Blue Apron's 90% Drop Makes It Third Worst U.S. IPO This Decade

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-18/blue-apron-s-90-drop-makes-it-third-worst-u-s-ipo-this-decade

by isseu • 8 years ago

39 35 8 years ago

This surprises me in no way.

jeron2• 8 years ago

I'm more surprised that it's not the worst, then again "a provider of helicopter transport for offshore oil drillers" does sound like a worse idea

rawrmaan• 8 years ago

Good. I hope they fail. This is an insanely wasteful business model, and any claims they make about sustainability are ancillary at best.

sdinsn2• 8 years ago

But is it less wasteful than grocery stores, which trash so much of their stock/produce?

therobot24• 8 years ago

ryanmercer4• 8 years ago

"Company with absurdly expensive food that still requires considerable preparation gets rejected by non-tech workers".

Federal minimum wage is $7.25 and median HOUSEHOLD income is around 59k so let's look at their pricing: the cheapest plan they offer is $39.96 a week for 4 servings a week ranging to $143.84 for 16 servings a week for $143.84.

That means 1-day's kcals for someone on a 2k kcal diet is $25.68 to $39.96 a day depending on the plan. PURE INSANITY.

jeron2• 8 years ago

you measure your food's value by cost per kcal?

dsfyu404ed2• 8 years ago

Of course comparing celery to a McDouble using just kcal/$ is not really appropriate but when comparing two reasonably nutritionally balanced meals it's an ok way to compare value.

ryanmercer4• 8 years ago

At their pricing 1-day's kcals for someone on a 2k kcal diet is $25.68 to $39.96 a day depending on the plan.

I spend $45-60 for a WEEK (depending on sales and meat close to sell-by date) and I'm a 300+ pound powerlifter!

jsjohnst• 8 years ago

That’s actually an average meal price for that size meal in NYC. That said, there’s no cooking involved for that $10, unlike with Blue Apron.

ct02• 8 years ago

Cost for the delivered food and spices may be high, but I think blue apron missed out on the larger opportunity of food preparation education, aka cooking. They could have gamified the whole system to offer more difficult meals as the subscriber gets better, with points for free perks and all that.

stanleydrew• 8 years ago

This is a good idea, but wouldn't that essentially ensure that you churn out your best customers eventually? They get so good at cooking that they don't need your perfectly portioned and pre-prepped but overpriced meal kits.

jpeter• 8 years ago

What food has the most calories per dolar?

dsfyu404ed2• 8 years ago

What food has the most calories per dolar?

For DIY food my wild guess would be butter. My somewhat educated guess for prepared food would be something off the value menu at McDonalds/Burger King/Wendys.

mondo9000• 8 years ago

Soybean oil from CostCo https://efficiencyiseverything.com/the-highest-calorie-per-d...

ryanmercer4• 8 years ago

That's going to depend but if you mean something that isn't highly processed stuff like rice, beans, wheat, potatoes.

Check out subs like

- https://www.reddit.com/r/EatCheapAndHealthy/

- https://www.reddit.com/r/7dollardinners/

- https://www.reddit.com/r/EatCheapAndVegan/

giarc2• 8 years ago

I had an interesting conversation with colleagues about this. They are all well educated people but for some reason they compared these services to eating out, rather than buying food at a grocery store.

Many of my colleagues thought $10/meal was great! My mouth dropped when they claimed how good of a deal this was.

ProAm• 8 years ago

Doesn't matter, had exit.

baron816• 8 years ago

If I were to do a start up right now, I think I would do a meal kit start up (not that I actually know what I’m doing). There’s still a market for it—people really like the kits—it’s the business model that’s the problem. I think the delivery part is where they go wrong. It’s too expensive to cold pack these things every day and deliver them to individual addresses.

I’d try to partner with restaurants to prepare the meal kits. Restaurants have a staff that’s trained to handle food, plus a kitchen to do it safely, and time during the day when they’re not busy. Oh, and they already received regular large food deliveries. Restaurants are well distributed enough that it’s easy enough for people to pick up a kit on the way home from work.

From the point of the startup, there’s not intense capital costs, you just have organize orders and pickups and ensure quality.

giarc2• 8 years ago

I think the cost to subsidize this program is too much. I have countless flyers for $50 off first order etc etc.

I think if I were to enter this space, I would start a B2B meal prep where I have staff go into grocery stores, put together boxes that the stores own customers can buy. I'm not talking about the prepped food, but boxes with all the ingredients. Stores retain some lost customers from these meal kits and people get the experience of cooking something new.

bm1362• 8 years ago

I'd buy meal kits from Whole Foods, etc as a way to learn to cook. You could probably get me to even pay subscription fee if the quality was good and you can deliver via the Whole Foods home delivery couriers. You have all the ingredients available, seems incredibly easy to do for a big innovative chain.

trimbo• 8 years ago

You've outlined why grocery stores are going to take over this market, just like they did for roasted chickens in the 90s. I posted about this a year ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14706793

heipei• 8 years ago

As much as I love certain aspects of the US, companies like Blue Apron just serve as a reminder of the absolutely twisted and unhealthy relationship that Americans seems to have regarding their daily meals.

I know people who eat out multiple times a week (with their spouse), every week of the year, and other people who eat out every day during lunch. I guess it's somewhat understandable if you're single and maybe even working at one of the places where they have catered lunch, but if you have a family at home and have to actually pay for restaurants yourself it's a huge item on your monthly expenses.

And that's just the economics of it. Let's not even talk about how having catered meals for nearly every occasion distances you from the act and ritual of preparing a meal together with your family, taking the time, sitting down and enjoying it.

whyonearth• 8 years ago

When thinking about cultural differences, it's not sensible (let alone tactful) to jump to "absolutely twisted and unhealthy."

ryanmercer4• 8 years ago

As much as I love certain aspects of the US, companies like Blue Apron just serve as a reminder of the absolutely twisted and unhealthy relationship that Americans seems to have regarding their daily meals.

Eh. Most Americans can't afford this type of service, even if they think they can. 10$ for a meal is insanely expensive, sure going out to eat once in a while but not for multiple meals a week. You can eat for multiple days off of 10$, one of their 10$ meals can be less than 1/3 of a 2k kcal diet's needs meaning you need 25-35ish dollars a day to survive off their service.

This is for suckers, like the 'dollar shave club' customers that don't realize they can buy the exact same blades they sell (at least initially) direct from the manufacturer (Dorco) or spend far less and use a safety razor. Or suckers that fall for 'loot crate' type services where you get garbage product, sometimes stuff that just didn't sell well retail, and are told you're getting a bargain.

dragonwriter• 8 years ago

You can eat for multiple days off of 10$, one of their 10$ meals can be less than 1/3 of a 2k kcal diet's needs meaning you need 25-35ish dollars a day to survive off their service.

Well, surely, you were trying to survive off their meals you'd use the family plan, where it's $9/serving, rather than the $10/serving plan.

Plus, we're talking Blue Apron, not Soylent; it's not even aimed at people living off of it.

isseu2• 8 years ago

Why the article got dupe?

detaro• 8 years ago

because an article about this is already on the front page, and you should have checked for duplicates before submitting.

isseu2• 8 years ago

ohh, thanks!

gus_massa• 8 years ago

There is similar article about Blue Apron that is heavily discussed recently. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18708356 (115 points, 3 hours ago, 209 comments )

Blue Apron's 90% Drop Makes It Third Worst U.S. IPO This Decade

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