Retailers have slashed the amount of meat in ready meals over the last year as the prices of beef and chicken have soared.
According to data from market research company Assosia, analysed by The Grocer, retailers including Morrisons, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose have all been reformulating their ready meals to cut costs.
This has now lead to accusations of ’skimpflation’ – the practice in which manufacturers slash costs by quietly downgrading the quality of ingredients or the amount of key ingredients used.
For example, the amount of chicken in Morrisons Spanish Chicken & Potatoes (1.35kg) fell from 21% to 12%, whilst its The Best Lasagne Al Forno (400g) saw the proportion of beef cut from 30% to 26%.
Tesco’s Tex Mex Chicken Enchiladas (480g) saw chicken percentage drop from 27% to 20%. However, its Beef Lasagne (1.5kg) and Spaghetti Bolognese (400g) saw beef content drop from 23% to 19%.
Last month, it was revealed that trust in UK supermarkets has dropped to its lowest point since the occurrence of the horsemeat scandal more than a decade ago, as the majority of households grapple with rising prices.
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Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Lasagne Ready Meal (400g) saw its beef content cut from 28% to 26%.
Waitrose reduced the amount of chicken used in much of its curry range, including Butter Chicken Curry, Chicken Balti, Chicken Saag Masala and others, with a decrease in their chicken content from 47% to 41%.
A Waitrose spokeswoman said the changes were made after the new recipes performed better in benchmarking tests.
“We’ve kept the same prices since this change and we continue to use industry-leading higher welfare chicken from British farms across our entire ready meals range,” she told The Grocer.
The news comes as Waitrose has confirmed that all of its own-brand Italian continental meat is now produced to the highest animal welfare standards.
