7 ms·

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

39 points by isseu 8y ago

DanCarvajal 8y ago
This surprises me in no way.
- jeron 8y 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 8y ago
Good. I hope they fail. This is an insanely wasteful business model, and any claims they make about sustainability are ancillary at best.
- 123jay7 8y ago
  To add some perspective, if it wasn't for Blue Apron, I would be eating out all the time. They take away two most cumbersome parts of cooking: grocery shopping and measuring. Long live!
- sdinsn 8y ago
  But is it less wasteful than grocery stores, which trash so much of their stock/produce?
  - therobot24 8y ago
    no
    - sdinsn 8y ago
      Any source to support that?
ryanmercer 8y 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 $39.96 a day depending on the plan. PURE INSANITY.
- jeron 8y ago
  you measure your food's value by cost per kcal?
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Of course comparing celery to a McDouble using just kcal/$ is not really appropriate but when comparing two reasonably nutritionally balanced meals it's an ok way to compare value.
  - ryanmercer 8y 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 8y 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.
  - 123jay7 8y ago
    There's also no education and skills gained by just buying everything. Blue Apron teaches you how to cook. Simple as that.
- ct0 8y 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.
ProAm 8y ago
Doesn't matter, had exit.
baron816 8y 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.
- giarc 8y 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 8y 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 8y 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14706793
heipei 8y 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 8y ago
  When thinking about cultural differences, it's not sensible (let alone tactful) to jump to "absolutely twisted and unhealthy."
- ryanmercer 8y 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 8y 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.
isseu 8y ago
Why the article got dupe?
- detaro 8y ago
  because an article about this is already on the front page, and you should have checked for duplicates before submitting.
  - isseu 8y ago
    ohh, thanks!
- gus_massa 8y ago
  There is similar article about Blue Apron that is heavily discussed recently. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18708356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18708356 (115 points, 3 hours ago, 209 comments )

39 points by isseu 8y ago

DanCarvajal 8y ago

This surprises me in no way.

jeron 8y 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 8y ago

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

123jay7 8y ago
To add some perspective, if it wasn't for Blue Apron, I would be eating out all the time. They take away two most cumbersome parts of cooking: grocery shopping and measuring. Long live!
sdinsn 8y ago
But is it less wasteful than grocery stores, which trash so much of their stock/produce?
- therobot24 8y ago
  no
  - sdinsn 8y ago
    Any source to support that?

ryanmercer 8y 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.

jeron 8y ago
you measure your food's value by cost per kcal?
- dsfyu404ed 8y 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.
- ryanmercer 8y 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 8y 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.
- 123jay7 8y ago
  There's also no education and skills gained by just buying everything. Blue Apron teaches you how to cook. Simple as that.
ct0 8y 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.

ProAm 8y ago

Doesn't matter, had exit.

baron816 8y 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.

giarc 8y 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 8y 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 8y 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14706793

heipei 8y 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 8y ago
When thinking about cultural differences, it's not sensible (let alone tactful) to jump to "absolutely twisted and unhealthy."
ryanmercer 8y 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 8y 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.

isseu 8y ago

Why the article got dupe?

detaro 8y ago
because an article about this is already on the front page, and you should have checked for duplicates before submitting.
- isseu 8y ago
  ohh, thanks!
gus_massa 8y ago
There is similar article about Blue Apron that is heavily discussed recently. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18708356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18708356 (115 points, 3 hours ago, 209 comments )