Blue Apron ‘Unboxed’ Pop-Up Shops Arrive In NY

Meal kit delivery company Blue Apron announced the launch of Unboxed, a series of pop-up events aimed at enabling people to explore and purchase its products.

“We named it Unboxed because it’s about exploration and really discovery of our brand,” said Michelle Chiu, Blue Apron’s VP of brand experience. “We want people to engage with us. We’re a digital-first company and this is giving us the opportunity to meet them in person and tell them more about the new things we have going on.”

The Unboxed series — which will take place in multiple cities across the country — comes to New York City with a short-term experiential retail location open to the public through June. NYC is the only city that will have this type of experiential retail location.

Some of Blue Apron’s products that visitors can enjoy include its new “grab and go” offering, which is available for purchase. Pop-up shop visitors can also experience cooking classes and panel discussions with chefs including Sam Kass, Marco Canora, Tamar Adler, Agatha Kulaga & Erin Patinkin, and Colu Henry.

Most activities will be free of charge, except cooking classes. Blue Apron will donate all the proceeds from the cooking classes to City Harvest, the world’s first food rescue organization. Each week will feature a different theme. For example, the week of June 12 is “Fam Jam Week,” while the week of June 19 is “Besties & Baes Week.”

The Blue Apron pop-up shop is located at 12 West 23rd Street in Manhattan.

Though Blue Apron has struggled since it went public last year, the company has been busily coming up with ways to attract more business, including rolling out on-demand offerings. Last month, Blue Apron CEO Brad Dickerson said those on-demand offerings will come from both its own platform and through other companies, such as its existing relationship with Costco.

Additionally, Blue Apron will continue to pursue other partnerships.

“In the months ahead, we will continue to launch new partnerships with different products and price points to further broaden our geographic reach, introduce the Blue Apron brand to new consumer segments and expand our total addressable market,” Dickerson said. “In our view, we have only scratched the surface of how the Blue Apron meal experience can engage with consumers.”