Blue Apron Shares Rise 28 Pct As It Reveals It Will Turn A Profit This Year

Blue Apron saw its shares jump 28 percent on Tuesday (Jan. 15) after the company revealed that it could become profitable this year.

According to CNBC, the meal kit delivery company is set to announce its earnings on Jan. 31, and will repeat its confidence that it will become profitable during both the first quarter of 2019 and the full fiscal year.

The company’s stock at one point fell as low as 65 cents. If the stock had remained below one dollar it could have potentially been delisted by the New York Stock Exchange. Tuesday’s jump took its stock to as high as $1.35.

The company was busy in 2018 making deals to boost its business. In December, it announced a partnership with WW, formerly known as Weight Watchers, on healthy meal kits for dieters.

At the time, Blue Apron CEO Brad Dickerson said the WW deal gives his company the potential to reach millions of new customers without spending additional funds. Instead, Blue Apron will pay WW a fee when it gets subscriptions through the partnership. He believed this deal would allow Blue Apron to become profitable this year.

In October, Blue Apron also announced a partnership with Grubhub to offer a  selection of meals to customers within certain areas in New York City on the Grubhub and Seamless platforms.

If these deals don’t help business, one one analyst suggested that an acquisition, with Walmart as the buyer, might be Blue Apron’s only hope.

“Like its $310 million purchase of Bonobos, buying Blue Apron would repeat Walmart’s playbook of acquiring a branded eCommerce startup with a more premium product to its core offerings,” said Matthew Trusz, equity research analyst of Gabelli & Company, to investors. “Further, Walmart could put Blue Apron’s meal kits into its physical stores, which we believe would meaningfully enhance Blue Apron’s profitability (more scale, less packaging).”