The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to meals:
Fast food is a type of mass-produced food designed for commercial resale, with a strong priority placed on speed of service. Fast food is a commercial term, limited to food sold in a restaurant or store with frozen, preheated or precooked ingredients and served in packaging for take-out or takeaway. Fast food was created as a commercial strategy to accommodate large numbers of busy commuters, travelers and wage workers. In 2018, the fast-food industry was worth an estimated $570 billion globally.
Convenience food is food that is commercially prepared for ease of consumption, and is usually ready to eat without further preparation. It may also be easily portable, have a long shelf life, or offer a combination of such convenient traits. Convenience foods include ready-to-eat dry products, frozen food such as TV dinners, shelf-stable food, prepared mixes such as cake mix, and snack food. Food scientists now consider most of these products to be ultra-processed foods and link them to poor health outcomes.
A frozen meal, prepackaged meal, ready-made meal, ready meal (UK), frozen dinner, and microwave meal is ultra-processed food portioned for an individual. A frozen meal in the United States and Canada usually consists of a type of meat, fish, or pasta for the main course, and sometimes vegetables, potatoes, and/or a dessert. Some frozen meals feature Indian, Chinese, Mexican, and other foods of international customs. Another form of convenience food, which is merely a refrigerated ready meal that requires less heating but expires sooner, is popular.
Food processing is the transformation of agricultural products into food, or of one form of food into other forms. Food processing takes many forms, from grinding grain into raw flour, home cooking, and complex industrial methods used in the making of convenience foods. Some food processing methods play important roles in reducing food waste and improving food preservation, thus reducing the total environmental impact of agriculture and improving food security.
Swanson is a brand of TV dinners, broths, and canned poultry made for the North American and Hong Kong markets. The former Swanson Company was founded in Omaha, Nebraska, where it developed improvements of the frozen dinner. The TV dinner business is currently owned by Conagra Brands, while the broth business is currently owned by the Campbell Soup Company. TV dinner products currently sold under the brand include Swanson's Classics TV dinners and pot pies, and the current broth lineup includes chicken broth and beef broth.
Banquet Foods is a subsidiary of Conagra Brands that sells various food products, including frozen pre-made entrées, meals, and desserts. The brand is best known for its line of TV dinners.
Dream Dinners is a US food preparation franchise operation based in Snohomish, Washington. It specializes in providing space to prepare meals ahead of time for freezing and cooking at home. There are several locations in 30 states. The company was founded by Stephanie Allen and Tina Kuna and was the first in the category of "Meal Assembly" franchises.
Super Suppers was a US food preparation franchise operation based in Fort Worth, Texas. It specialized in providing space for families to prepare meals ahead of time for freezing and cooking at home. Once at 165 stores, the franchise ceased operations in 2011; currently six independently owned stores exist and are entitled to use the Super Suppers name and visual branding.
Dinner: Impossible is an American reality competition television series broadcast by the Food Network and initially hosted by Robert Irvine. The first episode aired on January 24, 2007 and the last episode aired in 2010. Food Network began airing the eighth season on March 3, 2010.
Online food ordering is the process of ordering food, for delivery or pickup, from a website or other application. The product can be either ready-to-eat food or food that has not been specially prepared for direct consumption.
Cook or The Cook may refer to:
Lunch is a meal eaten around the middle of the day. It is commonly the second meal of the day, after breakfast, and varies in size by culture and region.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to cuisines:
Munchery Inc. was an online food ordering and meal delivery service that served parts of San Francisco, Seattle, and New York City. The company shut down abruptly on January 21, 2019. It was valued at $300 million. The website currently relaunched as a recipes-only website.
Home Chef is a Chicago, Illinois-based meal kit and food delivery company that delivers pre-portioned ingredients and recipes to subscribers weekly in the United States. According to the company it delivers three million meals monthly to its subscribers.
A meal is an eating occasion that takes place at a certain time and includes consumption of food. The names used for specific meals in English vary, depending on the speaker's culture, the time of day, or the size of the meal.
A meal kit is a subscription service–foodservice business model where a company sends customers pre-portioned and sometimes partially prepared food ingredients and recipes to prepare home-cooked meals. Services that send pre-cooked meals are called meal delivery services. This subscription model has been cited as an example of the personalization of the food and beverage industry.
Freshly was a New York City-based convenience food delivery company that delivered throughout the contiguous United States. It was acquired by Nestlé in October 2020 and was shut down in January 2023.
