SUPERMARKET theory has it that the current dynamic in the business lies in the area of quality prepared food. Whatever may be the particular reason why you don't want to rattle the pans too busy, too tired, miss the football the multiples have identified a breed of customer who wants real food, but either doesn't have or doesn't want to spend the necessary time preparing it from scratch.

The supermarkets have probably spent zillions of pounds sussing this out, but if they had chosen to keep their money in their pocket and loiter for a few minutes down Mount Merrion Avenue, the long channel of a road which links Blackrock to the Stillorgan dual carriageway, they might have seen another way of doing market research.

"People walking down Mount Merrion Avenue smell the food as it is cooking and pop in and ask what we are doing," says Eileen Bergin, of Butler's Pantry. The news that the supermarkets are targeting a new type of customer will come as no surprise to Eileen Bergin, who realised eight years ago that the new customer was out there, and whose Butler's Pantry shops have ever since then been cooking good food for them.

"In 1987 and 1988, all you could get in the supermarkets was stuff that I wouldn't buy," says Eileen, "and I just felt that there had to be more lunatics like me out there who would buy it if cooked it."

Eight years down the line, and not only are the two Butler's Pantry shops thriving, they have been joined by outlets with a similar focus, new arrivals such as Dining in, run by Deirdre Scoliard in the Nutgrove Shopping Centre, Adrienne McCrory's Hemingways, in Ballsbridge, and others such as The Queen's Food Shop in Glenageary or the sprightly Napoleon, run by the Kelly brothers in Monkstown.

What is remarkable about most of these retailers, as the French call such a cooked food shop, is the fact that the food is not all dinner party extravaganza. You can buy a simple chicken stroganoff with savoury rice in Hemingway's, or some Chicken Italian in Butler's Pantry.

"From Monday to Thursday we sell what I call comfort food shepherd's pie, icky sticky toffee pudding, rhubarb and apple crumble," says Eileen Bergin. "But at the weekend it suddenly changes, and people want dishes such as pork in plum sauce, and exotic salads." This is a theme common to all of the shops.

But the retailers are invaluable also in that they not only cook for the solo diner or the professional couple, but will also welcome any challenge. "If someone asks for something I'll do it," says Eileen Bergin. "It's a complete service. We even carry the food out to their car."

It doesn't, ultimately, matter how much market research the supermarkets undertake, or how much money they spend to produce prepared food. What the retailers also sell is comfort, and care, and no amount of market research can get that right.