Home food delivery’s questionable value, for consumers and investors
wsj.com
wsj.com
Years ago, there was a service in Hong Kong (I wish I could remember the name) that did daily delivery of already prepped meal kits - onions pre-chopped, avocados cubed, oil portioned for each step, etc. It was basically cooking by numbers, and extraordinarily convenient in the cramped kitchen that I had at the time.
That's the only kind of meal kit service that I'd ever consider using again. I think larger supermarkets are well-positioned here because a lot of them already sell this kind of stuff to begin with.
It also create much more garbage so they got that going for them, too.
Local networks doing daily delivery don't need dry ice, can use minimal packaging, can batch orders and send out with their own delivery drivers/routes. They could even pick up the packaging for reuse upon delivery of the next order. This only works at scale though, and is going to be nearly impossible to build a business on, unless in high density living areas.
In advance enables batch orders, predictable quantities of ingredients & labor, no need for insane packaging and ice, etc. These "meal-kit" services do this, but as many other comments say... you still need to do your own prep and cook it.
Some people are already doing this model (i.e. there's a couple in my city offering a bulk meal paid for and prepared once a week), but they built it their self from the ground up. Can we not build a network to enable this? The door would then be opened to an individual chef to contribute to providing people with food. Existing restaurants could of course offer their best seller or most easily prepared bulk meal. Yes, as you say: nearly impossible to build. There are many obstacles. But the benefits are numerous.
Sounds like you've thought about this a bit already? Mind if I pick your brain?
Make the same stir fry but with a different sauce.
Refried beans can make burritos, tacos or bowls.
Chicken is endlessly versatile in stews, curry, schnitzel, etc.
I too would like a menu made for me, but it would be a luxury, curated for me to explore more meals. My standards are strong, nutritious and go down well with the lady.
So do I. I actually shop for fresh stuff almost daily now, because I mostly work from home and it's a great excuse to get out and wander around the city for a while.
That said, the nature of my work is such that I'll often have intense 2-3 week periods of long days that really sap my desire to do anything beyond, like, throwing some sausage and peppers into a skillet.
It's those times when I'd love to have a meal kit service like this, because if I don't have anything quick in the house then I end up with a frozen pizza or a Deliveroo order instead. I've tried doing meal prep a few times, but I tend to get sick of it by the middle of the week.
Sweet potatoes turn brown exposed to air, sometimes even in the span of time from prepping the first to prepping the last before they go into the pot all together.
I would venture that most things do not improve with exposure to air once cut up. I would also tend to agree that just sending unprepped ingredients doesn't save any time, but I think I'm willing to take more time to get a better meal.
Then these services aren't for you.
For me, there were two keys:
1. I love cooking and find it to be a nice meditative experience, but back then I was working 16-18 hour days and I simply didn't have the energy to deal with all of the other stuff you gotta do before and after you cook. This was a good middle ground.
2. I could adjust the ingredients to my liking - don't put in the cilantro, for example, or add some extra chili to make the sauce spicier.
Ordering a known meal from a known restaurant is definitely easier than home prep. Ordering a "probably fine" meal from a "probably fine" restaurant requires extra cognitive load over cooking at home. (Some days I struggle with simply selecting a new meal from a restaurant. On those same days, I can happily spend an hour cooking a new-to-me recipe without any problems.)
So... I have factor. They're single sized microwave items. Very convenient for lunches with a 2 minutes in the microwave and you're good.
I also have tovala. They've got a special (but inexpensive) toaster oven or air fryer. With them, you get raw protein and a side and do 1 min of prep for it and then cook it in the oven for 13 to 20 min depending on the food. The portion sizes there are 1. The longer prep and the "need that toaster oven" make it not as useful for the "on the go". This is cooked in single use aluminum trays and so cleanup is minimal.
And I also splurged for a suvie (. That's in the 30 min and longer category with more cleaning (of the trays - they're not single use), but you can cook for a time (have this ready at 12:15 pm) and it does it. It's got a much more expensive (and larger) kitchen device... but the prep is typically in the less than 5 minutes and has the advantage of frozen to cooked rather than refrigerated to cooked meaning that the meal kits can be stored in the chest freezer in the basement for longer durations rather than needing to be done by the end of the week.
For me the biggest value add of Hello Fresh is the meal planning aspect. I don't have to spend time every week figuring out what I want to cook for 3-5 different meals, or track down the ingredients to make them, or add up calories to make sure they're health conscious.
To me, that seems like the logical evolution of meal kit services; zero marginal costs by outsourcing the logistics to companies that already do it at scale.
[1]: https://www.publix.com/recipes-planning/aprons-meal-kits
I feel like more curation is the answer, hand pick the ingredients in each recipe using each grocery pickup/delivery API. But honestly I see supermarkets adding this as a differentiator that's good enough to keep anyone from buying a 3rd party service for it.
Maybe there's space to sell similar functionality to small regional chains to white label?
The way it worked was pretty simple; you'd call in your order, or sometimes use the store's website or email, and the store would have one of their baggers/etc collect the requested food from the shelves and drive it out to your home. It was a free service paid for by the store, although I believe there was an expectation to tip whichever employee was using their personal car to actually make the delivery. To reiterate, the service was intended for people who couldn't go to the store themselves, not for yuppies.
What an odd thing to say. Why should people have to drive and spend their time at the grocery store if the grocery store can do that much more efficiently? Employees pack what looks like dozens of orders at the same time and drive them to the neigborhoods. In a densely populated area I can't imagine that being less efficient than going yourself.
Want to add, with walkable cities and less car centricism you absolutely don't have to drive.
Not meaning to be insensitive to less healthy people who enter into that condition through no fault of their own, but also, perhaps fewer people would be in a position that they are physically unable to shop for groceries if they didn't "have to drive", and got in the exercise of a daily walk to the grocer.
Why not? On foot might be a bit much, but on a bike, with a trailer, this isn't hard at all.
It may not be the right solution for you, but it's certainly a possible solution.
You're thinking about it kind of wrong. You don't need to fill a huge fucking jeep with groceries for the month. You make it part of your daily routine to get a little at each trip. The store is already close to where you will be.
I think it's fine if one decides to buy groceries for 2 weeks instead of every couple of days, everyone is different and this might be more practical for some than others. That's personal choice.
> Employees pack what looks like dozens of orders at the same time and drive them to the neigborhoods.
This isn't the way it was done with the service I describe. There generally would not be enough demand so most orders would be 1-to-1, no more efficient than somebody driving to the store themself.
Because they chose to live somewhere stupid that doesn't have one of life's necessities, food, nearby? Or maybe they haven't figured out how to bundle trips, like going grocery shopping while little Ryder is at soccer practice?
Wow, so judgmental. I live a ~20 minute bike ride from the grocery store but for a family it's not always feasible to get everything to fit on bikes. It's totally reasonable to drive somewhere once every two weeks for that. It's actually funny, you don't know anything about me or where I live. It's actually very close to what I would consider the perfect balance between having grocery stores in walking or biking distance when we quickly need something and a 5 or so minute drive to the grocery store for bigger shops. Yet I don't have to live in an urban hellhole.
I don't know anyone who is a loyal customer to any meal kit service and is paying full price.
I'm sure I'm the reason every speaker at Microconf says don't do B2C.
Once a week we (my GF and I) quickly pick 5 meals (Netherlands, HelloFresh). If it comes in we spent 5-10 minutes checking and organising and then we have food for most of the week. Since we have a 6-month old baby we pick the meals with a shorter cook time, this week is 'the weak without meat' (is it national or international) so we pick veggie.
NO effort in deciding what to cook, NO effort in making the shopping list (let alone go out for groceries) and (almost) NO leftovers. I agree this is highly personal but all three are a big win for us. The meals are relatively easy to prepare, healthy (it seems, I am not an expert) and varied.
Deciding what to cook at time is challenging.
I've also, personally, found these kits to be no less work than cooking normally. Sometimes, more, because the recipe will be more complex than something I'd have cooked on my own. It saves you meal planning and ordering the ingredients from the store (or going shopping), which isn't nothing, but it's not really that convenient—it'd have to also be cheap for me to want to do it very often, and at full price, they're not cheap.
But even if I wanted to avoid groceries and avoid food prep, I would just order food online. In Amsterdam, there are some places popping up that you can order healthy food from - often its just a single type of meal per day, plant-based, but its cheap and healthy and delivered quickly. I see this as a more reasonable alternative then everyone getting delivered their mini plastic packets of vegetables to cook for themself.
But I do it because I haven't found a better option (I don't consider things like HelloFresh a better option).
> At the very least I like picking out my own produce.
So much this. I want to be able to see it before making a purchasing decision.
Meal kits can be sold in stores. And groceries can be delivered.
I get the impression that just doing one of those might be a viable business, but it wouldn't be treated as a startup.
I barely have time to myself bit still manage to plan my meals and make my own dinner quickly.
The second isn't really a fault with HelloFresh (and similar), but an incompatibility with my own preferences. I prefer to get my food as locally as possible, and these meal services preclude doing that.
Also, these services are (IMO) outrageously expensive.
The vexing thing is that it doesn't deduplicated ingredients from multiple recipes onto your grocery list. You'll end up with onions on the list 3 times if you have 3 recipes that take onions :-/
If anybody has a better alternative, I'm all ears.
I'm not sure exactly what the grandparent comment means by "new ordering", but AnyList supports ordering for pickup or delivery from Walmart, Instacart, Kroger, Safeway, Albertsons, and other stores: https://help.anylist.com/articles/feature-overview-online-sh...
(Disclosure: I am the co-founder of AnyList.)
And I agree about the pain point. It is part of what got me interested in this a while back.
I also think the decision of what to eat is also an issue with many people. Present them with a few options based on budget, preferences, and nutritional goals. Base those options on inventory data and expiration dates to reduce food waste (grocery bottom line).
Perhaps target the consumer group of:
1. at-home eater
2. enjoys cooking
3. wants to simplify the process.
Then increase demand by converting other eater-types into the target market.
Ultimately, I think user-experience would be the differentiating factor.
1. There are meal planning apps that present a Blue Apron / Hello Fresh type experience but make a grocery list rather than shipping it to you.
2. Instacart has proven that you can with some amount of reliability that you can abstract over different grocery stores so users can pick the ones they prefer or is closest.
3. I can get groceries delivered from my local Kroger by app for less than $5.
Now make them all kiss and you get a sustainable Hello Fresh.
Then buy less food? the perishable stuff (fruits, veggies, meats) can either be bought in smaller portions, or the meats can be frozen.
I felt the meals were too much designed from the marketing department: Looked nice on the photos, but overly complicated to prepare for a daily dinner, and as my wife put it "Every meal taste somewhat similar".
What was missing was simplicity.
It isn't hard to understand why it fail. This kind of service is only useful in a broken by design neighborhood and urbanism failures.