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A Slow-Motion Trainwreck Facing the Meal-Kit Industry

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Re: A Slow-Motion Trainwreck Facing the Meal-Kit Industry

#151

Post by Mz »

dragonwriter wrote: post #138
Mz wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a former homemaker and full time mom. You have failed in your stated goal of not being rude to me. I am merely describing the problem space. If people wanted to, you know, tweak it themselves, then there would be no food services of any kind, not restaurants and not take out food and not meal-in-a-box delivery services. We would just all cook for ourselves if everyone just loved doing that and didn't want this so…

> If people wanted to, you know, tweak it themselves, then there would be no food services of any kind, Er, no. A desire for customization does not imply that a baseline around which to customize is not a viable product. > We would just all cook for ourselves if everyone just loved doing that and didn't want this somehow magically taken care of by some other means. Meal kits are cooking for yourself. They simplify sh…

You seem to routinely reply to things I say in a manner that just sounds like you think I have an IQ of 70 or something. I can't fathom why you do this because you seem to generally participate in good faith and try to argue based on logic, but I wish it would stop.

Re: A Slow-Motion Trainwreck Facing the Meal-Kit Industry

#152

Post by pwinnski »

mr_tristan wrote: post #57

The long term trend for "meal kits" is very likely just going to have massive local and regional competition. I'm already seeing this in Portland with several meal delivery services that cater to different lifestyles: gluten free, whole 30, extra protein, etc. These are successful "complete meal delivery" businesses. I see no reason why there can't be "meal kit" variations in the future. The cost of starting up a loc…

Bingo. I see hyper-local signs (same size and shape as political yard signs) in my neighborhood, and the site's[0] delivery area says it's limited to two neighborhoods.

[0] http://foodich.com

Re: A Slow-Motion Trainwreck Facing the Meal-Kit Industry

#153

Post by lifeformed »

komali2 wrote: post #78
Mz wrote: post #10

I feel like the real problem with meal-in-a-box delivery services is that they are trying to fill the empty shoes of a missing full-time wife and mom because there are more two career couples and both spouses now "need a wife" and it can't be found. The problem is that such a service has no real hope of taking the place of someone with actual cooking skill who knows you well and will tweak the recipe to your preferen…

I had to catch myself from saying "what the fuck" out loud. I don't want to be rude to you, but I find this to be hilarious: >Such a service has no real hope of taking the place of someone with actual cooking skills who knows you well and will tweak the recipe to your preferences, possibly without you even having to explicitly ask or remind her. Sounds like a job for a... maid! Which really puts a delicious spin on t…

I think you're taking what he's saying the wrong way. He's just describing how culture has shifted, not saying that it was the "correct" way.

Re: A Slow-Motion Trainwreck Facing the Meal-Kit Industry

#154

Post by pm90 »

pjc50 wrote: post #137
pavel_lishin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you can afford a meal-in-a-box service, why would you not just go to a restaurant where the wait staff will do a decent job as a substitute for your own live-in cook previously known as The Wife? I always say that these are for people with more money than time. The reason they don't go to a restaurant is because you like cooking - or at least, you like the idea of being someone who cooks. But the ad copy is righ…

> you're not a wifemom, and you don't know how to combine those things into a meal I think people could do this, but for whatever reason don't. Possibly the excessive media-isation of cooking has raised what the expected skill level is; people are no longer content with something edible but unspectacular, or food that's too ugly to Instagram. We've come a long way from Fanny Cradock: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9…

I think you make a good point. Too often people want their food to look good and taste perfect. The key to getting better at cooking and doing it well is to accept that there WILL be accidents, your food WILL NOT taste/look the same as restaurant food right away.

Re: A Slow-Motion Trainwreck Facing the Meal-Kit Industry

#155

Post by mothers »

aeorgnoieang wrote: post #110
mothers wrote: post #79

generally people who do meal-kits just aren't good at shopping. it isn't cheaper, healthier or faster to cook than regular food. the only thing it might be better at is faster at preparation , an advantage that is negated if you buy a sufficiently large amount of food each time you purchase and pre-prepare (cutting chicken into slices and freezing them, etc.). tldr: only lazy people with more time than money would be…

> only lazy people with more time than money would be interested in this. Opportunity costs are real, people's preferences are heterogeneous, and also I'm pretty sure you're 'lazy' too – using a computer to perform all of those arithmetic calculations it's doing!

i've never claimed i'm not lazy. i'm super lazy. if i had unlimited money i wouldn't cook or order from a restaurant. i'd have people literally feed me with a spoon.

this fact, however, is irrelevant from my point.

Re: A Slow-Motion Trainwreck Facing the Meal-Kit Industry

#156

Post by nostrademons »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #14
Mz wrote: post #10

I feel like the real problem with meal-in-a-box delivery services is that they are trying to fill the empty shoes of a missing full-time wife and mom because there are more two career couples and both spouses now "need a wife" and it can't be found. The problem is that such a service has no real hope of taking the place of someone with actual cooking skill who knows you well and will tweak the recipe to your preferen…

> If you can afford a meal-in-a-box service, why would you not just go to a restaurant where the wait staff will do a decent job as a substitute for your own live-in cook previously known as The Wife? I always say that these are for people with more money than time. The reason they don't go to a restaurant is because you like cooking - or at least, you like the idea of being someone who cooks. But the ad copy is righ…

I'm a bit confused by people who say the big benefit of Blue Apron is time. When we tried it, it took about as much time as cooking the meal from scratch - maybe 20 minutes of prep and 20-30 on the oven/stove. Whatever we saved in cutting was lost in opening & sorting through all the individually-wrapped ingredient packages.

BTW, a good set of kitchen tools makes meal prep go a lot faster. When I moved in with my now-wife, she had a couple requests for new kitchen goods that were non-negotiable. A good sharp kitchen knife, a mandolin slicer, and a salad spinner. They really make a huge difference - before, it could take me an hour to prep a simple pasta dish, afterwards, it's like 15 minutes. Washing vegetables now basically means dumping all of them into the salad spinner, swishing them around, and turning the crank twice, for a total of 5 minutes. Cutting or dicing an onion can be done in under a minute, regardless of the cut desired.

Together these cost a lot less than a Blue Apron subscription, and you can use them for years. And the quality of fresh farmer's market ingredients really can't be beat.

Re: A Slow-Motion Trainwreck Facing the Meal-Kit Industry

#157

Post by opportune »

eropple wrote: post #142
opportune wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I don't mind it. I'm not invested whatsoever in involving human contact in getting my food; I don't mind talking to people to get my food or having to interact with a waiter or cashier, but I wouldn't care if I could order on a kiosk or do checkout-by-RFID. People probably decried the automation of textile manufacturing, that clothing was losing its personal touch. Now we don't seem to have a problem with…

Have you considered the knock-on effects of minimizing human interaction with regard to actually creating an empathic community ? That the people who you would like to avoid interacting with (sorry, "don't care" about avoiding, while you implicitly cheer it on) are a part of the local community around you--generally of a lower social class, which emphatically does not make them less important but does make them less…

What do you suggest to do to prevent things from moving this way? Do you think that it will never take off because people are uncomfortable with the idea, or that this is simply not technologically going to happen? I of course would respect anybody's right to vote with their wallets. Just as there are premium goods such as Rolls Royce that are hand-crafted versions of products that are normally mass-produced, I'm sure there will be premium services in the future to replace automated ones, such as food preparation.

The other solution is what is, in my opinion, a sort of neo-Luddite reaciton to automation where we either ban hugely efficient economies-of-scale infrastructures as a make-work program, or a regulation requiring sufficient numbers of humans in the loop.

I think you are really over-interpreting the way I see this. Replacing jobs with more efficient services is pretty unequivocally better in my opinion. If it weren't better, people would keep using the less efficient services that give them some form of empathic pleasure. In particular, I find the allegations of classism a little baseless. I have no problems interacting with those of a lower class, and if they do indeed lose their jobs due to mass automation, I definitely think the government will need to implement programs to retrain them or to provide for their needs a la basic income. But it doesn't make sense to pay someone to do a job that could be done better, especially ones like in food service, just so we can pat ourselves and say that "they at least have a job."

Re: A Slow-Motion Trainwreck Facing the Meal-Kit Industry

#158

Post by ashark »

wrsh07 wrote: post #61
wrsh07 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a subscriber, here are some arguments in favor of Blue Apron [or similar services]: 1) It's cheaper / healthier than eating at most restaurants [where I live, in Upper Manhattan] 2) The nearest grocery stores also aren't cheap. If I could save money, it would cost me a significant amount of time. [the lines at Trader Joe's alone, not to mention meal-planning + time to & from store]. 3) Some items are hard to buy i…

Also, something I've thought about a lot since listening to this 99pi episode [2] is that technology is best when it enhances useful skills. [or at least doesn't atrophy them] I think that services like Blue Apron are actually kind of ingenious in that they trivialize an annoying part of cooking [the shopping] while developing the "skill" part. On top of that, I think just using good ingredients helps you identify wh…

Food shopping definitely sucks, and on top of the time commitment, having to keep a catalogue of typical prices per quantity and freshness/ripeness-determining markers in one's head is fairly burdensome. One of those great things the truly rich don't have any reason to do/learn unless they just feel like it.

I'm skeptical of the value of these services overall but the more I think about time savings and not having to worry about keeping up my otherwise-useless food-buying skills they could be worth it, though only if they all but completely removed my need to grocery shop. And I think the prices would still have to come down a little more.

What'd be more valuable is a grocery store with online ordering and curbside pickup with some kind of enforceable (like, with real teeth, not "oh yeah, we tried to screw you, here's a voucher for the $1.50 difference, bet you're glad you spent two hours getting us to pay up!") guarantee that they wouldn't sell me anything over the average price for my area. Infeasible now, but imagine if government tweaked the information imbalance to be a bit less out of customers' favor by mandating (or incentivizing) machine-readable posting of prices week to week... then such a service could exist, could be audited, could be more-or-less trusted. And would save huge numbers of hours and lots of fuel for driving around comparison shopping and other useless consumer BS we (those not rich enough to pay others to worry about this useless crap) currently put up with as practically a second job.

Re: A Slow-Motion Trainwreck Facing the Meal-Kit Industry

#159

Post by dragonwriter »

inZGBl wrote: post #145
dragonwriter wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the point has been made several times in this thread, it's not much cheaper. Yes, it is. > Unless you're referring to some Michelin-starred restaurant, it's quite possible to eat fast-casual for the same price of many of these kits (especially if you live in a suburb where restaurants tend to be much cheaper than in e.g. SF) Blue Apron is $8.74 (family plan) or $9.99 (couples plan) per plate for complete dinner…

This doesn't hold true for the rest of America. Go build a chipotle meal at some other zip code. South East: 1 chipotle burrito bowl, chicken, black beans, brown rice, guac, hot salsa, cheese 1 22oz drink Total - $10.20

> Go build a chipotle meal at some other zip code.

Chipotle is much lower quality than anything I've had from Blue Apron (this is typical of low-price national chain fast-casual restaurants; the fast-casual restaurants that are worth comparing are independent or local-chain places).

So, yeah, if that's the kind of food you want, it's price comparable to BA (but you wouldn't be looking at BA if you were satisfied with that kind of food I the first place.)

Re: A Slow-Motion Trainwreck Facing the Meal-Kit Industry

#160

Post by dragonwriter »

nostrademons wrote: post #156
pavel_lishin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you can afford a meal-in-a-box service, why would you not just go to a restaurant where the wait staff will do a decent job as a substitute for your own live-in cook previously known as The Wife? I always say that these are for people with more money than time. The reason they don't go to a restaurant is because you like cooking - or at least, you like the idea of being someone who cooks. But the ad copy is righ…

I'm a bit confused by people who say the big benefit of Blue Apron is time. When we tried it, it took about as much time as cooking the meal from scratch - maybe 20 minutes of prep and 20-30 on the oven/stove. Whatever we saved in cutting was lost in opening & sorting through all the individually-wrapped ingredient packages. BTW, a good set of kitchen tools makes meal prep go a lot faster. When I moved in with my now…

> I'm a bit confused by people who say the big benefit of Blue Apron is time. When we tried it, it took about as much time as cooking the meal from scratch - maybe 20 minutes of prep and 20-30 on the oven/stove.

Blue Apron is cooking a meal from scratch (so, obviously, it doesn't save time in cooking.) The time saving is in shopping and inventory management.

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