Making meals healthier remains the top reason for people to cook/part-cook evening meals. Widespread efforts to bring plant variety to evening meals suggest an opportunity for shortcut products to powerfully leverage their convenience and waste-free proposition by embracing this topical health trend.
Pressures on household incomes have been a key driver of at-home meal occasions in recent years. Saving money is one of the main drivers of home cooking. Cautious consumer mindsets will continue to support at-home meals in the short-term, but rising real incomes will see competition from foodservice regain momentum over the period to 2029.
Strong perceptions of at-home meals as equally fun as dining out and keen interest in ideas for making these feel special highlight these as key aspects for at-home meals to mine while many people continue to limit out-of-home leisure. Health is expected to become more of a priority once incomes improve, suggesting that a ‘healthy fakeaway’ positioning should gain relevance.
This report looks at the following areas:
- Cooking habits for evening meals, including cooking completely or partly from scratch, and use of prepared meals
- Reasons for cooking evening meals from scratch and part-scratch, such as healthiness and saving money
- Factors most important when cooking/preparing an evening meal, including ease and speed
- Behaviours of home cooks, including efforts to incorporate fibre and plant variety
- Attitudes towards cooking, such as interest in making evening meals at home feel special
Pressures on household incomes have fuelled at-home meal occasions in recent years. Helping diners make these feel special can unlock high-spend occasions.
Kiti Soininen, Head of UK Food and Drink Research
Market Definitions
This report looks at consumers’ behaviours and attitudes related to cooking evening meals in the home. It explores how consumers prepare/cook evening meals, reasons for cooking evening meals at home, factors most important when cooking/preparing an evening meal, and behaviours and attitudes related to these meals.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Opportunities for evening meals at home
- Ideas for elevating evening meals spark wide appeal
- Tap strong interest in making evening meals at home feel special
- Topical better-for-you attributes hold untapped mainstream potential
- Quick and easy positioning remains crucial
- Market dynamics and outlook
- Outlook for evening meals at home
- Market drivers
- What consumers want and why
- Scratch and part-scratch cooking stand neck and neck for evening meals
- Graph 1: type of evening meal prepared most often in households, 2020-25
- Health and money remain top reasons to cook
- Graph 2: reasons for cooking evening meals completely/partly from scratch, 2023 and 2025
- Ease of preparation remains crucial for everyday meals
- Graph 3: factors most important when cooking/preparing an evening meal, 2025
- Healthy aspects are widely sought
- Graph 4: behaviours related to evening meals at home, 2025
- Ideas for elevating meals spark wide appeal
- Graph 5: attitudes towards the evening meal at home, 2025
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MARKET DYNAMICS
- Market drivers
- Three in ten see their finances as healthy
- Graph 6: the financial wellbeing index, 2016-25
- Cautious consumer spending ahead
- Graph 7: the financial confidence index, 2016-25
- Strong consumer interest in healthy eating
- Graph 8: how often people try to eat healthily, 2018-25
- Highly processed foods remain under scrutiny…
- …fuelling scratch cooking
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WHAT CONSUMERS WANT AND WHY
- Cooking and use of prepared meals for evening meals
- Scratch and part-scratch cooking stand neck and neck for evening meals
- Positive associations ensure enduring appeal of cooking
- Graph 9: type of evening meal prepared most often in households, 2020-25
- Over-45s are the top scratch cooks
- Graph 10: type of evening meal prepared most often in households, by age and gender, 2025
- Parents are core users of prepared meals, but put off by UPF concerns
- Graph 11: type of evening meal prepared most often in households, by lifestage, 2025
- Reasons for cooking evening meals
- Health and money are top reasons to cook
- Graph 12: reasons for cooking evening meals completely/partly from scratch, 2023 and 2025
- Health is the top reason to cook
- Half of cooks are looking to save money
- Spotlight ‘no waste’ to tap green and savvy sentiment
- Highlight ways to use up leftovers
- Quick-to-cook and slow-cooked call-outs remain relevant amid cautious consumer mindsets
- Factors most important when cooking/preparing an evening meal
- Ease of preparation is crucial to target everyday evening meals
- Graph 13: factors most important when cooking/preparing an evening meal, 2025
- Quick and easy positioning remains crucial
- Half of home cooks look for ease in everyday meals
- Speed and ease will also win favour for scratch-cook ingredients
- Bringing quick and easy meal solutions to life offers supermarkets an edge
- Desire for ease and ‘special’ meals drives continued relevance of slow-cooked prepared products
- Time for slow-cooked to conquer quick-to-cook and lean into ethical image of unloved cuts
- Behaviours related to the evening meal at home
- Healthy aspects are widely sought
- Graph 14: behaviours related to evening meals at home, 2025
- Topical better-for-you attributes hold untapped mainstream potential
- Healthy aspects appeal widely, though they are rarely a priority
- Explore better-for-you aspects in mainstream meals
- Tap interest in plant variety…
- …to show the value of shortcut products
- The time is right to spotlight fibre
- Attitudes towards the evening meal at home
- Ideas for elevating meals spark wide appeal
- Graph 15: attitudes towards the evening meal at home, 2025
- At-home meals enjoy a strong image as fun
- Tap at-home meals’ fun image through cooking and beyond
- Put the spotlight on variety and hands-on eating
- Help make at-home meals look special
- Mine flavour and indulgence to make meals feel special
- Look to flavour twists and textures to elevate meals
- Conversation starters will find favour
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APPENDIX
- Report scope and definitions
- Report definition
- Abbreviations and terms
- Consumer research methodology
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