The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has increased the demand for frozen food or convenient food due to people’s confinement at home, which has prevented them from satisfying their craving for snacks in restaurants.
It has also become a popular choice during this period of crisis when the household chores have increased, as it is hassle-free and takes less time to prepare.
According to the frozen food companies, their sales have increased significantly during the pandemic. Moreover, the number of entrepreneurs supplying homemade frozen foods has also increased.
Kamruzzaman Kamal, Marketing Director at PRAN-RFL Group told Bangladesh Post that the demand for frozen food has increased amid the pandemic due to the intermittent lockdowns.
“The overall growth rate of this sector can be said to be over 20 percent. Although the demand for frozen items varies from country to country, the exports of all the items have also boosted in the last one and a half years”, he added.
Due to safety concerns, many people had to restrict the movement of domestic workers in their houses. As a result, the demand for ‘parota’ has increased the most among all the other items since it is consumed by the majority of the people of our country as breakfast.
Md Foysal Ahamed, Assistant Brand Manager of Golden Harvest told Bangladesh Post, that the overall market of frozen food has grown 30 to 40 percent during the pandemic. Most of the companies that deal with frozen food has benefited during this time.
“Our business mainly witnessed growth during the first wave of the pandemic, but the growth rate was not maintained later accordingly. However, the market is stable right now”, he said.
He said that nuggets, sausage and other snacks items have also witnessed major sales along with ‘parota’.
Regarding export items, he said that the export of non-veg items and ‘parota’ has surged during this time.
Zakaria Hossain, General Manager (Branding, Marketing and Sales) of Kazi Food Industries echoed the same.
He said that the frozen food sector of Kazi Food Industries has witnessed a growth of 15 to 18 percent whereas the overall industry witnessed a growth of 10 to 12 percent.
“We are expecting an average increase of 15 to 20 percent in the coming years in the post-pandemic period when everything goes back to normalcy”, he said.