and snacks has been growing fast and the pace of growth accelerated recently to stand from only Tk 300 crore to Tk 1,000 crore.
It really is growing at 15 per cent year-on-year, said Ahmed Rajeeb Samdani, managing director of Golden Harvest Agro Industries, a frozen food giant.
"Our frozen grocery store has not fallen compared to that extent. Frozen foods are moving from the shelves weighed against other products that aren't moving at all," he said.
As the shutdown damaged demand and distribution in lots of parts of the country, Golden Harvest has begun home delivery to use its trucks that have become idle following the requirement of delivery out of Dhaka dropped.
The majority of the companies in the trade have started home delivery, Samdani said. Paragon Group, among the leading poultry breeders and processors, has found home delivery as you of the key windows to retain sales somewhat amidst a dip popular for chickens and eggs.
The company used to provide its processed chicken to some global chain restaurants and hotels in Bangladesh however the shutdown has hit its sales hard.
The introduction of home delivery could arrest the bleeding to some extent.
"Demand for home delivery has soared but we can't meet up with the increased demand as we don't possess enough delivery vans to react to all calls," said Moshiur Rahman, managing director of Paragon Group.
For AG Agro Industries, daily sales of processed chicken, processed chicken items and flour-based frozen foods fell 40 % to Tk 6 lakh following the shutdown began, said Md Lutfor Rahman, leader of the poultry breeder and processor.
"Shops are not open everywhere. We see an elevated demand in the areas where we can access shops. Generally, sales have already been below the level of the pre-COVID-19 period," said Kamruzzaman Kamal, director marketing of Pran-RFL Group.
Processors are sanguine about the near future. There would be a jump in the frozen grocery store once the lockdown ends, Samdani said.
"It is because of convenience."
Many residents in urban areas will be shaky in hiring domestic personnel to make food such as for example traditional paratha for concern with coronavirus infection.
"We are tinkering with new products and planning to expand capacity. I believe the frozen and ready-to-eat food industry will probably grow."
