Ready-to-serve holiday feasts a trendy market

Ready-to-eat Lunar New Year feasts have become a growing market in which various hotels and retailers see plenty of business potential.

Eyeing increasing need for quick and convenient Lunar New Year feasts, around eight hotels in Taipei joined the market this year, notably including Grand Formosa Regent Taipei, Sheraton Taipei Hotel, Hotel Royal Taipei, Grand Hotel, and Sherwood Taipei.

"We estimate we will sell around 800 sets of the ready-to-eat feast this year," said Daphne Wang (王金微), public relations assistant manager at Grand Formosa Regent Taipei.

That figure represents an increase of over 200 sets compared to last year.

The hotel is offering an eight-dish set feast for eight to ten people at NT$8,888 per set with a variety of choices, including Taiwanese, Cantonese and Western cuisine.

Sheraton Taipei Hotel also offers four different styles of cuisine for this year's feasts, including traditional Chinese, Cantonese, Sichuanese and Japanese, according to Isbell Huang (黃翌菁), Sheraton's special promotion and marketing assistant manager.

The hotel hopes to sell more than 500 sets priced from NT$3,500 to NT$6,000 per set.

While have been proud of their products for the freshness and quality they offer, the nation's convenience store chains said their frozen products have also received a good response from customers, seizing up to 60 percent of the market last year, the industry sources said.

Family-Mart Convenience Stores (全家便利商店), which began offering this kind of feast two years ago, said it expected to sell around 25,000 sets of the frozen feast from 1,500 outlets nationwide this year, almost twice the quantity sold last year.

"We sensed the trend that making the Lunar New Year feast is a burden to most people ... Nevertheless, customers' needs can be met and cultivated," said Susan Ko (葛素珍), Family-Mart's public relations specialist.

Family-Mart's chains also plunged themselves into the market to seize a share of it. President Chain Store Corp (統一超商) which operates 3,448 7-Eleven stores in the nation, is expected to sell around 30,000 sets of its frozen feast.

"People in the metropolitan areas have a higher capacity for this kind of ready-to-eat Lunar New Year feast," said Lillian Lin (林立莉), President Chain's public relations manager.

"We expect the market to more than double this year from a year ago, amounting to NT$500 million, and the total quantity sold by the convenience store chains would total over 74,000 sets," said Ko.

The frozen ready-to-eat feasts offered by convenience store chains cost from NT$2,000 to NT$4,288 with an average of 6 dishes and 1 soup for a family of eight to ten people.