We are what we eat – and what we drive and wear and, increasingly, how we live. The credit crunch and the rapid collapse of hitherto solid financial institutions are calling into question many of the basic assumptions on which modern consumer societies are structured. The pursuit of growth at all costs and the unspoken assertion that profit and acquisition are the chief goals of life are being called into question, especially as people lose their jobs and find it difficult to sell their houses.

A move away from the processed, the convenient, the instant, towards the more lasting and the more fulfilling may well characterise the years yet to come. Convenience eating is likely to lose some of its appeal in this context and the industry will need to find a new way forward, very possibly through offering its consumers assistance in returning to more creative and rewarding kitchen time, but without the drudgery of preparation entirely from scratch.