Recent surge of ready meals in South Korea: can they be healthy alternatives?

Abstract

Objective: The present study analysed and compared the nutritional qualities of private brand (PB) and national brand (NB) ready meal (RM) products in South Korea. Design: Data on RM products were collected via a food information database (EatSight) between February and May of 2017. A total of ninety-one PB products from a leading discount store chain in South Korea and 415 NB products were selected and divided into four main categories of 'refrigerated soups/stews', 'refrigerated noodles', 'frozen rice/noodles' and 'frozen dumplings'. Nutritional information was extracted for each product and analyses were performed to compare nutritional differences. Setting: South Korea. Participants: A total of 506 RM products. Results: PB products explained the highest percentage of refrigerated RM products while NB products occupied the highest percentage of frozen ones. Notably, main PB and NB products showed evident nutritional problems. Among PB products, refrigerated soups/stews were significantly higher in energy, fat, Na, saturated fat and trans-fat. Likewise, in the case of NB products, frozen rice/noodles were significantly higher in Na and saturated fat. Particularly, overall Na contents were high. When the Korean guidance on traffic-light labelling was applied, a mere 0 center dot 2 and 5 center dot 9 % of total RM products showed all four and three green lights, respectively. Meanwhile, those with no green lights accounted for 42 center dot 3 %. Conclusions: Although it is difficult to draw a definitive conclusion on the comparative nutritional qualities due to the lack of consistency in the results, the study suggests that there is room to improve the nutritional qualities of overall RM products.