DURHAM, N.C. – Whether it’s frozen pizza or frozen entrees, fresh salads or fresh vegetable dishes, companies such as Kraft Foods, ConAgra, General Mills and Dole are launching new supermarket products that invite consumers to create their own meals, primarily by combining pre-packaged and pre-cooked components.

Supermarkets are positioning these new products as an improvement that offers consumers more freshness, convenience, and control over ingredients at price points meant to undercut quick-service competition.

“There’s always an opportunity in the convenience-meal space to source volume out of [quick-service],” said Bill Partryka, vice president of marketing for Healthy Choice, to QSR Magazine. “And for us, Asian fare is the perfect target. They tend to be a little lighter than other quick-service meals and to focus on big flavors. And steaming delivers big flavor.”

Supermarkets also are getting aggressive about developing more “meal replacements” with an increasing range of fresh and customizable offerings. They’re going far beyond the traditional deli counter with arrays of new take-home and sit-down offerings, including everything from pizza to Brazilian-style, churrasco open-pit barbecue.

Analysts agree that the development is opening up an interesting new theater in the continuing war between food stores and foodservice. But they disagree about its ultimate impact.

“This is potentially huge for the consumer packaged goods industry,” said Ken Harris, a principal at consulting firm Cannondale Associates. “The easier these things are to get used to, they could potentially take a small portion of the quick-service business.”

But Ron Paul, president of restaurant-consulting firm Technomic, told QSR Magazine he believes that consumer packaged goods companies’ customized products represent “only a minor item” for quick-serves’ consideration.

The problem with many customized products, he said, is that they’re still frozen foods. “They’re still not up to quality standards,” he said. “They’ll find some success because they represent an improvement in the quality that they have now, but they’re substitutes perhaps for other frozen meals – not necessarily for a restaurant meal or even a fully prepared meal.”