The frozen food and ice cream category is now worth over £4.9bn. Birds Eye Wall's newly published Frozen Food Factfile shows that 1998 was a much better year for the total frozen food category with value growth of 3.5 per cent equating to an extra £171m over 1997 figures.

In fact frozen foods, exclusive of ice cream, rose by a value of 3.7 per cent giving a retail turnover of £3.756bn according to the report.

Despite wrapped impulse ice cream being seriously affected by the terrible summer in 1998. Take Home ice cream actually increased in value by 6 per cent to a total of £614m.

According to the report, the star performer in frozen foods was pizza, rising by 17.6 per cent to £340.8m annually. In fact, the category has doubled in volume between 1991 and 1997. The growth has clearly been driven by the shift towards convenient and easily-prepared foods and amazing innovations both in the range of flavours and also in the new 'rising pizzas' which should herald genuine new growth for the category in the future.

Another star performer was the premium burger category which is up by 46 per cent in value terms. The massive growth in the premium burger category has been driven by the launch of high quality premium product offerings. The introduction of products which offer great taste, quality and substantiality have very much contributed to the growth. This was exemplified by the successful introduction of the Birds Eye Mega Burger which is made with Aberdeen Angus beef. As with pizza, it is a clear enhancement of quality which is carrying the market forward.

Positive results from the drive towards higher quality was further demonstrated in the fish finger category where premium fish fingers increased by 10 per cent to £67.5m, battered fish fingers increased by 12.7 per cent, but value fish fingers were down by 4.4 per cent to £25.2m, producing a category only just short of £100m turnover.

Another star performer was potato products rising by an overall 12.7 per cent to £351m according to the Birds Eye report. The whole range performed well with oven chips increasing by 23 per cent and added value chips increasing by 17 per cent, demonstrating further the drive up-market when compared with ordinary chips down by 4.7 per cent at £48.6m.

1998 was a great improvement for the total frozen food category which out-performed the total food market, which grew by 2.5 per cent, representing a highly creditable performance in extremely difficult trading conditions, due mainly to enhanced quality and value for money.

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