Top Picks

Leave work, pick up the kids, drop off the drycleaning, get gas . . . Time-starved consumers continue to make home-meal replacement one of the hottest trends in today's marketplace. Whether it's a personal chef service, a supermarket offering prepared meals or a grocery store/restaurant hybrid ("grocerant"), the food offered by these alternatives to traditional fast-food fare is being gobbled up.

"Convenience is everything in our world now," observes Richard Heyman, founder of Foozi, a Brentwood, California-based food establishment that features everything from a takeout restaurant and a gourmet deli to an espresso bar and a refrigerator stocked with freshly made meals. "Home-meal replacement gives customers options."

Heyman, who likens Foozi to the grocerant concept popularized by Eatzi's in Texas, plans to open a second Southern California location of his six-month-old business in early 1998. "The demographics are wide open," he says of his customer base. "Everyone's [coming here]."

Indeed, market research firm NPD Group reports that more restaurant meals were taken out than eaten in last year. Recognizing this, supermarkets included in a recent Food Marketing Institute study expressed an intention to offer prepared meals in an overwhelming 82 percent of their stores this year. And even home-meal replacement industry pioneer Boston Market is testing a new variation of its concept featuring an increased emphasis on meals designed to heat (and eat) at home.

Of concern to home-meal replacement entrepreneurs, naturally, is how much such high-profile competition will eat into their own success. Heyman, for one, isn't worried. After all, convenience and high-quality food hit the spot.

This article was originally published in the December 1997 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Top Picks.