They became marketable during a time when adulthood was synonymous with being in a nuclear family with a full time wife who cooks. Pretty much from their inception they were looked down on as lesser meals and mainly only used when people’s schedules don’t allow for prep time and cleanup. You often see them depicted in media as a meal turned to when people are unwel or working under duress. Like you said, they’re more expensive than just cooking but under late stage capitalism we’re pressed for time.

However the last fifteen years have seen a new commercial niche exactly for the thing you’re describing. My roommate in college had meals delivered to him with a subscription service that his parents payed for. His mother saw to it he went into his early twenties never knowing how to cook for himself, stock a pantry, or even really clean. These services have grown as an industry, you see ads for them everywhere now. Yeah there’s a lot of people who don’t know how to cook.

The ease is also not having to stock up on perishable items. I don’t have a regular schedule and cooking can come sporadically for me. Sometimes I can go a week without the ability to cook, that’s plenty of time for fresh veggies and fruits to go bad. I do bulk cook, and that helps, but that prepackaged meal I can quickly prep and throw in the oven and not have waste is pretty handy.

my grocery has chicken for 5 dollars and some sandwiches for a buck. back when fast food places had dollar menus these could not compete but now they can.

I have relied on these the past year since rescuing a younger dog. After work and getting our exercise in, I simply just don’t have the energy to cook. I’m lucky enough to have a high end grocery store near me and the prepackaged meals are reasonably priced.

I’m not an expert, but from personal experience I would hazard it’s mostly due to not having time to cook. And perhaps more than not having time, it’s not having the energy.

After work, I don’t want to cook. I might be physically exhausted from my job, or cognitively drained from dealing with bullshit. Some people work several jobs, some people have hours-long commutes. Then there’s obligations like childcare, family, or maintaining your social life. So some people literally don’t have enough hours in the day, and for others although there are technically enough hours, the time must be spent on recharging your batteries.

Some people recommend batch cooking and meal prep to counter this, but I personally find it untenable. It’s challenging to find the will to make a single meal, making one that’s five times larger is an ordeal. Add to it that I don’t really want to eat the same thing every day, and it’s a tough nut to crack.

There are almost certainly people who don’t know how to cook. Public education has been gutted in the US, so to learn cooking you probably have to rely on either your parents teaching you, or having the motivation to learn it yourself. If your parents are also struggling to find the time to cook, they probably don’t have the time to teach you either. Self-taught learning can be a crapshoot for most people: it can be too open-ended to know where to start, or discouraging when you fall into a newbie pitfall, or you focus on the wrong things.

That’s not to say it can’t be done. Self-teaching is a valuable skill that will take you far, but perhaps ironically, you have to learn how to do it yourself. Partly due to its nature, and also see above where public education has been gutted.

As for it being cheaper: maybe, but not likely. Some meals it might become cheaper to purchase that way due to economies of scale in processing, but it’s almost certainly going to be cheaper to buy the raw ingredients yourself. Exceptions might apply for stale-dated food: something that the grocer was going to discard but gave it a second life by processing means they might be able to afford to lower the price. If you’re not picky about what you’re eating, a ready-made meal that’s about to expire will probably be discounted. I still don’t think it would be cheaper than buying ingredients, but it’s definitely cheaper than a restaurant.

One thing not mentioned is access to equipment. I don’t have a rotisserie or a deep fryer. Some people might not have a full size oven, or are forced to do most of their cooking on a hot plate. Still others might not have access to a kitchen at all.

Where are you from? Ready meals are popular in the UK too, but not in Germany, for example.

The ready made meals you find near the deli in a grocery store? I mean yeah every grocery store has them. People usually buy them when they’re on their way home from work and have to spend an hour or so grocery shopping, and then have to go home and put all the groceries away and make dinner for the family. It’s easier to pick one of those up while you’re at the grocery store than to make another stop and get takeout on the way home, or to make dinner yourself when by this time it’s already getting late in the evening.

They’re not something people usually stock up on or go to the grocery store specifically to buy. They’re a convenience. Though I can see where some people that used to rely on fast food or takeout for a quick easy dinner might switch to those grocery meals as a cheaper alternative.

It’s a combination of time and cost of living.

With each passing year more adults are impoverished and/or working multiple jobs for up to 100 hours a week, leaving little time for healthier activities like cooking. (And this state of being remains no matter which ruling party holds power.)

Also, ready-made and frozen meals are generally inexpensive.

It depends on how much time and energy I have. Usually I make my pizza from scratch, including the cheese, sauce, and dough. Other times I grab a frozen pizza that is on sale.

I also make my own Mac and cheese from scratch, but sometimes I get the boxed stuff.

Both partners work in the majority of households in the US. This means that neither partner has a lot of time to dedicate to cooking without it infringing on their free time. Personally I cook a lot, and what that means is that I lose a good 4+ hours on my Sunday afternoon to chopping, cooking, and cleaning. If I wanted to do anything on Sunday, I wouldn’t be able to cook for the week.

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