Putting real food back into convenience

Why do things the hard way? Over recent decades, there has been a huge increase in the convenience offering: ready meals, soups and sauces plus much more. They are easy to prepare. Just add a little water to a powdered mix and hey presto, you have a pasta sauce. But more and more people want ‘real’ food, as demonstrated by the growing group of start-ups that are producing intrinsically good and hence honest and also tasty food.

Although I personally really enjoy cooking, I’m not against convenience products. Even I find it useful to have a few products in my kitchen cupboard that make it easier for me to prepare and serve a tasty meal within an acceptable amount of time. What’s my favourite shortcut? It’s concentrated stock by LaCroix. Yes, it contains preservatives, but it nevertheless adds so much more flavour than the stock cubes that are primarily made from yeast extract and aromas. I can no longer cook without it.

One thing I do struggle to accept is the ease with which many food manufacturers are increasingly paring down their products for cost reasons and, in order to minimise risks, turning to chemical additives with unnecessary regularity. The result: products that primarily comprise lots of fillers, stabilisers and flavour enhancers in order to disguise the lack of real ingredients.

Obviously there is also another way. Convenience is handy – there’s nothing wrong with packet mixes – but producers should at least make sure that they contain real food. My advice to manufacturers of these kinds of products is: restrict yourself as much as possible to recognisable ingredients that can also be bought loose. And, above all, look at the small start-ups, because they’re doing really well right now. The market is changing, even if you’re not changing with it. 

Dennis Favier