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Blue Apron Files for IPO

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Re: Blue Apron Files for IPO

#161

Post by ceejayoz »

artursapek wrote: post #154
Karunamon wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your accusatory comment assumes that the reader: * Lives in an area with a farmer's market in accessible range (i.e. they don't live in a food desert[1] like ~24 million Americans - and that's just any kinda real market) * Spends as much or less at the market as on a service like this, factoring in all externalities such as food waste, travel time and expense, and so on * Has the time to spend getting to the market a…

Somehow those people in "food deserts" managed to get by for hundreds of years before this era of wasteful ultra-convenience startups.

They're a fairly recent development.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2516593/

> In 1961, more than 75% of London’s inner-city population lived within 1 kilometer of a supermarket, giving them easy access to a variety of foods, says principal investigator Jason Gilliland, who directs the university’s Urban Development Program. In 2005, he says, that number was less than 20%.

Re: Blue Apron Files for IPO

#162

Post by kvcrawford »

tdeck wrote: post #107
gigatexal wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shopping is mind numbingly tedious. Getting the best quality food for the least cost can take a couple hours. Why do that when a company, for a nominal fee, can do that for you? My only reservation is portions. I tend to eat more than the average person. So I will continue to waste time in the market shopping.

What would you consider a nominal fee? Blue Apron costs about $10 per person per meal for modest portions , I can easily buy ingredients for half, if not a third of that. This is based on their podcast ads I'm always hearing; I didn't research it.

Damn. I get already-cooked meals delivered for $13/each on Macro Plate's high protein plan. And the meals are really good. Lots of vegetables.

Re: Blue Apron Files for IPO

#163

Post by bjacokes »

It seems irrational that people are hung up on the time spent shopping, but not time spent cooking.

When I tried Blue Apron, I spent an hour cooking a meal for two. That's 30 minutes of work per serving.

When I cook with my own ingredients, I spend an hour shopping and an hour cooking, then make 8 servings and refrigerate/freeze the leftovers. That's 15 minutes of work per serving, and it's significantly cheaper.

I agree that Blue Apron makes more sense if you don't have access to a good grocery store, or if you don't want to invest time in finding recipes.

Re: Blue Apron Files for IPO

#164

Post by joshstrange »

reubenswartz wrote: post #93

Tried it once, and wanted to like it, but it felt like it was stuck in the middle of things: - Cheaper than eating out for a "nice" meal, but much more expensive per meal than my usual grocery shopping, or even other decent, low-cost eating out options. - Nice to have stuff show up, but still need to go to the grocery store, anyway-- didn't feel like I was saving a trip. - Food wasn't hard to prepare, but it was much…

That was my experience with Plated as well a couple years ago. I'm sure I'm bias because I don't really mind grocery shopping and I enjoy cooking. That said I didn't enjoy cooking the Plated meals as much as I do one from a recipe I find online. I completely agree on the "Food wasn't hard to prepare, but it was much more cumbersome than most of the things I make in a hurry". I'm not looking for 3 step recipes but a lot of it felt unnecessarily complex for the sake of being complex.

Honestly if you want to up your cooking game by spending money buy a nice recipe app like Paprika (I'm in love with this app) and plan your meals out before you go to the store. It takes me at most 20 minutes to find new or pick existing recipes and make my shopping list for the week. Then a quick trip to the store to grab it all (<30min in store as long as I go alone + 15-20min total driving). Call it just over an hour. Yes I could bill for an hour for more money than I save with groceries vs plated but grocery trips are unavoidable so really we are talking about 20min. And the end result is I make much healthier meals than Plated/Blue Apron/etc and I make what I like.

Re: Blue Apron Files for IPO

#165

Post by lawkwok »

stevewillows wrote: post #150
lawkwok wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see many people signing up for such a service to learn how to meal plan and get started cooking. As someone who was never taught cooking and am always exhausted after work, I need as little friction as possible to consider cooking. I wouldn't see myself using it long term though mainly because of the excessive packaging.

If you find some time, take a cooking class or two. With some basic skills and some planning, you can easily do most of your prep in advance (sort of like /r/MealPrepSunday, but for the next few days' recipes). For me, I prefer to shop daily since I find it extremely relaxing, but most veg will last quite a long time in the right conditions[1]. Growing up, my mother was a horrible cook (still is), so I was in the sam…

Thanks for the great resources. Just subbed to /r/MealPrepSunday :)

Re: Blue Apron Files for IPO

#167

Post by headcanon »

nullspace wrote: post #102
headcanon wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello Fresh has a once-a-month option. Cancelled because I'm buying a house and can shop myself for cheaper, but I didn't have any problems with them.

Hi headcanon! Do you have a link for this? I so desperately want this but none of the services have a once-a-month option.

https://www.hellofresh.com/tasty/
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