New Marie Callender’s products use the bowl-in-bowl concept originated by Café Steamers.


ConAgra Foods is transferring the packaging technology for its highly successful Café Steamers to some new products in Marie Callender’s, its established line of frozen food.

Café Steamers uses a bowl-in-bowl internal package to steam a meal in sauce, which consumers then pour over the food after microwaving. With sales of $95 million in its first year, Café Steamers was the third most successful new brand of 2008, according to Information Resources Inc.

ConAgra is using the bowl-in-bowl concept for Marie Callender’s Pasta al Dente, which comes in six varieties of pasta paired with vegetables and/or meat. The Pasta al Dente products retail at $3.49 for a 10- to 11-ounce meal.