Preparing raw meat, especially chicken, is messy work and something many people dislike. But now a supermarket has claimed some people are so “scared” of handling raw meat, they’re introducing touch-free packaging to quell the fear around the product.
According to The Sunday Times, Sainsbury’s stores in Britain will introduce plastic pouches or “doypacks”, that allow consumers to tip raw chicken directly into a dish or frying pan without touching it.
The chain reportedly noticed younger people, namely Millennials, were “scared” to touch raw chicken because they feared they’d catch food poisoning. One customer even admitted to spraying the meat with anti-bacterial spray Dettol, before eating it.
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“Customers, particularly younger ones, are quite scared of touching raw meat,” Sainsbury’s spokeswoman Katherine Hall told the publication. “These bags allow people, especially those who are time-poor, to just ‘rip and tip’ the meat straight into the frying pan without touching it.”
It wasn’t just a fear of raw meat that turned young people off cooking either. A study, carried out by market research company Mintel, looked at why British millennials were avoiding some meats, and found that most were nervous about cooking and preparing a meal.
Over one third (37 per cent) of young cooks aged 16-34 said they prefer not to handle raw meat when cooking, compared to 27 per cent of Brits overall. On top of that, while most young consumers love to cook, almost half (46 per cent) of 16-34s agreed cooking from scratch produced too much washing up, compared to one third (33 per cent) of other Brits.
While learning to cook and prepare family meals was once a key part of home economics education at school, kitchen skills have gone out of fashion in recent years and many students graduate high school without knowing how to perform basic cooking tasks.
A 2015 survey by NPD Group found that just 45 per cent of Millennials aged 18 to 24 consider themselves “somewhat good” at cooking and most spent less than 20 minutes preparing their meals.
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Mintel’s food and drink analyst Anita Winther said: “Brits are, on the whole, confident in the kitchen. Most who cook are happy to put meals together using whatever ingredients they have at home and to modify recipes based on whatever is available in the kitchen. However, Britain’s young cooks are lagging behind.”
Starts at 60 has contacted Sainsbury’s for comment.
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