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Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

markets.businessinsider.com

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Re: Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

#191

Post by Spivak »

crysin wrote: post #160
behringer wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because when you're paying $10 for one meal you kind of hope it goes a little further. To put this in perspective, if I go to the store and buy a 10 dollar meal, I'll be eating: porter house, slathered in butter and olive oil, asparagus fried in the juices, with a baked potato. I'll have also a side of chilean grapes and a slice of cheese cake for desert. 10 dollars is a crazy amount for a dinner. (Ok that might cost…

A porterhouse alone is typically 8 to 10 dollars, so no you're meal you listed there is more like 20. Sure Blue Apron is expensive but don't go making it sound like you can have a big nice steak, a baked potato, an expensive dessert, some butter and vegetables for near the same cost.

If you buy every single ingredient absolutely but that's not how cooking-at-home food math works.

You head to the grocery store and buy whatever beef cut is on sale so if you're buying a porterhouse it's because it's $4-6. Your pantry is already stocked with butter, flour, eggs, sugar, and potatoes. You had some almost stale graham crackers lying around which is why you decided to make cheesecake. You hit up the store buy some asparagus, cream cheese, and whatever fruit is in season rounding out to about $10-12 bucks and you've pretty much got the meal with plenty of leftovers and leftover ingredients for whatever you do next.

You can spread a good cheese out over multiple meals to lower the cost but I'm not seeing how to get even a brie without going over budget here though.

Re: Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

#192

Post by robertAngst »

pfranz wrote: post #43
robertAngst wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dang, I had the opposite experience with Blue Apron. Never saved time. Expensive and the recipes took 2-3x longer than it says on the box. Delicious food, but there was no leftovers. We finished the food and were still hungry. Cannot fathom using them as a meal provider. The only thing I learned is that roasted beats and carrots are delicious. Don't need Blue Apron anymore.

It's really tough to time a recipe. Especially, because Blue Apron has so many whole foods that need peeling and cutting--it's not like you just put it in the oven and set a timer. I do think their estimations are a bit idealistic. I've seen the prep times vary 2-3x depending on who in the family makes it. One thing I've noticed that can improve prep times is taking a basic knife skills class. You'll notice grandmoth…

As a note, we have been cooking, daily, for 5 years.

I'm good enough with a knife, that I use a knife hone daily.

Still took 2-3x longer than suggested. Not sure if I can blame the user.

Re: Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

#193

Post by vertex-four »

goldcd wrote: post #140

Always seemed a strange business model. Appealing to people who "want to cook", but doing so by turning yourself into a production-line assembler. Like saying your want to learn carpentry, by buying some Ikea flat-pack. What confused me (and makes me think I've overlooked something) is why nothing more interesting has come along from the supermarkets. In the UK at least, they're all online and deliver - but they all…

Have you never seen Tesco Real Food? https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/vegan-shepherds-pie.html - hit the "shop ingredients" button and it'll offer to add the relevant ingredients to your online shopping basket.

Re: Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

#194

Post by aerovistae »

goldcd wrote: post #140

Always seemed a strange business model. Appealing to people who "want to cook", but doing so by turning yourself into a production-line assembler. Like saying your want to learn carpentry, by buying some Ikea flat-pack. What confused me (and makes me think I've overlooked something) is why nothing more interesting has come along from the supermarkets. In the UK at least, they're all online and deliver - but they all…

> For £5 extra would you like to add some bacon, creme-fraiche, tarragon, frozen-pastry & peas

Is food really cheap in the UK? This would be impossible in the US, the tarragon alone could cost half that.

Re: Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

#195

Post by echevil »

djhworld wrote: post #174
goldcd wrote: post #140

Always seemed a strange business model. Appealing to people who "want to cook", but doing so by turning yourself into a production-line assembler. Like saying your want to learn carpentry, by buying some Ikea flat-pack. What confused me (and makes me think I've overlooked something) is why nothing more interesting has come along from the supermarkets. In the UK at least, they're all online and deliver - but they all…

I think the biggest problem for me as a single person is the way most stuff sold in supermarkets is designed for family meals. Which is fair, families probably represent a significant portion of their customer base. But it becomes problematic for me because I either have to eat the same meal 4 days in a row (or freeze it) or only use half of the ingredients and shove the rest in the cupboard, or throw it away because…

You can buy stuff in much smaller portions in most Japanese grocery stores, which I think is much better. There are also some grocery stores that have the option to buy unpacked produce, like Wholefoods.

Re: Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

#196

Post by vkou »

chrisseaton wrote: post #61
SkyPuncher wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you can eat it for lunch the next day.

If you want two meals why not get two meals instead of expecting one meal to provide two - doesn’t seem like a reasonable expectation to me.

Because if it takes 30 minutes to prepare one meal, but 35 minutes to double your ingredients, and prepare two meals worth of food, the second option is probably a better use of your time.

Re: Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

#197

Post by whoisthemachine »

rayiner wrote: post #45
ghaff wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's definitely a use case for these services. It's just a fairly narrow one. - Willing and able to cook for, ideally, more than one person - Able to plan a week ahead for the most part - OK with paying a non-trivial premium to have a lot of menu planning and shopping be handled by someone else I tried Blue Apron and thought it was "OK" but I could never really make these meal kit services work out for me. t obvio…

It's targeting a narrow intersection of people who are rich enough to pay $10 per serving for a meal, have the time to cook every night, and are okay with the lack of customizability in ingredients.[1] We considered it but it made no sense for us. It would save us a little money versus eating out all the time, but it doesn't solve the time problem (my wife and I both get home around 7:30 or 8:00 and need to get the f…

It's $5-$7 for a standard meal at McDonald's - $10 for a healthier and more interesting alternative seems like a small premium.

Re: Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

#198

Post by hmcdona1 »

djhworld wrote: post #174
goldcd wrote: post #140

Always seemed a strange business model. Appealing to people who "want to cook", but doing so by turning yourself into a production-line assembler. Like saying your want to learn carpentry, by buying some Ikea flat-pack. What confused me (and makes me think I've overlooked something) is why nothing more interesting has come along from the supermarkets. In the UK at least, they're all online and deliver - but they all…

I think the biggest problem for me as a single person is the way most stuff sold in supermarkets is designed for family meals. Which is fair, families probably represent a significant portion of their customer base. But it becomes problematic for me because I either have to eat the same meal 4 days in a row (or freeze it) or only use half of the ingredients and shove the rest in the cupboard, or throw it away because…

In Texas, H-E-B sells exactly what you are describing. They have four types of meal kits: eat, heat, cook, and prep.

https://www.heb.com/static-page/meal-simple

I buy at least 3-4 of them a week because they're perfect for a single person who wants to eat in and maybe not prep as much but still wants a wide variety of meals to eat.

Re: Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

#200

Post by behringer »

crysin wrote: post #160
behringer wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because when you're paying $10 for one meal you kind of hope it goes a little further. To put this in perspective, if I go to the store and buy a 10 dollar meal, I'll be eating: porter house, slathered in butter and olive oil, asparagus fried in the juices, with a baked potato. I'll have also a side of chilean grapes and a slice of cheese cake for desert. 10 dollars is a crazy amount for a dinner. (Ok that might cost…

A porterhouse alone is typically 8 to 10 dollars, so no you're meal you listed there is more like 20. Sure Blue Apron is expensive but don't go making it sound like you can have a big nice steak, a baked potato, an expensive dessert, some butter and vegetables for near the same cost.

Pff, I buy my porterhouses on sale. If they're too expensive, I go for whatever else is on sale. Sirloin isn't bad either ;)
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