Commentary
Seeking Profitability, Blue Apron Offers Non-Subscription Meal Delivery On Amazon
- by Steve Ellwanger , October 12, 2022
Meal-kit pioneer Blue Apron is making some of its offerings available on Amazon without a subscription in its latest bid to entice consumers who would rather pay as they go.
The money-losing company said on Monday that the move is designed to “reach new audiences while removing barriers to trials.”
Having recently increased its menu to 62 options, as of today Blue Apron is offering 10 of them in two- and four-person meal kits on Amazon.
The move followed the company’s June launch of non-subscription ordering on Walmart.com.
Launched in 2012, Blue Apron Holdings Inc. reached a peak of one million customers in 2017 but hasn’t reported more than 400,000 since Q2 of 2019 when it tallied 449,000.
In the second quarter ended June 30, the company’s customer count was 349,000—down from 367,000 in Q1—as food inflation became more of a challenge for consumers.
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Its net loss was $23.1 million on a 0.2% revenue gain to $124.2 million.
A big headwind to growth is consumer perception that while offering convenience, meal kits are more expensive than shopping for groceries—as confirmed in an earnings call with financial analysts in August by president and CEO Linda Findley.
“And I think it's a perception in general that we continue to battle across meal kits as an industry,” Findley said.
Blue Apron ramped up its marketing spend in Q2 to generate greater awareness and highlight the quality of its ingredients.
“In particular, the heightened awareness drove a tangible increase in traffic to our site, with total weekly unique site visits in the second quarter increasing 14% from the first quarter and over 33% from the same quarter a year ago.”
In August, Blue Apron celebrated its 10th anniversary with this spot filmed in a company test kitchen in Brooklyn, New York.
According to data from Bloomberg Second Measure, Blue Apron’s share of the U.S. meal kit market declined to 9% last year from 21% in 2019. Market leader HelloFresh had roughly 50% of the market in 2019, and 69% last year.
