Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 134 posts

Re: Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

#111

Post by saturdaysaint »

pera wrote: post #19

Please Amazon, do something different about the huge amount of material waste generated by companies like Blue Apron and Hello Fresh. This is the main reason why I stopped using these services, the footprint is just disgusting: plastic bags inside aluminum+plastic bags inside cardboard boxes with more plastic. Please, invent some form of reusable container that can be easily stored and delivered back so we can stop t…

Hello Fresh has improved a lot on this front in the 2 months we've subscribed. Individual meals are packed in paper bags. The aluminum insulation layer has been replaced with a biodegradable material packed in lightweight plastic. I believe they said recent improvements have reduced the size of a meal box by greater than 20%. It's still not perfect (the ice packs seem awfully wasteful, if unavoidable until refrigerated trucks become widespread), but it's dramatically better.

Re: Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

#112

Post by r00fus »

chaostheory wrote: post #25
pera wrote: post #19

Please Amazon, do something different about the huge amount of material waste generated by companies like Blue Apron and Hello Fresh. This is the main reason why I stopped using these services, the footprint is just disgusting: plastic bags inside aluminum+plastic bags inside cardboard boxes with more plastic. Please, invent some form of reusable container that can be easily stored and delivered back so we can stop t…

Amazon needs to do this with their regular shipments as well. They contain a lot of plastic insulation (air bags). Instead of throwing mine away, I've been saving it until it fills up a closet then I give it to a local UPS store to reuse. My closet fills up in about a month. It would be nice if Amazon had a formal program for this since you can't recycle them with your garbage company.

Not just Amazon... almost all delivery services (pharmacy, google shopping express, etc)

The sole exception I found was amazingly, Safeway's grocery delivery service where the person showed up with a box, walked in, unloaded in my kitchen then took the box with him. Of course, you need to be present for that, but something equivalent for non-perishable delivery would be a huge sanity saver for me.

Re: Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

#113

Post by chaostheory »

pera wrote: post #54
chaostheory wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon needs to do this with their regular shipments as well. They contain a lot of plastic insulation (air bags). Instead of throwing mine away, I've been saving it until it fills up a closet then I give it to a local UPS store to reuse. My closet fills up in about a month. It would be nice if Amazon had a formal program for this since you can't recycle them with your garbage company.

That's nice, I was not aware that UPS would take them. My local grocery store have a program for plastic bags, but reusing them is of course much more efficient.

I could be wrong but lot of these shipping stores are franchises, so it probably depends on the owner.

Re: Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

#114

Post by notyourwork »

rainbowmverse wrote: post #101
clw8 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are the exception though. The statistical fact is that most people are like notyourwork, myself included. I'm absolutely horrible at this. I buy a huge bag of potatoes because even if I waste half the bag (although usually I'm not that bad) it's cheaper than buying a few as needed. I want to use them all but I just don't get around to it in time.

You can bake them in the microwave and put them in the freezer until needed. There's a lot you can do with a baked potato. I like to cut those freezer pot pies with them so they're actually filling.

And sometimes life happens and food goes bad before I have a chance to cook everything I purchased. I cook a lot so I am aware of the versatility of perishable ingredients. That doesn't change the premise of my point.

Re: Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

#115

Post by w00bl3ywook »

josh_carterPDX wrote: post #95
pera wrote: post #19

Please Amazon, do something different about the huge amount of material waste generated by companies like Blue Apron and Hello Fresh. This is the main reason why I stopped using these services, the footprint is just disgusting: plastic bags inside aluminum+plastic bags inside cardboard boxes with more plastic. Please, invent some form of reusable container that can be easily stored and delivered back so we can stop t…

I agree with this. We struggle with how to dispose of the tremendous amount of waste created by our weekly delivery as we don't have a very large trash bin at our house. Blue Apron and Hello Fresh need to figure out how to make their services more sticky. At some point we've collected enough meals that we like where we can just go to the local grocery store to pick up the ingredients and make it ourselves. Both of th…

"we've collected enough meals that we like where we can just go to the local grocery store to pick up the ingredients and make it ourselves"

heh. welcome to a chef's world.

Re: Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

#116

Post by r00fus »

leokennis wrote: post #108
chaostheory wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon needs to do this with their regular shipments as well. They contain a lot of plastic insulation (air bags). Instead of throwing mine away, I've been saving it until it fills up a closet then I give it to a local UPS store to reuse. My closet fills up in about a month. It would be nice if Amazon had a formal program for this since you can't recycle them with your garbage company.

The problem is, if you want to cheaply ship cheap stuff quickly, you need to reduce costs. So no time to have your packers pick from 20 sizes of boxes; just toss everything in a huge box. No time to handle returns of broken shipments; just stuff those huge boxes with tons of air bags. No time to actually check what's in the boxes (towels or a vase) because you need to pack 200 boxes an hour to break even. If "we" wan…

> If "we" want to stop trashing the world, first we need to show we are willing to pay for that.

This is the typical supply-side dodge. Consumers have little to no power here. I can't dictate to Amazon or major shipping companies (I do buy AMZN's frustration-free when I can).

What option is there? Do you propose I compete with the packaging with my own offering?

Re: Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

#117

Post by bpodgursky »

blackguardx wrote: post #94
bpodgursky wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't plastic basically a byproduct of oil production? I'm not super familiar with the market, but my understanding was that gasoline was the main drivers of drilling, not the market for plastic. It seems to me that recycling would just drop the price of plastic and encourage use elsewhere, but burying it underground would remove the byproduct.

Every petroleum product was a waste product at some point until they discovered a use for it. If no one used oil for anything but gasoline, I expect drillers would pump the distillation remains back down into old wells.

Petroleum cracking happens very long distances from the actual oil wells. I have never heard of this happening.

Re: Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

#118

Post by desireco42 »

ericwood wrote: post #56
desireco42 wrote: post #49

I am not fan of Blue Apron, but just ability to have this kind of stupid patents is clearly anti-business and would support any measure to get rid of those.

Amazon filed for a trademark, not a patent.

OK I see. Thanks.

Then however bad, it kind of is legitimate practice to put pressure on them. I need to read more carefully next time.

Re: Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

#119

Post by Sargos »

crudbug wrote: post #109

Please use your local grocery store. I am 31, live in Manhattan and shop once a week for groceries. All these food startups are not solving any real problems, its Webvan all over again.

Not wanting to spend my precious time researching on the internet for a good recipe, going to the grocery store to pick up items for said recipe, and them prepping the ingredients before the cooking process even starts is a "real problem" that is very much solved by these services.

Re: Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

#120

Post by [deleted] »

notyourwork wrote: post #114
rainbowmverse wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can bake them in the microwave and put them in the freezer until needed. There's a lot you can do with a baked potato. I like to cut those freezer pot pies with them so they're actually filling.

And sometimes life happens and food goes bad before I have a chance to cook everything I purchased. I cook a lot so I am aware of the versatility of perishable ingredients. That doesn't change the premise of my point.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN