Allplants and Muscle Foods see surge in demand in UK as consumers seek healthy and nutritious ready meals

Already on an upward curve prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, the online meal kit and food delivery service market in the UK is enjoying an unprecedented boom. Market research firm Hexa predicts that the meal kit delivery sector will be worth $9 billion by 2025 compared to $2.52 billion in 2017.

At the beginning of 2020, the online food delivery segment in the UK grew by 11.5%, with a clear preference for healthy, nutritious food.

The lion’s share of the UK market is currently held by the London-based company Allplants, which offers plant-based ready-to-eat meals. In late March, the startup recorded 250% gains in one week. “With 65 million people now eating at home, three times a day, there is an increased demand for healthy and nutritious chef-made and ready-to-eat meals,” said Allplants founder Alex Petrides.

Muscle Foods, which distributes a mixture of high-protein foods through e-commerce, is also seeing a boom in demand. The company offers ready-to-eat meat meals accompanied by beans or potatoes. Since the coronavirus outbreak, the company has seen unprecedented levels of traffic to its website, with new customers accounting for around 68% of its sales in March. Revenues are up by 559%.