Sandwiches have replaced roasts as the most commonly eaten meal at Sunday lunch, whilst traditional roasts have moved to dinner time, accounting for more than one in five (21.6%) meals eaten on Sunday evening (as compared to one in seven at lunchtime).
Meanwhile sandwiches account for more than one in four Sunday lunch meals (26.6%) with toast meals such as eggs on toast and beans on toast accounting for a further 4.1%.
Paul Chapman, director of insight and business analytics at Premier Foods, said: "Sunday has been transformed from arguably the least active day of the week to the most.
"Families still want to find time for communal eating on Sundays, but they’re having to be increasingly flexible about when and how to achieve it."
The research found that whilst 28% of Sunday lunches are planned and designed to bring the family together, 16% are described as 'a quick bite' and only less than one in 20 Sunday lunches have guests present.
Chapman added: "Roast dinner was seldom part of the Monday to Friday routine, but there’s been a marked shift towards midweek roasts in recent years. That’s why roast dinners in total are actually on the increase.
"With the traditional ‘Sunday lunch’ now just as likely to pop up in the middle of the week we’ve evolved our range to reflect shorter preparation times, for example with ready to use gravy."
Premier Foods, which owns the Bisto, Oxo and Paxo brands, amongst others, has innovated its range to cater for changing trends.
More and more people are also changing their eating habits due to the variety of ethnic cuisines. Over 9% of the meals eaten are international dishes, with Indian, Chinese, Thai and Mexican the most popular, as well as pasta and pizza.
"The impact of travel on our taste buds is well established and this is fuelled further by the rise in the popularity of street markets which is driving the more recent increase in demand for hotter, spicier fare as an alternative at Sunday lunch when people are out and about," Chapman said.
The research, which is based on data from Kantar Wordpanel, also revealed that:
- Chicken is the most popular Sunday roast accounting for 40.8%. This is followed by beef (21.3%), pork (17.4%), lamb (11%) and turkey (3.5%).
- The average Sunday lunch preparation time is just 27 minutes with 46 per cent of Sunday lunches taking less than ten minutes to prepare. (In fact we spend considerably longer preparing evening meals on Sunday (42.8 minutes) and the average Sunday lunch preparation time is seven minutes less than the overall average for evening meals).
- Ninety five per cent of all roast occasions are served with vegetables. Broccoli (+5%) has seen the greatest increase in popularity of vegetables eaten with roasts, followed by onions (+2%) and peas (+2%) and then carrots (+1%) . Losing favour are Brussel sprouts (-10%), cauliflower (-8%), beans and pulses (-3%), cabbage (-2%) and potatoes (-2%)
- Apart from Monday, Sunday is the day of the week we are least likely to eat a meal out of home. 17.1 per cent of meals are eaten out of the home on a Sunday compared with 18.4 per cent overall daily average
- 2pm has been the peak time for eating Sunday lunch for the last three years but there has been a slight decrease in the proportion of meals served at this time and a slight increase in eating at 8pm.