WELWYN GARDEN CITY, England – Tesco reports that instead of just fruit and vegetables, its produce aisles are now offering shoppers more than 400 fresh and healthy, ready-to-eat meals, snacks and side dishes.

In the last two years, rising demand for these prepared foods has grown by 10%, and their popularity is allowing growers and producers to utilize all of their crops, such as cauliflower, carrots, broccoli and butternut squash, leading to less food waste.

For example, Tesco says that cauliflowers considered too small to sell on their own are now being used to make cauliflower couscous. And wonky shaped carrots are now being used to make carrot spaghetti.

“For growing numbers of shoppers, the fruit and veg aisle is now the first destination they will head to, to find innovative and delicious new meals if they are pressed for time and looking for fresh food they can cook quickly,” said Elizabeth Hall, Tesco’s prepared produce buyer. “Until about five years ago the main prepared fruit and veg items were stir fry mixes, sides like roasting trays of vegetables, and fruit snack packs. These have been so popular that we began to expand the range in order to further help customers who are short on time but still want to experience the joy of cooking fresh food.”

Demand at Tesco has particularly rocketed over the last two years with:

• Spiralized vegetables such as courgetti or carrot spaghetti, increasing by 40%
• Edamame bean salads growing by more than 100%
• Organic prepared salads up by nearly 90%
• Healthy fruit snacks such as melon and mango ‘fingers’ up 400%

Tesco is also planning to extend its range of prepared vegetable, fruit and salad dishes with mushroom burgers and beetroot burgers, potato wedges with katsu dip and crunchy quinoa, and fajita mix with peppers and onions.

“It’s not only time-pressed shoppers that we are catering [to] with these new fresh ready meals and snacks,” said Hall. “Healthy foods such as butternut fusilli and butternut lasagna sheets are meeting the needs of customers wanting to cut down on carbs and look after themselves through simple alternatives.”