Ethnic frozen foods are hot

NEW YORK — At Patel Brothers' fragrant grocery, you can almost get lost these days in the frozen-food section.

Two years ago, there were three freezers in the store that caters to people from the Indian subcontinent in New York's Jackson Heights neighborhood. Now, there are 55, aisle after aisle crammed with inexpensive, ready-to-eat versions of chicken, chickpeas and vegetable balls in sauces and spices.

A few blocks away, at Pacific Supermarket, which specializes in Chinese and Thai food, frozen dinners fill two long aisles.

In Seattle, the sprawling Uwajimaya supermarket has 11 aisles of freezers. "We stock American-style TV dinners for Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese customers, either imported from those countries or made here," said Misao Watabe, grocery manager.

Other ethnic groceries, including those offering Mexican food, are enjoying explosive growth in sales of frozen meals to immigrant and second-generation customers with less time, inclination or ability to cook the foods of their homeland.

Filling the racks are rapidly growing food companies, many of them local or regional, that find serving ethnic shops is easier and more profitable than selling to grocery chains. As their business builds, they are attracting the attention of major corporations.

"In the current economy, almost everyone is working and couples cannot spend time cooking," said Amit Gandhi, vice president of Rasraj Foods, a manufacturer of frozen vegetarian entrees. "We also find that second-generation Indians who don't know how to cook traditional dishes buy a lot of it."

At his 7,500-square-foot manufacturing facility in the Jamaica section, there is frenetic activity. Raw food is delivered, a spice exporter from India waits to catch Gandhi's attention in the front office and the phone rings constantly as restaurant-owners place orders.

Inside, a dozen workers — mostly Indian and Hispanic — chop vegetables, prepare spicy pastes, stir huge vats. In another room, food is packed into plastic containers and put on trolleys, waiting to be wheeled into freezers.

The market for ethnic frozen foods reached $2.2 billion in 2001, the last year of complete figures, according to the American Frozen Food Institute.

The biggest market is for Italian food, totaling $1.28 billion in 2001, up 6.1 percent from 2000. The overall frozen-food market also grew by 6.1 percent, totaling $26.6 billion.

Mexican food sales grow

But Mexican frozen-food sales grew 20.6 percent to $488 million. Asian frozen entrees, which include Chinese, Thai and Indian, were up 12.3 percent, totaling $463 million, according to A.C. Nielsen, the market-research firm.

The steady growth in popularity of ethnic frozen food is partly a result of changing demographics. By 2010, the Hispanic-American population in the United States is expected to grow 96 percent and the Asian-American population is expected to grow 110 percent.

And other Americans are enjoying dishes once considered exotic. "The high fear factor of ethnic foods is disappearing," said Rony Zibara, director of brand innovation at FutureBrand, a New York consulting firm.

The busy lives of many immigrants help sales.

Six nights out of seven, it is well past midnight when Sanjay Kumar, a software manager at the brokerage firm Timberhill, arrives home from his office in downtown Stamford, Conn.

His refrigerator is bare, but his freezer is full. So Kumar, who is 32 and lives alone, dines on chicken curry, chickpeas, okra cooked with tomatoes and stuffed parathas. Total cost: about $8.75.

"It takes me six minutes to have a meal ready and I spend less than 2 percent of my monthly budget on food," Kumar said.

Ramakumar Janakiraman, a doctoral student at the University of Southern California, said he especially likes frozen food during busy exam periods. "I buy dishes that are too complicated to cook," he said.

Making the food are mostly small businesses linked to immigrant populations from Asia, Latin America and Africa. But they are expanding beyond their own ethnic origins. Even as it markets its Green Guru line of Indian dishes, Deep Foods of Union, N.J., is adding Thai and Chinese entrees.

Specialized in snacks

Deep Foods started out in the late 1970s as a family-owned snack business occupying about 500 square feet. It started making vegetarian frozen food in the mid-1980s. It has since diversified into nonvegetarian, natural and low-sodium dishes. Its plant now fills 79,000 square feet.

Paul Jaggi, general manager and founder of Framingham, Mass.-based Ethnic Gourmet Foods, took a different route to success, selling his business to Heinz Foods for an undisclosed amount.

"I am running the business for them for three years and will launch Vietnamese and Brazilian food later this year," he said.

Heinz sees frozen dishes as a growth area along with organic and natural foods, according to Robin Teets, the company's manager of communications for North America. Just before acquiring Ethnic Gourmet, Heinz bought a Mexican food manufacturer, Delimex.

Food-industry consultant Michael O'Sullivan said Europe is ahead of the United States in terms of big companies, like Nestlé and Unilever, buying up smaller ethnic-food manufacturers. But the trend could grow here.

"Basic frozen food has been tried and is now a bit boring," said O'Sullivan, a vice president with the consulting firm Bain. "Ethnic will happen next."