Blue Apron, an OG in the meal kit space, is making a big change. Instead of weekly subscriptions, it's allowing customers to choose from 100+ chef-designed meals as needed (those who love consistency can still sign up for automated shipments).
It's also introduced:
- Two new product lines: Dish by Blue Apron, which consists of ready-to-eat, nutrition-focused meals; and Assemble & Bake, which come together all on one sheet pan.
- Blue Apron+, a $9.99/month membership that includes free shipping, deals, streaming content via Tastemade+, and more.
Blue Apron…
… was founded in 2012 by Matt Salzberg, Ilia Papas, and Matt Wadiak in New York before scaling nationwide. It IPO’d in 2017, but sales and stock slipped shortly thereafter and a pandemic-related surge in sales didn’t last.
In 2023, food delivery startup Wonder Group acquired Blue Apron for $103m, a sharp dip from $2B, its 2017 valuation.
Whitney Pegden, SVP and GM at Blue Apron, told The Hustle that’s Wonder — which also acquired delivery app Grubhub and media company Tastemade, and operates several ghost kitchens, mostly in New York — aims to be “the single destination for meal time,” and that includes going out, ordering delivery, and home cooking.
But while Blue Apron…
… wrote the early playbook for meal kits, feedback and data showed that today’s customers find weekly subscriptions too rigid. Customers could skip meals if they were going on vacation or too busy to cook them, but those who forgot could get frustrated and potentially cancel altogether.
“I think we used to anchor more on giving you a fun Wednesday night — a… project, an experience, something to do with your partner, especially good [during] covid whenever you couldn’t do anything else,” Pegden, said. “We still have those meals available… but we’re introducing a lot more meals that are convenience-focused.”
The change comes at a time…
… when customers are tired of having to subscribe to everything and as AI slop proliferates the internet. That includes AI-generated recipes that range from ridiculous or impossible to actually make to downright dangerous.
A meal kit service that lets you pick and choose from meals designed by real chefs — and that teaches you useful cooking skills in the process — might just be the right pivot for our too-much-tech times.
