The latest frozen food retail statistics reveal that frozen food continues to excel with value growth across almost every category in the 52 weeks up to 18 June 2017.

The latest statistics, provided by Kantar Worldpanel, value the retail frozen food market as a whole at over £5.8bn having seen 3% value growth year on year, outperforming growth in the big four retailers which saw sales increases of between 1% and 2.3%.

As expected, ice cream and confectionery categories are driving growth with a combined increase in value of over half a million pounds year on year. These two categories, which include on trend frozen fruit and also saw 5% and 8.7% volume growth respectively (yoy), now represent 22% of the value of the total frozen food retail market.

Another category performing well is frozen vegetables which has seen a 4.5% value and 3.4% volume growth year on year. This category includes notable hero products such as sweet potato and diced onions which tap in to the growing consumer trend for convenient nutrition and easy meal-prep.

John Hyman, chief executive of British Frozen Food Federation says, "This quarters results are particularly encouraging with almost across the board value growth and exceptional volume growth in many categories.

"More and more people are jumping on the meal-prep trend and frozen makes it even easier to access convenient yet nutritious food as well as the occasional sweet treat which is seeing sales rise."