Frozen-food factoids to digest

Frozen food. It's quick, it's convenient and lots of folks eat it, even if some aren't too willing to own up to it. Here are some frosty facts to chew on.

• Slightly more than half (53 percent) of all American households use frozen dinners.

• Who eats frozen dinners? Shoppers ages 18 to 24, those older than 75, one-person households and consumers who are single.

• Approximately 400 new frozen-food products are introduced each year.

• Market forces include demographic changes toward more two-career and single-parent households, concern for health and wellness, and an increasing interest in world cuisines and flavors.

• Mexican frozen foods, from dinners/entrees to appetizers to breakfast foods, are experiencing double-digit growth in sales.

• Nearly $28 billion worth of frozen foods were sold in 2005, including dinners/entrees; poultry, seafood and meat; vegetables; pizza; breakfast foods; appetizers/snacks. Dinner/entrees was the largest category of the six outlined above, accounting for nearly 31 percent of frozen-food sales. That's $8.6 billion in sales.

• Frozen-food sales peak in January, and sink to the lowest point in July and August. Diet-oriented frozen dinners and entrees sells best at the new year, fueled by consumers' resolutions to lose weight.

• At least 300 companies market frozen food in the United States. Three of them rack up more than $1 billion in retail sales of frozen food: Nestle USA (Stouffer's, Stouffer's Lean Cuisine); ConAgra Foods (Healthy Choice, Marie Callender's, Kid Cuisine); Kraft Foods (Kraft South Beach Diet).

• Supermarkets ring up more frozen-food sales than any other source, accounting for 71 percent in 2005.

Source: Packaged Facts, publishing division of MarketResearch.com