Market Overview

The meal service market (total 6 categories) for FY2023 has risen to 4,791,500 million yen, 103.9% of the size of the preceding fiscal year. Despite a fall during the pandemic due to behavior restrictions, the market has been on the way to recovery to close in on the level before COVID, as customer footfall has gradually returned since FY2021 when such restrictions were lifted. FY2023 has seen expansions in all six categories that comprise the market. 

Noteworthy Topics

Manpower Shortage Fueled Spreading of Complete Ready-to-Eat Menus

Among the meal service market, hospitals and elderly care facilities require meal services for three meals per day for 365 days, which causes such facilities to suffer from chronic shortage of licensed cooks and dietitians. Especially, securing staff members to prepare breakfast who are in need from early hours is a great challenge. To cope with it and to aim streamlining and manpower-saving for meal services, deployment of processed food and completely prepared meal kits has been encouraged. Recently, complete sets of ready-to-eat meals are widespread, as they can be served from main dish, sides, small bowls to even desserts after being just reheated and arranged on plates.    

Future Outlook

The meal service market, being on the rally, expects another growth for FY2024 and beyond. Its size is projected to exceed 5 trillion yen by FY2026 and to reach 5,125,400 million yen by FY2028, 107.0% of FY2023.

When compared the market size between FY2023 and FY2028 by category, increase is anticipated for office on-site cooking service, bento delivery service, and meal service for elderly care facilities, while decline is expected for meal service for hospitals as well as for kindergarten/childcare centers, whereas a level-off is projected for school meals. For the market composition for FY2028, meal service for elderly is likely to expand while that for hospitals to shrink.

Research Outline