Thailand Ready Meals Market Report 2025
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The Thai ready meals market is losing daily consumption. To reverse this trend and retain regular users, the category must revitalise consumer interest and encourage consistent engagement.
Efficiency is key but shouldn’t come at the cost of quality. There’s an opportunity to boost appeal through smart nutrition, combining convenience with functional ingredients, particularly for weight management.
International dishes, like sukiyaki, are more popular than local options, presenting opportunities for brands to explore emerging cuisines and introduce the Mediterranean diet to the category.
Brands can also stand out with targeted solutions, such as healthy snacks, breakfast options and children’s meals. Purchase this report to learn how to gain a competitive edge with smart nutrition, global menus and tailored solutions.
This report looks at the following areas:
- Frequency of consumption for various ready meal formats
- Attributes that consumers perceive as offering good value in ready meals
- New menu flavours consumers find appealing in ready meals
- Factors that influence the choice of one ready meal over another
- Consumer perceptions and attitudes toward ready meals
Key opportunities lie in enhancing value with smart nutrition for weight management, driving world cuisine menu innovations and offering targeted meal solutions.
Rashmika Khanijou, Senior Analyst
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Mintel’s perspective
- Key issues covered in this Report
- Overview
- The outlook for ready meals in Thailand
- Rule Rebellion: the quest for new, out-of-the-ordinary experiences drives cuisine and format blurring in ready meals
- Maximise value of ready meals with smart nutrition
- International cuisine menus attract more interest than local ones, with sukiyaki on top
- Graph 1: menu flavours of interest in ready meals, 2024
- Motivate purchase with targeted ready meal innovations
- Graph 2: select features that would motivate purchase of one ready meal over another, 2024
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KEY TRENDS
- What you need to know
- Urbanisation and rise in demand for efficient meals
- Lifestyle shifts warrant convenient meal options
- Thai market giants are providing convenient, quality meal solutions, targeting different urban locations with high foot traffic
- Food delivery apps, such as Grab, push accessibility of ready meals
- Global ready meal innovations focus on compatibility with kitchen appliances to enhance efficiency
- AI is reshaping efficiency with ready-to-cook meals
- Quest for new experiences
- Mintel’s 2025 Global Food and Drink Trend: Rule Rebellion
- Flavour innovations will be key to thinking outside the box
- Exploration of new foods, cuisines and cultures grows as Thais seek new experiences
- Target consumers as perfectly imperfect beings
- Fusion flavours are gaining momentum in ready meals as consumers look beyond the norm
- Thais are breaking the rules and embracing snacks as meals
- Ready meal brands break the norm and blur the line between meals and snacking foods, celebrating ‘anything at anytime eating’
- The pursuit for healthy living: rise in preventative health
- Processing will factor into food and drink decisions
- Whole food intake and natural ingredients are coming to the fore for Thais
- Graph 3: factors most important when shopping for food, 2024
- New global ready meal launches spotlight whole, plant ingredients
- Mintel’s 2025 Global Food and Drink Trend: Fundamentally Nutritious
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WHAT CONSUMERS WANT AND WHY
- What you need to know
- Chilled ready meals continue to dominate as the most regularly consumed option in Thailand
- Graph 4: consumption frequency of ready meal formats in the last three months, 2024
- The Thai ready meal market is losing out on daily consumption
- Graph 5: daily consumption of ready meals across formats, 2022-24
- Regular users of ready meals: Urban Gen Zs
- Graph 6: regular users of ready meals in the last three months, by generation, financial situation and area, 2024
- Communicate value with smart nutrition
- Efficiency is paramount, but not at the cost of quality
- Graph 7: features that show good value when choosing ready meals, 2024
- Convey efficiency with reduced preparation times
- Brands highlight convenience and quality by offering efficient home-cooked and restaurant-style meals
- Smart kitchens and new appliances offer a piggybacking NPD opportunity
- Maximise value with smart nutrition
- Thai brands have focused on convenience claims, with a gap in the functional space
- Graph 8: share of product launches in the prepared meal category, by top claims, 2021-24
- Introducing the Fast and Functional Foodies
- Graph 9: Fast and Functional Foodies, by generation, area and working situation, 2024
- Key opportunity in the realm of smart nutrition: weight management
- Graph 10: consumers selecting ‘help with weight management’ as a feature that would motivate purchase of one ready meal over another, Fast and Functional Foodies vs total, 2024
- Dial up the use of protein and fibre for weight management – key nutrients that communicate value among Fast and Functional Foodies
- Graph 11: select features that show good value when choosing ready meals, by Fast and Functional Foodies vs total, 2024
- Plant-based diets evolve among Fast and Functional Foodies in the pursuit of weight management
- Help consumers manage their weight with low-carb, high-protein innovations as part of a ‘food as medicine’ approach
- Provide plant-based meal options rich in protein and fibre to meet market demand for weight management
- Take a holistic approach to delivering essential nutrients for weight management
- Extend into support of fitness goals with balanced nutrition
- Drive appeal with vegetable-forward and high-protein innovations positioned for active lifestyles
- The future: ready meals infused with -biotics for weight management
- Graph 12: agreement that the presence of probiotics is a feature that would motivate purchase of one ready meal over another, by Fast and Functional Foodies vs total, 2024
- Include prebiotics in ready meals for gut enhancement, driving a 360-degree approach to weight management
- Menu analysis
- International world cuisine menus garner stronger interest than local menus, with sukiyaki at the top
- Graph 13: menu flavours of interest in ready meals, 2024
- Ready meals are the gateway to international cuisines
- Graph 14: factors that drove consumption of international cuisine foods in the last six months, 2024
- Sukiyaki is an emerging menu flavour in the Thai ready meals market
- Offer healthy and nutritious sukiyaki ready meals
- Capitalise on the healthy image of sukiyaki with Japanese cuisines, and extend into trending Wagyu sukiyaki
- Bangkokians are particularly interested in Peking duck – a new meal to introduce to the market
- Graph 15: interest in trying ‘Peking duck’ menu flavour in ready meals, by region, 2024
- Dumplings, wontons, and dim sum: emerging stars of Chinese cuisine in Thailand’s ready meals market
- Mac and cheese is a novel menu item that poses an opportunity for premiumisation
- Graph 16: interest in trying mac and cheese menu flavour in ready meals, by financial situation, 2024
- Get creative in mac and cheese innovations to enhance indulgence appeal
- Position ready meals as an easy route to international cuisines for urbanites
- Graph 17: interest in products that will help simplify the cooking of ‘exotic international cuisines’, by area, 2024
- Exotic cuisines: opportunities in Japanese yakiniku, Korean gochujang and Indian tikka masala curry
- Offer an easy path to ‘exotic’ international cuisines emerging in the market
- Push exoticness: become the gateway to the Mediterranean diet
- Be the gateway towards trial of the Mediterranean diet
- While international cuisines gain attention, ethnic local dishes are still important, especially for older Thais
- Graph 18: consumers agreeing that ‘ethnic local dishes’ show good value when choosing ready meals, by generation, 2024
- Crossing regional borders? Laab travels South while Kao Soi stays close to home
- Graph 19: interest in select menu flavours in ready meals, by region, 2024
- Differentiate offerings with targeted solutions
- Motivate purchase with occasion-targeted innovations: tap into snacking
- Graph 20: select features that would motivate purchase of one ready meal over another, 2024
- Ease breakfast hassle, targeting affluent Gen Z Bangkokians
- Graph 21: consumers that strongly agree that among all the meal times in the day, breakfast has become a very rushed meal, by generation, region and financial situation, 2024
- Ready meals can meet consumers’ needs in the morning, minimising breakfast hassle
- Deliver convenient formats and subscriptions to nutritious breakfast choices
- Ready meals for children present a strong growth opportunity
- Develop a range of ready meals focused on children’s nutrition and clean eating
- Meet nutritional needs of kids by targeting parents and driving palatability
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APPENDIX
- Consumer research methodology
- Social data research methodology
- Consumer research questions
- Generations
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