Live data from Hacker News

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

markets.businessinsider.com

241–250 of 336 posts

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

#241

Blue Apron customer here, family of two, three meals a week for the past two years. I like BA a lot, but I don't see anything about BA that is unique to them. There's probably 5 other options in my area. I stick with BA largely due to momentum. For those curious: Pros: - No food waste. Grocery shopping inevitably resulted in large amounts of food getting tossed due to expiration (or even space concerns). - "Forced" v…

> I don't buy the argument that BA packaging is bad. It's almost all recyclable. Reduce, reuse, recycle. In that order. People vastly overstate the value of recycling, especially for glass and plastic. Steel and aluminum are about all that's 'good' to recycle. For plastic and glass, it's only marginally less bad than going to a landfill. The cost to collect, sort, melt, and produce an inferior product is just too muc…

Food waste has to be factored in. I can't help but wonder what the math for net energy consumption breaks down as when you're forced to buy x+y quantity of food when you only want or need x, vs packing material.

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

#242
post #240
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who often cooks for myself, bananas are a pretty terrible example because you can literally buy one banana if you want. Perhaps I've been violating a taboo all my life, but I have never had a problem breaking up a bunch of bananas in the store. Fresh herbs I agree. It's one reason I tend to grow them. [ADDED: There are also a lot of frozen and freeze dried options these days that I often take advantage of.…

> I have never had a problem breaking up a bunch of bananas in the store. Ah, so you're one of those people. Don't you realize you're condemning those poor banana bunches to an ignominous death in the dumpster? Nobody's going to buy a bunch with an uneven number on bananas. :( Being serious though, I don't think you're violating any major taboo. I see people do the same thing all the time. You're actually performing…

TIL this was a thing :-) But then I've never been very good about rules.

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

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> the way most stuff sold in supermarkets is designed for family meals Dude. Leftovers. I used to make a couple of family-sized meals on the weekend to have for lunch and dinner throughout the week. I’d also dine out 2-3 times a week to mix it up a bit.

Dude. Read the whole comment before replying:

But it becomes problematic for me because I either have to eat the same meal 4 days in a row...

"Lunch and dinner throughout the week" is not what parent is looking for.

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

#244
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For $30 dollars/day, you _can_ find someone to spend 3x15 minutes vomiting into your mouth.

Check out my new VAAS startup (YC19).

Does it have machine learning and is it on block-chain?

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

#245
post #97

Maybe we're seeing now that burning up hundreds of millions in VC cash to try to acquire users with free meals isn't really a viable business model? After being annoyed hearing them on every podcast I ever listened to for awhile, I signed up for the sole purpose of getting free meals, nothing else. I have a grocery store a mile from my house, I don't need a startup sending me food to cook. I did enjoy the free meals,…

The VCs don't mind, they got a great exit at the IPO. It's the employees and investors in the public markets that eventually paid for your free meals.

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

#246
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.

You only need a sprig or two of tarragon, though. The grocery store won't sell you it in that form, but for a company making a few thousand meals it's perfectly doable. A rasher or two of bacon, a quarter cup of creme-fraiche, a sprig of tarragon, and a single pie-sized circle of pastry should easily be doable for £5.

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

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out my new VAAS startup (YC19).

Does it have machine learning and is it on block-chain?

Best of all I only advertise through podcast ads and Medium posts about what I learned by blowing $50k on podcast ads.

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

#248
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.

Bacon about £1.50, creme fraiche £1.00, fresh tarragon £0.70, ready pastry about £1.30, frozen peas around £1.00.

So about £5.50 with out discounting for the fact you're over buying

http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/

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

#249
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Amy's kitchen is the leader for high-end frozen foods. There is a lot of competition in this space too.

Been a while since I’ve had it but recall liking one of their burritos.

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

#250
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…

Tbf, I have done one of those boxes(Hello Fresh) for nearly 2 years and I has absolutely definitely taught me how to cook, purely through repeated experience. It goes beyond being able to follow a recipe - after cooking nearly 500 meals I have enough experience to make delicious meals without looking at timers or measuring everything down to a gram.

Plus, each meal works out much cheaper than eating out. So for me personally this was money extremely well spent. I also live in the UK.

Post reply on HN