Over one million tons of frozen products consumed in 2023 (1,016,358), with a slight growth in volume compared to 2022 (+0.14%) and a new all-time high in annual per capita consumption which, for the first time, exceeds the 17 kilo barrier, reaching 17.2 (+2.4% vs. 2022), for a market value of 5.8 billion euros, up from over 5.4 billion the previous year (+6.5%). These are the numbers that, in 2023, pushed the frozen food sector to reach unprecedented heights, driven by ‘Out of home’, which recorded a growth of +5.3% compared to the previous year, offsetting both the small decrease in Retail (-1.1%) and the more significant ones of door-to-door (-8%) and e-commerce (-5%). This is what emerges from the “Annual Report on Frozen Food Consumption”, produced by IIAS – Istituto Italiano Alimenti Surgelati, to photograph the trend of the sector in Italy in the last year. “2023 was a year of titanic challenges: from the supply of raw materials, hindered in the first months of the year by extreme weather events such as drought, to the serious difficulties encountered in logistics and transport at a global level, to the relentless increase in inflation, particularly penalizing the food sector”, explains the President of IIAS, Giorgio Donegani.
Despite these critical issues, 2023 ended positively, thanks above all to the strong push from Out-of-Home, which rebalanced the gap created with Retail, after the definitive exit from the two-year lockdown (2020-2021) which had led to an exceptional boom in domestic consumption (+14% in 2021 compared to 2019). The surveys conducted on the first five months of 2024 reveal encouraging data also in relation to Retail, which indicates the excellent stability of purchases with a very slight drop in volume of -0.5% compared to the previous year (-1.1%). A positive figure that is not surprising, given the now unanimous appreciation of Italians towards these products”. Going into the detail of the analysis of the individual product categories, even in 2023 we find vegetables confirming their leadership in terms of volumes consumed in Retail, with over 215,000 tons. Taste and ease of preparation are instead the prerogatives that have pushed frozen potatoes to second place among the preferences of Italians.
And frozen fish products in third place on the podium. Ready meals follow in fourth place in the ranking. Frozen pizzas deserve a separate mention: on the one hand, in 2023 they reached 63,500 tons, with a decrease of -6.2% compared to the almost 68,000 tons of 2022; on the other hand, this reduction is essentially attributable to the recovery of out-of-home consumption. However, it should be noted that this segment continues to innovate by introducing, for example, new formats and ingredients, to keep up with the different needs of consumers.