Business
Upstart meal-kit companies may need a new recipe for growth
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FOR all the allure of televised fare like “MasterChef” and “Chef’s Table”, the reality is that many people are loth to rustle up anything more taxing than a bacon sandwich. Cue the recent emergence of more than 150 companies to make cooking easier. Two of the largest, Blue Apron in America and Germany’s HelloFresh, deliver boxes of pre-portioned ingredients and easy-to-follow recipes to doorsteps worldwide for a fee of around $60 a week.
Blue Apron is also serving up a belly full of woe to investors. Less than a year after it went public in June with a $1.9bn valuation, its share price has fallen by 80%. Although the shares of HelloFresh, which debuted on Frankfurt’s stock exchange in November, have risen by 24%, analysts are concerned that both services may fall prey to competition not from rival startups, but from big grocers.
Supermarkets have gobbled up the meal-kit idea and made it their own. Instead of enrolling customers in a weekly menu of meals, these companies offer…Continue reading