CHICAGO — Consumers are buying more supermarket prepared meals than they were a year ago, and they're giving supermarket meals better marks, a new Technomic study shows. A full 80% of those surveyed said they had bought at least one meal at a supermarket in a typical month and 41% said they buy at least four retailer-prepared meals per month. What's more, 55% said the retailer-prepared foods have greatly improved over the last three years and a fifth of those surveyed said they would buy even more of them if more variety were offered. They cited taste and freshness as most important when buying retailer-prepared foods, although freshness was cited by some as a factor that could be improved. The survey of more than 1,500 consumers revealed that 62% said they're buying prepared foods from retailers at the expense of fast-food restaurants. Officials at Technomic, a foodservice research/consulting firm, said consumers buying more prepared foods from retailers is also impacting family-style and casual-dining restaurants, but to a lesser extent.
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