Current situation and perspectives of ready-to-eat food/meal suppliers

Abstract

Working Group 2 of the Healthy Diet Research Committee of International Life Sciences Institute Japan (WG2) assessed the concept and practice of healthy eating in the ready-to-eat food/meal industry in Japan. WG2 interviewed 14 arbitrarily selected member companies that included “health” or “nutrition” in their management policy, and sent a questionnaire to 338 member companies of the Japan Ready-Made Meal Association. Ready-to-eat food/meal suppliers mainly referred to Dietary Reference Intakes for Japanese, the Japanese Food Guide, and/or Healthy Japan 21 for their menu construction. They increased dietary fiber, variety, vegetables, whole-grain cereals, millet rice, and soy bean products; and reduced energy, carbohydrates, and salt in “healthy” food. They tended to avoid making direct appeals to health. Many companies reduced the salt content without drawing attention to the practice. They continually strive to improve flavor as the single most important factor for selling healthy food. The cycling of menus is used to increase diversity in food consumption. These industries require both academia and the government to define priorities for increasing and decreasing particular nutrients as the main targets and to establish the maximum time for balancing each nutrient.

INTRODUCTION

Ready-to-eat food or meals in Japan is defined as “food or a meal that can be eaten without cooking or heating at home, workplace, school, etc., such as lunch boxes and daily dishes with a short shelf life.”¹ The sales of ready-to-eat food/meals is growing and, in 2017, they exceeded JPY 10 trillion.¹ The expected increase in the number of elderly people and the results of women’s empowerment in Japan should favor this sector of the food industry.

The main products of these ready-to-eat food/meal suppliers are cooked rice (50%) and daily dishes (34%), namely lunch boxes, rice balls, sandwiches, croquettes, and vegetable salads in the Tokyo metropolitan area.¹ These products are sold mainly via convenience stores (32%), specialty stores (29%), and food supermarkets (26%).¹

Objectives

We conducted a survey to evaluate the concept of “healthy eating” among ready-to-eat food companies that are expected to grow in Japan, and we summarized the findings for academic research and governmental policy and regulation needed to achieve healthy eating.

METHODS

Working Group 2 of the Healthy Diet Research Committee of International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) Japan (WG2) conducted a round-table discussion with the Japan Ready-Made Meal Association (JRMA) to clarify the general business structure, and then performed semistructured interviews to arbitrarily select 14 (of 24 approached) JRMA member companies stating “health” or “nutrition” in their management policy. We administered a nationwide online questionnaire via Google forms to only the 14 selected JRMA member companies via the JRMA. JRMA is a national association comprising 338 regular member companies, 216 supporting member companies, and 40 cooperating companies.

RESULTS

Findings from interviews

Of 24 member companies of JRMA that publish statements on healthy or nutritious food in their policies and were selected for visits by WG2, 14 companies accepted the visit. Annual sales of these 14 companies exceeded JPY 40 billion; the average annual sales of JRMA regular member companies in 2019 totaled JPY 12.6 billion (Table 1).

Interviewed companies generally based their meals and menus on Dietary Reference Intakes for Japanese,² the Japanese Food Guide,³ or Healthy Japan 21.⁴ These companies intended to increase or improve ingredient variety (n = 5 companies), vegetables (n = 4), dietary fiber (n = 3), lactic acid bacteria (n = 2), green and yellow vegetables, millet rice, organic ingredients, quinoa, ω3-fatty acids, iron, lycopene, calcium, protein, and nutrient balance. They intended to reduce or omit salt (n = 8 companies), energy (n = 5), additives (n = 4), chemical seasoning (n = 3), carbohydrates (n = 2), and lipids.

It was a general tendency of all interviewed companies to avoid direct health appeals such as “reduced salt,” although many of them actually reduced the salt content in their products gradually but continuously. These companies considered direct health appeals to be unpopular and to reduce sales. They emphasized a healthy atmosphere as a whole. It was also noted that some positive wording such as “rice bowl with lots of vegetables” increased sales.

All companies considered good flavor to be the single most important sales factor. Therefore, they regularly worked to improve the flavor of their products and tested the customers’ opinions of the improvements often via face-to-face tastings as points of sale, which resulted in an increase or recovery of the sales.

One company selling warm lunchboxes developed 2 series of cycling menus for 1 week, one with large portions and another relatively fit with respect to energy and salt content. The main customers of the company are busy people who do not pay much attention to nutrition or health. The company intended to increase the variety of ingredients and tried to balance the nutrient intake if the customer purchases the same cycling menu, even without considering the contents of the lunch box. Interestingly, most of these customers purchased the large-portion meals and the fit meals alternately, that is, there was approximately a 50% improvement. This can be an important tactic for improving the nutritional status of laymen without pressing them to behave healthily.

Findings from nationwide questionnaire

JRMA distributed the questionnaire to 338 member companies online in July 2019. In total, 88 companies responded the questionnaire (response rate, 26.0%). Just 50 of the 88 responding companies had annual sales of more than JPY 1 billion. Considering the average annual sales of JRMA regular member companies of JPY 12.6 billion, response rate should have been higher in smaller companies than in large companies. The proportion of responding companies selling via supermarket was approximately twice that of the JRMA regular member companies. Therefore, the results may have sampling bias and, accordingly, may not represent the overall tendency of JRMA members.

Distributions of their main product and route of sales indicated that the composition of these companies approximately, but not entirely, reflected the composition of the JRMA (Figure 1). Therefore, the results may not represent the status quo of all JRMA member companies.

Approximately 60% of the responding companies had health- or nutrition-oriented wording in their management policies or on their homepage. Approximately 75% of the responding companies produced health- or nutrition-oriented products (Figure 2). The responding companies most often cited Dietary Reference Intakes for Japanese² and Japanese Food Guide Spinning Top as the resources on which they based their the menu design (Figure 3).

Nutrients focused on in successful health- or nutrition-oriented products were energy, carbohydrate, dietary fiber, sodium, protein, and lipid. Ingredients in successful health- or nutrition-oriented products were vegetables, whole-grain cereals, soy products, miscellaneous grains, seasoning, animal meat, seafood, fermented products, and oil (Figure 4). There was no marked tendency with regard to focused nutrient or ingredient in failed health- or nutrition-oriented products.

The challenges for responding companies in the development and sales of health- or nutrition-oriented products were to produce good-tasting products at a low cost that appeal to the consumer via an efficient production process with stabilization of the food content.

SUGGESTIONS

On the basis of the surveys findings, WG2 wants to highlight the importance of developing and disseminating simple and easily understandable guidelines and labeling policies for the production of healthy and nutritious ready-to-eat food/meals. In this regard, WG2 proposes to define priorities for which nutrients to increase or decrease, to prioritize target population (eg, those who are establishing food habits or those who eat without consideration of what they eat), and to indicate the maximum time to balance each nutrient.

Acknowledgments

The WG2 members sincerely express their gratitude for the generous cooperation of Japan Ready-Made Meal Association and its member companies, which was essential for conducting this study. The study plan of the survey was reviewed by the Ethics Committee for Human Studies of Ishinomaki Senshu University (application no. 2018–001) and determined to be a study not requiring the permission of the committee. Although, many authors belong to private companies, all authors wrote a pledge stating that all information gathered during this survey belongs to ILSI Japan and will not be used otherwise without the consent of ILSI Japan.

Author contributions. T.S. supervised the study. All authors equally contributed to develop the research design, conduct the survey, analyze the data, and prepare the manuscript, and all approved the final manuscript.

Funding. This research was conducted as a part of the activities of the International Life Sciences Institute Japan Research Committee, which are not compensated except for travel expenses for academia members, as required.

Declaration of interest. T.S. is a vice president and a member of the Board of Trustees for International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) Japan. He is also a member of the organizing committee and the program committee for the 8th International Conference on Nutrition and Aging held October 1-2, 2019. R.A. is a member of the program committee for the 8th International Conference on Nutrition and Aging. Companies to which authors belong are members of ILSI Japan and support the organization’s activities.

References

Author notes