If I could get a grocery delivery service that I trusted and was reliable, I’d subscribe in a heartbeat. I think Amazon + Whole Foods could be the ticket.
I’ve tried a bunch of them (including all the CSAs in my area) and none of them were very good. We use Blue Apron and it has been the best, although like somebody else said, we’d like more vegetables and will often supplement with a veggie we add. We’ve had problems with three or four boxes and they always refund us without any questions.
The thing is, what would Amazon gain by buying them? They already have a distribution model and some expertise with Amazon Fresh. And if they bought out Blue Apron we’d be talking about Amazon cementing a monopoly, so it doesn’t sound like a smart buy on several fronts. If anything Blue Apron has an opportunity to bring competition to Amazon since they have a head start but i’m not confident they can make it long term since Whole Foods was bought out. Amazon seems better positioned for long term sustainability with customers.
I might subscribe to a service that would package up the things I can’t normally find at the supermarket, with recipes that combine them with stuff I have in the kitchen already.
No way on heaven or earth that I am paying twenty bucks for a “dinner for two” which consists of:
two eggs
a couple of small peppers
garlic
one squash
one onion
one potato
roasted piquillo peppers
mayonnaise
sherry vinegar
tomato paste
fresh parsley
one small baguette
grated Parmesan cheese
I’d bet that everyone reading this post has at least half these things in the kitchen right this instant.
Which is exactly my point: for once, do the decent thing instead of consigning some good people to death by a thousand cuts. There used to be a name for that: caring capitalism…
The issue here is monopoly. Amazon buying Whole Foods, and then buying Blue Apron could make a whole lot of people cry foul. There are already some looking into the monopoly claims for the Whole Foods purchase alone. I just don’t think it’s realistic for them to buy them out.
Now a competitor to Amazon has good incentive to buy Blue Apron. Walmart for one is probably best positioned to capitalize on Blue Apron’s stock price drop if they wanted to snag a deal.
Seems like the meal delivery kit space is pretty saturated and I have no love lost for any of the players… Sure, Blue Apron has managed to capture a shit-ton of mind-space by spamming every podcast with ads, but their proposition just isn’t very universal– I doubt it can grow beyond a niche market ($10 a meal per person just isn’t cheap enough to make it attractive to most consumers) so I don’t understand how it could be terribly valuable as a hot ‘tech’ investment. Where are the cost-saving economies of scale? What a wasteful, inefficient process of having cooled cardboard boxes individually delivered to people’s doors… Just sell meal kits at the supermarket if people want to be so goddamn lazy. That’s where this brand will be in 5 years IMO.
Like salad kits - unknown 10 years ago, mocked 5 years ago, now more popular than salad ingredients in supermarkets in our region.
I applaud anyone who wants to start cooking, but I’m not sure I like meal kits as the answer. They seem awfully expensive, and as I understand it, you watch/read instructions for that meal and follow along. There’s no addressing the probable lack of knife skills or proper cooking procedures, AFAIK.
Yeah, there was a name for it, but it never really occured.
Being nice under capitalism makes you underperform compared to those willing to be exactly as heartless as the rules will let them get away with.
In this quarterly-profits-first economic world especially, as far as your shareholders are concerned you may as well just propose giving away money to your customers: they’ll react in much the same way.
"House of Representatives’ top democrat David Cicilline spoke about his concerns over Amazon’s plan to buy Whole Foods, and wants to hold a hearing to examine the the deal’s impact on consumers."
Translation — he wants more money for his re-election campaign from Amazon.
I like this idea for people who want to learn and have a bit of money to burn. A pre-packaged meal with “some assembly required.” Better than prepared meals / TV dinners, but less intimidating than wandering through a store and trying to find all the ingredients you might need, knowing you’re going to have a bunch of some things left over that you probably won’t use up.
The cooking technique and knife skills can come from watching the video (QR code on package to link to youtube vid) and then practicing / doing.
I’d be much more likely to pick up a kit in a store than to order buy a regular subscription, a la Blue Apron. If I were that regular a cook, I wouldn’t be worried about using stuff up.
There’s a number of people I know that would love to learn to cook something, but getting all the ingredients or finding videos of how to is a sticking point, and they don’t want to start a subscription service. I know because they complain about it, and when I suggest either take a class or just wing it from the recipe, they cringe and shudder.
Fresh meal kits at the supermarket, with illustrated step by step instructions and a QR code to a video - someone should market these now!
You are not the target demographic. If you have an ongoing process, that is great. Some people have kids and/or a hectic schedule that doesn’t include time for gathering AND cooking.
I liken it to my projects around the house. They are typically 40% execution time and 60% repeatedly going to the hardware store to get some bit I hadn’t known I needed when I started.
Yes, but no one is getting all their grocery purchases from Blue Apron. There are things like “breakfast” and “lunch” along with the dairy products and other staples that you need to make that grocery trip for.
And that’s why their business model is limited to a demographic with lots of disposable income, or no freezer, or both. Who really wants to pay BA’s markup and shipping costs on -two eggs,- when eggs at Safeway are $1.50 a dozen?
This service lets you decouple your generic grocery needs and the background hum of staples, as well as the need to stock spices and specialty items you need accomplish a specific meal.
Edit: that’s not really a sentence, but hopefully you can guess at my meaning.
Last night I wrapped a frozen corn dog with some rice and sliced cheese in a tortilla and grilled it for dinner. I’m not in the target demographic either, but I think I understand how it would appeal.
