Chicago, Ill. - With the skillet meal segment of the frozen food category exploding with new products, how does a newcomer squeeze in? If the upstart in question carries the banner of a popular national restaurant chain with a winning retail track record, a consumer point of difference and brand attitude to spare, it's easy.

 New T.G.I. Friday's Complete Skillet Meals allow consumers to create the bold, exciting flavors of the T.G.I. Friday's restaurant at home in 15 minutes or less. The ingredients are individually packaged, with the slicing, dicing and measuring already completed. Available in five varieties -- Cajun-Style Alfredo Chicken & Shrimp, Firecracker Sesame Chicken, Creamy Chicken Pasta Carbonara, Sizzling Steak Fajitas and Sizzling Chicken Fajitas -- Complete Skillet Meals include everything needed by consumers: protein, vegetables, sauce, pasta or tortillas, and a topper.

 "Consumers want to break out of their everyday dinner routine and are hungry for great-tasting, restaurant quality meals they can easily prepare at home," says Erica Gilbertson, the T.G.I. Friday's brand manager for Heinz. "With Skillet Meals, consumers can 'eat bold not bland.' It's the taste and experience you don't expect from a frozen meal."

 The T.G.I. Friday's brand partnered with Alcan Packaging to create a Doyne-style stand-up pouch that delivers brand impact in the freezer case and quality and convenience in consumers' kitchens. Reverse-printed rotogravure graphics showcase the vivid Friday's look and grab consumers' attention at first glance amid a crowded freezer case. The bag itself is specifically sized to fit upright on retail store shelves. To streamline meal preparation at home, internal bags separate individual ingredients and allow for staging of the meal components. Additionally, the individual packets promote improved flavor and texture.

 In seven months, the Skillet Meals' packaging was complete: from initial concept talks, to structure and artwork development, to production staging and scale-up, to final commercialization.

 "We have a package that is appealing to consmers and promises bold, exciting, restaurant-inspired flavors inside," says Rick Parysek, packaging engineer for Heinz. "The Skillet Meals pouch performance will play an important role in bringing the Friday's experience to the dinner table."