My mother is helping your job security if you’re working at
a processing plant that makes frozen foods.
She’s a lover of all things microwavable. The easier the
better. Just bring on the Stouffer’s chicken pot pies - her favorite at the
moment. Running a close second are frozen Asian-themed meals.
The funny thing is, I grew up at a time when my mother was
in the kitchen making most of our meals from scratch. Yet, she has evolved into
a frozen food junkie. I should add that my mother is going to be 91 in a few
months, so I shouldn’t be surprised that she has finally rejected the effort
behind scrubbing, chopping, dicing and shredding raw vegetables, not to mention
the dredging, basting, marinating and sometimes hours-long cooking of meat and
poultry.
So, bring on the frozen food that requires all the specialty
equipment that precedes its appearance in her Frigidaire freezer. She may be
elderly, but she’s not the only one whose once-cold attitude toward frozen
meals has thawed.
According to the American Frozen Foods Institute and
Euromonitor International, back in 2004, frozen food sales were $41 billion.
Last year they reached $56 billion, with 2013 projected to reach $65 billion.
If you’re involved in a cooling or freezing operation at a
food-processing facility, thank you for feeding my mother. But you also might
want to thank her - and lots of other women - for her help in keeping your
production line running. (Women still do most of the meal preparation in the
United States.)
Unpleasant as the recession is, it’s pushed up the
consumption of frozen food. Many stay-at-home mothers have gone back to work to
make ends meet, and when the kids holler “What’s for dinner?” each night, there
needs to be something to put on their plates, and fast.
Anne Armel, Group Publisher, armela@bnpmedia.com
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