As consumers have voted with their wallets in favor of convenience-oriented options such as digital restaurant ordering and frozen meals, meal kit companies are realizing that, if they want to remain relevant, they need to offer options for these customers who are less willing to invest their time in their meal prep experiences.
Take, for instance, Berlin-based direct-to-consumer (D2C) meal kit provider Marley Spoon, which operates in eight countries across three continents. On a call with analysts Friday (July 29) discussing the company’s second-quarter fiscal year 2022 earnings results, Marley Spoon shared how its moves into ready-to-eat meals are helping the company adapt to consumers’ changing demands.
On the call, the meal kit provider’s Founder and CEO Fabian Siegel said that the “integration of our newly-acquired ready-to-eat Chefgood business” contributed to the company’s incremental growth in Australia. Additionally, Marley Spoon’s Chief Financial Officer Jennifer Bernstein noted that this ready-to-eat business helped drive “the increase in average order value” that the company saw in the quarter.
Marley Spoon originally announced the acquisition of Australian ready-made meal company Chefgood at the end of last year. At the time, Rolf Weber, the company’s global chief operating officer and managing director and co-founder of Marley Spoon Australia, said in a statement that the two companies share “the same vision of making our customers’ lives easier with easy, tasty, and high-quality meal solutions.”
Plus, Marley Spoon is far from the only meal kit company looking to add options for consumers to purchase less laborious meal solution options. New York-based meal kit subscription service Blue Apron, for one, announced last Monday (July 25) the launch of Ready to Cook meals for subscribers. Customers make these meals by combining the pre-chopped ingredients in the included aluminum tray and then baking them in the oven.
“Our customers’ desire for easier meal options on days when time is limited has led us to introduce Ready to Cook recipes. After exploring and testing dozens of options, our culinary team created delicious meals, without compromising on quality of ingredients for convenience,” Josh Friedman, the company’s Chief Product Officer, said in a statement. “We believe these meals meet an important need for our key customer segments, including families, a category we see as one of the biggest opportunities for Blue Apron.”
The move is part of Blue Apron’s overall push to supplement its core subscription business with more convenient options both in terms of meal prep and in terms of commerce models. Regarding the former, the company launched “Heat & Eat” prepared, microwavable meals as add-on options for subscribers in September 2021. Regarding the latter, the company debuted a Walmart.com eCommerce storefront with single-purchase options in June.
“We’ll always have a subscription at our core and our customers who use our subscription service find it incredibly convenient,” Blue Apron President and CEO Linda Findley told PYMNTS in an interview earlier this year, “but there’s a huge portion of the population that really loves the concept of meal kits … but does not necessarily want to be locked into a subscription.”
Related news: Blue Apron CEO Notes Shift From Playing Catch-up to Building Toward the Future
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