Frozen food having its day in the sun amid pandemic

In a moment of crisis, many reach out for comfort foods.

And that is exactly how urban residents are behaving as uncertainty about the future and morbid fear reign supreme, propping up the demand for frozen foods up at a time when a vast range of consumer goods and services have fallen prey to the global coronavirus pandemic.

As the coronavirus situation is only getting worse, restaurants and fast food joints, which could have satisfied their craving for comfort food, have kept their doors shut, shoppers are to the supermarket aisles to pick up ready-to-eat chicken and beef products, the closest substitute.

Sales of chicken-based food products are bested only by those of frozen parathas these days, according to industry people.

And 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, chief executive officer of Kazi Food Industries, one of the leading frozen foods and chicken products processors in Bangladesh.

Active for the last one and a half decades, the company has found a niche among the convenience-seeking middle-class and working families.

Apart from marketing its frozen foods through supermarkets and neighbourhood shops, Kazi Food Industries has 150 quick-service restaurants. Most of the kiosks are shut. Besides, limited opening hours for convenience and superstores are hampering sales.

The company is also facing difficulty in delivering products in many areas because of the countrywide movement control order, with its business now limited to only Dhaka and Chattogram metropolitan areas.

"We see demand in these areas. From that perspective, frozen foods are still keeping us afloat. But things could have been much better," Chaudhury added.

The market for ready-made foods and snacks has been growing fast and the pace of growth accelerated in recent years to stand from as low as Tk 300 crore to Tk 1,000 crore.

It 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 food market has not fallen to that extent. Frozen foods are moving from the shelves compared with other products that are not moving at all," he said.

As the shutdown affected demand and distribution in many parts of the country, Golden Harvest has begun home delivery to make use of its trucks that have become idle after the requirement for delivery out of Dhaka dropped.

Most of the companies in the trade have started home delivery, Samdani said. Paragon Group, one of the leading poultry breeders and processors, has found home delivery as one of the main windows to retain sales to some extent amidst a dip in demand for chickens and eggs.

The company used to supply its processed chicken to some global chain restaurants and hotels in Bangladesh but 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 the increased demand as we don't have enough delivery vans to respond 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 per cent to Tk 6 lakh after the shutdown began, said Md Lutfor Rahman, chief executive of the poultry breeder and processor.

"Shops are not open everywhere. We see an increased demand in the areas where we can access shops. In general, sales have been below the level of the pre-COVID-19 period," said Kamruzzaman Kamal, director marketing of Pran-RFL Group.

Processors are sanguine about the future. There would be a jump in the frozen food market once the lockdown ends, Samdani said.

"It is because of convenience."

Many residents in urban areas will be shaky in hiring domestic workers to make food such as traditional paratha for fear of coronavirus infection.

"We are experimenting with new products and planning to expand capacity. I think the frozen and ready-to-eat food industry is going to grow."