Can you please give an overview of your brand?
Master Cook is driven by the vision of bringing emerging cuisine trends into the world food category. We continuously explore global food trends and flavours and refine them to better suit UK consumers' taste preferences.
In mid-2024, EBF introduced its first Master Cook range, featuring meal kits, noodles, and condiments. This launch was strategically aligned with the growing demand for convenient yet authentic international flavours, allowing consumers to recreate popular global dishes at home.
The range includes four meal kits – Katsu Curry, Sesame Teriyaki, Curry Udon and Yaki Soba – with pre-measured ingredients to help create chef-crafted meals in just 15 minutes.
There is also a range of dry noodles (Ramen, Udon and Soba) ideal for soup or stir-fries, Soy sauces (Premium, Dark and Light), Ramen Broth and Classic Kimchi.
How is your brand currently performing?
Establishing a foothold in a highly competitive category takes time, and it’s early days for Master Cook, which is in growth mode. We are focusing on building distribution, demonstrating where Master Cook can add value to the category, ensuring a pipeline of NPD that inspires shoppers to explore new cuisines.
Master Cook brings global flavors to UK independent retailers
That said, we are not ignoring the more well-established cuisines such as Indian – where we aim to offer propositions not currently available such as dals, where we are working on added convenience not currently available.
How is the World Foods category currently performing?
World foods is worth £1.4bn value sales in retail, with growth of +10.8%1. It is predicted to have a value growth of +14 per cent by 2029, reaching an estimated market size of £3.4bn2. The value growth was largely due to inflation, not volume.
While Indian cuisine continues to lead the retail market, Mexican became a star performer in 2023-4. We see growth in many other small cuisines including, Japanese, Thai and Korean. The Japanese category saw a significant 15 per cent spend growth which is driven by increase in volume rather than just price1.
While larger cuisines tend to be less reliant on NPD, smaller segments like Korean led the way with 21 per cent sales accounted for by NPD in 2023-241.
Do you have any new product development?
NPD is key for the Master Cook range. In recent insight reports we see a huge shift towards more regional Indian and Asian flavours than mainstream dishes. This is probably the result of consumers being comfortable with the more traditional Indian flavours and looking to explore regional authenticity.
Taste the regions of India – our new dal + rice kits offer a world of flavour in every bite.
Taking this into account, we’re currently working on a range of heat-and-eat dal + rice kits which capture regional Indian flavours somewhat new to customers. Additionally, we’re also developing a range of fan-favourite Asian sauces to launch later in the year. We work with chefs to create bold flavours consumers are looking for that add a splash of delicious convenience.
How are you supporting your brand and NPD?
As a new brand, our focus is on building strong awareness, driving trial, and ensuring sustained engagement with consumers. As a first step, this involves partnering with key independent retailers to drive visibility and implementing in-store promotions. We also support the brand through digital platforms to create more buzz. We continuously analyse market trends and consumer insights to refine the range and ensure our NPD pipeline aligns with evolving preferences.
How important are independent retailers to your brand?
Extremely important. Many independents are more open to trialling innovative or niche products than larger chains that rely on established brands, allowing new brands like Master Cook to test the market, gain feedback, and refine positioning. They don’t have the confines of range review windows and its easier for them to try a concept, test with their consumers and repeat if successful.
The world foods category is fuelled by growing excitement from pre-family and young family consumers wanting to experiment with global cuisines.
Authentic ingredients, bold flavours – everything you need for the perfect Asian meal.
This younger generation are less reliant on doing a weekly supermarket shop and instead are hunting down authentic world food flavours in their local convenience store.
The independent retail sector plays perfectly to time-poor consumers who want to be inspired with easy-to-prepare world meals.
Also, shoppers at these stores are often highly engaged, leading to organic word-of-mouth marketing. Retailers themselves often act as brand advocates, recommending new products.
What trends are occurring in the sector?
We’re experiencing a booming demand for bolder regional flavours, driven by ever-more-adventurous home cooks seeking new, authentic taste combinations. There is a clear link between the increase of at-home occasions and the type of cuisines on our plates. Also, niche cuisines like Korean and Vietnamese are gaining more interest among consumers, with 45-50% who have never eaten them now showing interest.
Around half of world cuisine consumers incorporate seasonings, spices, and convenient shortcuts like cooking sauces and ready meals into their cooking routines. The popularity of seasonings and spices aligns with the broader home-cooking trend, where consumers seek flavourful, cost-effective solutions. Meanwhile, the growing demand for shortcut products reflects the need for quick and hassle-free meal preparation, catering to time-conscious home cooks.
Describe your brand in three words …
Inspirational, trend, flavours
1 Kantar Worldpanel, 52 w/e 7th July 2024, Total Market
2 Mintel world cuisines UK report 2024
