A grocery store used to be a place where people, you know, bought groceries to take home for making dinner. These days, grocery stores are our de facto home kitchens, too, turning out hot meals that, when combined with all other prepared supermarket foods, account for billions of dollars in sales. Yes, that’s billions with a “b,” as in “big boatload of bucks.”
Not about to miss out on the gravy train, supermarket chains continue to jump into the prepared foods market — or expand the line they’ve already launched. Rotisserie chicken has been commonplace for years, but now you can find a vast world of ready-to-eat foods at your grocery store: slow-smoked barbecue, artichoke flan, Chinese stir-fries, pork scaloppine, Vietnamese pho, spaghetti and meatballs, grilled tofu with cranberry-chili glaze, entire spreads based on Indian cuisine, even menus catering to seasonal holidays, whether Thanksgiving or Mardi Gras.
“People eat with their eyes,” says Chuck Berardi, regional executive chef for the Pennsylvania division of Wegmans. “I think they really have a difficult time walking by a bar that has hot food displayed when it’s so appetizing and the aromas are in the air. To me, you can’t walk by it.”
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