Where can you find Marie Callender’s Chicken Pot Pies, T.G.I. Friday’s Loaded! Potato Skins Stuffed with Cheddar & Bacon, P.F. Chang’s Shanghai Style Beef and California Pizza Kitchen Rising Crust BBQ Recipe Chicken Pizza?

It’s not in a fast-casual chain version of a food court, nor is it a weird fever-dream: It’s in the frozen section of your local supermarket or club store, where restaurants, hit hard during the recession, are trying to reach consumers with frozen restaurant-branded products when they choose to eat in.

A June report from Mintel International Group titled Restaurant to Retail says that such products can deepen brand-consumer connections, or establish them in areas where the restaurant does not yet exist. They don’t detract from restaurant traffic, and brand quality can be maintained thanks to improved freezer technology.

Retailers seeking to capitalize on this trend should offer family-sized packaging and emphasize better-for-you elements, says Mintel, which sees continued potential for growth, given the sluggish economy.

This trend is not completely new. Products such as Bob Evans’ frozen sausages have been around for decades, for example. But it is mushrooming, says trend-watcher Phil Lempert, self-named The Supermarket Guru, Santa Monica, Calif.
“It’s especially in the past three years, where people have not been eating out as much and certainly a lot of the chain restaurants have been struggling,” Lempert says. “People still, at home, want to celebrate their food. … Consumers have embraced it. The big question is whether those products can deliver.”

Ron Paul, president and CEO of Technomic, Chicago, says most restaurant-branded frozen food comes from contract manufacturers, with the notable exception of White Castle. Some have rolled out lines exclusive to certain retailers, like Walmart or Costco, while others have focused regionally rather than nationally.

“It’s a quick way for the consumer to see a familiar brand; it doesn’t cost money to launch a new brand,” Paul says. “It’s not a slam-dunk. There are fixed costs; you need to find a manufacturer willing to do that. Then there’s [the question of], ‘What’s it going to do to my brand?’ ”

Lempert believes supermarkets and other retailers need to be more aggressive about in-store marketing of restaurant-branded products. “The retailer hasn’t done these brands justice,” he says. “It could be having a special section in the supermarket that would promote these restaurant brands, where it’s a separate freezer case—maybe even decorated like a restaurant.”