A ready meal inventor has made a shocking confession about easy-cook meals and revealed his true feelings about microwaves.
Charlie Bigham, 57, is the creator of the luxurious Charlie Bigham’s ready meals. The company boasts a massive weekly turnover of 600,000 meals, with the firm raking in £133 million in the year to August 2023.
However, despite overseeing this impressive ready meal empire, Charlie has some surprising views on ready meals.
Charlie told The Times: “I hate ready meals. Ready meals are something you put in a microwave, they’re full of additives and preservatives and they’re not very nice.
“I set up the business to be not a ready meal. However, people will quite reasonably say you’re in that sort of category, and it’s a challenge to us.”
Charlie, who dubs his posh dishes prepared meals, then explained why he dislikes microwaves. He said they don’t make things “bubble”, so the best way to enjoy his food is by cooking it in the oven.
However, his disdain also extended to air fryers, which he described as a “con” and a “little oven with a big fan”. Charlie explained that if a hot oven is required for a “delicious” lasagne, then that’s what “you’ve got to do”.
Back in 2013, Charlie unveiled the world’s poshest fish pie ready meal, which was packed with salmon, oysters, lobster and truffles and finished with 24-carat gold crumb.
In addition, the Swish Pie was topped with beluga caviar and featured two mother of pearl spoons. If that wasn’t lavish enough, however, the meal was also handcuffed to a guard and arrived on a gold leaf tray.
Unsurprisingly, this decadent dish boasted an equally opulent price tag, a whopping £314.16. The figure, according to Charlie, was influenced by Pi (mathematics).
Charlie explained at the time that he wanted to take their reputation for making the “finest ready meals” further and offer something “extraordinary”.
He went on to reveal that he’d searched for the “most exclusive” ingredients in an effort to make the “most exceptional ready meal”.
However, those that may have felt daunted by the Swish Pie, which took a chef 3.5 hours to prepare, needn’t have worried, as it took only 30 minutes to cook at home.
Charlie said: “With the Swish Pie, we went all out using the most exclusive ingredients to create a unique dish that really is the best ready meal ever made.”