My grandmother put Sunday dinner on the table by stepping out in the backyard of her old farm house, grabbing the first feathered beastie that wandered by, wringing its neck, plucking its feathers, cleaning out its innards and frying it on her wood-fired stove. It took the most part of the late morning to put the meal together.

My mother put dinner on the table by dropping by the local butcher shop and picking up a “New York dressed” chicken. For those of you who are truly new to this world, that’s a bird that’s been cleaned and defeathered but its head and feet are still attached. She would do the final trim before she fried it on her ultra moderne electric stove. Grandma wasn’t sure she approved of my mother’s time-saving steps.

No wringing of chicken necks or fire building for my mother, by golly. She was a modern woman of the fifties. Her chickens came almost ready-to-cook and she was grateful for the time-savings. Those new Duncan Hines cake mixes were a little suspect, though. Just adding water seemed a scandalous short cut that shortchanged her family when it came to home cooking. The Duncan Hines folks, experts in the psychology of marketing, saw the problem and suggested adding an egg to the mix. It mollified all the moms of the world by giving them a greater sense of involvement and a new product line was born.

Then came the next generation of families. My wife went to the local Piggly Wiggly and bought chicken pieces and parts, ready-to-cook. It took less than an hour to put Sunday dinner on the table and if we all wanted a leg, she could make sure there was five legs in the serving plate. Was it a white meat day? No problem. She could put five boneless chicken breasts on the table. Grandma shuddered in her grave.

Now let’s talk about my daughter, Amanda, the proud owner of a brand-new home with one of the most spectacular kitchens I’ve ever seen. Sunday dinner? No chicken, of course, she’s a vegetarian. No cooking, either. She’s a modern, professional woman who’s too busy to spend several hours a day preparing meals, especially when she can pick up a complete dinner on the way home from her job as an OB nurse and have it on the table in less than 10 minutes.

Grandma never ate in a restaurant. She saw it as a horrible waste of time and money. Mom rarely ate out. She sampled a burger once, when a new chain came to town. She thought spending 15 cents for a sandwich, a dime for fries and a dime for a soft drink might be worth while occasionally and a trip to McDonald’s sure could be a convenience. My wife loved to eat out, anytime, anywhere. Drop the hint and she’s at the door, ready to go.

My daughter, though, has reversed the order of things. Take-out is the first order of the day, week and month. Although she’s an excellent cook with a first class kitchen at her fingertips, she’s more than willing to trade a few extra dollars for a few extra minutes with her family. She can pick up a complete family meal at a McDonald’s drive through, curbside at Chili’s or inside her local Giant supermarket. McD’s even serves her strange dietary whims by selling her a quarter-pounder with cheese, hold the meat.

Serving Amanda’s needs is where the American food system truly shines. Walking through a Costco or a Giant store is a trip through food processing Nirvana. Want it sliced, diced or deboned? How about parbaked? Fully cooked and chilled? Hot from the oven? Want a complete meal – a meat and three sides – pre-assembled in a to-go box? How about choosing each item for dinner from dozens of pre-cooked selections so everyone in the family is happy? She can even pick up a meat item for Eric, her still carnivorous husband. It’s all there for her.

The drive to serve the new kitchen-phobic generation has generated thousands of new food choices in the last few years. The number of new SKU’s trying to fill the need at the supermarket might never be known. Most of the products are relatively short-lived and determining what’s truly a new product roll-out vs. a limited market test seems to be tied to the whims of marketing success and the changing definitions of the marketing company.

John Tyson, Tyson’s top gun, defined it well in purely financial terms during his recent keynote speech at the National Meat Association’s annual convention in Las Vegas. He proclaimed Tyson, Inc., the world’s largest producer of protein commodities such as meat and poultry, saw its future as building further processed products from a commodity base. This one-time purveyor of ice-packed whole birds has done well at leaving its commodity base behind, too. They now offer thousands of products, many of them pre-cooked, sauced, flavored, or “special cut” for the retailer or the restaurant trade. They can do nuggets by the ton or unique products for the white table cloth trade. Just don’t expect a whole bird in a loose poly bag, anymore.

It would seem that the days of the mass-marketed commodity are just about over. It will be increasingly difficult to find a whole, unbranded chicken in the meat case. Winn-Dixie, a once dominate southern supermarketer and proud of being known as “the beef people” has filed for bankruptcy. Rows of anonymous and unadorned fifty-cents-a-head iceberg lettuce have given way to branded, pre-cut and pre-bagged salad mixes at five to ten times the price.

It’s a trade off that average consumers are avidly behind. They want the convenience of a “no-cooking-in-the-kitchen” week so they can devote their time to job, family and leisure pursuits. They want the option of sport-cooking on the weekends, whipping up something truly exotic as a Saturday afternoon hobby. After all, many of them do have those spectacular showplace kitchens that collect dust Monday through Friday.

Let’s take it to the bottom line. Nobody ever wanted to be in the boom-and-bust business of marketing commodities. It’s a relentlessly tough business that takes young men and turns them old way before their time. Marketing a product that commands a more consistent price and has a brand desired by the consumer, though; that’s the place to be.

So the commodity businesses are rushing to add value and brand their products. It makes for a more stable business. The consumer is rushing to find products that save time and is extremely willing to part with the extra cash to do it.

Now that’s one hell of a partnership.

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Chuck Jolley is a marketing executive who's been associated with the food industry for over 25 years. He's helped develop advertising and public relations programs for Cryovac, the world's largest flexible packaging company, and published MEAT&POULTRY, the leading trade magazine in the meat and poultry industry. He's worked with major companies in the meat, poultry, seafood, baking, dairy and fresh produce industries.Contact: crjolley@msn.com