“Ready to eat” are sweeping supermarkets. It is because we no longer buy products, we buy time

Juan Roig He said it And half Spain was thrown on him: “In the middle of the 21st century there will be no kitchens.” Discussing whether it was a prophecy or a simple interested provocation, eight million Spaniards were already giving him right. Those who were buying prepared dishes, according to someone so little suspicious of having an interest like the EFE agency.

Not that Roig is a visionary guru, he was simply reading the data that others wanted to ignore.

The numbers speak for themselves: the consumption of dishes “ready to eat” bought in supermarkets (or in that genius of Naming‘Merchants’) It has grown 48% in just two years.

Mercadona has this section In 1,260 storesbut Lidl also launched its own rangeAlcampo sells Up to 200 different dishes according to the store and Day has 180 products like this. Even Ikea has climbed to that car: to sell, more than ingredients, solutions.

AND We are not talking about junk food or commitment solutionslike those packaged potato tortillas that made Belcebú cry. Now we see paellas, homemade croquettes, lentils, lasagers or potato tortillas themselves that know exactly what we hope they know.

The trend goes beyond the supermarket: in the last twenty years the consumption of this type of dishes has multiplied by five. Supermarkets are simply integrating it into their offer and taking advantage of the fact that they are a usual place of passage, not a concrete destination such as the food houses.

The nuance that explains this boom is that We are not buying exactly food, we are buying time. It is a symptom of change of our priorities. We are not stopping cooking for lazy, but by exhausted.

Maybe also because we have more options what to do with that time recovered. Our parents had three television channels and the bar dominoes; We have platforms of streamingvideo games, Yoga online classes, cheap Ryanair tickets, establishments oriented towards “experiences” and an infinite offer of stimuli competing for our attention.

It may simply Let’s be less willing to give up those two hours of kitchen when we know everything we could do with them. If we add the paid work, the domestic, the displacements and the care, the royal days exceed the 60 hours per week, according to the National Survey of Working Conditions of the INE.

What we buy with each prepared dish is not just food: it’s a break. Returned time. A truce. And that’s why they succeed.

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Outstanding image | Mercadona