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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

#271

Post by Smaug123 »

throwaway91111 wrote: post #66
saturdaysaint wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Granted, you have to spend about 30 - 40 minutes in the kitchen, but I find Hello Fresh meals to be consistently superior on just about every level to most restaurant food anywhere near its price point, and much healthier to boot. This shocked me at first, but when you think about it, even most "pretty good" restaurant food is designed to be thrown together in 5 - 10 minutes using as few ingredients as possible. Also…

I mean, most food doesn't take too long to cook, and the bulk of the work is just prep, which is amortized by the kitchen.

As a specific example: at a place which only does burritos, they batch up a big pot of rice, a big pot of beans, lots of lettuce, big pots of various different meats, and so on. Then it takes you about a minute from walking in to paying, as they just semi-toast a wrap and then fill it with all the pre-made ingredients. The ingredient preparation can be done in parallel with service, too.

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

#272

Post by Smaug123 »

Mz wrote: post #147
ABCLAW wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but if you do that, then your following statement doesn't actually hold true. >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. Turn that statement into one about a minority's preference, and suddenly you discover an underserved market that likes preparing their own food. Kind of l…

I didn't write the article with the headline about how this market is facing a "slow-motion trainwreck." I merely gave my opinion as to why this is an inherently difficult problem space. That's it. It is pretty ridiculous for you to act like I think there is zero market because I wouldn't buy it. That amounts to twisting my comments in a way that makes it very hard to engage in good faith.

You did say you think there should be zero market, whether or not you intended for that to be something you said. Specifically, you said that restaurants should fill the gap served by meal-in-a-box services entirely. The interpretations in this thread have been reasonable. (No point arguing this with me; I'm looking at it from the outside, some hours later than it happened, and won't reply to this comment.)

> 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?

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

#273

Post by shalmanese »

Local services are the penny auctions of the VC industry. Since your margins are so dependent on achieving scale, there's a strong push to win customers at any possible cost.

Each VC is forced to dump in increasing amounts of money due to sunk cost fallacy for a fixed prize at the end of the rainbow. At the end of the day, the prize won isn't worth the collective investment and the entire industry represents a net subsidy to the consumer in the form of discounted services and referral bonuses.

It's one of the few things that make living in San Francisco bearable as it tends to be ground zero for these kind of gigantic customer acquisition battles.

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

#274

Post by Symbiote »

Merad wrote: post #239
Symbiote wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a student, the local Sainsbury's supermarket had a selection of recipe cards by the entrance. Here's the front of a newer version [1], the back is presumably something like this [2]. I wouldn't say they taught me to cook, I didn't learn any new techniques. But, I did get a lot of ideas from them, and it led us to eating a wider variety of food. I'm now curious -- what do typical American university student…

Universities usually have a dining hall that's open 7 days a week. Students that live on campus will eat there for the majority of their meals because dorms usually don't have much in the way of food storage or prep areas beyond a mini fridge and microwave. Off campus students have more options.

Dorms in the UK usually have a decent kitchen. Mine was like this [1] (the adjacent building to the one pictured), which is nicer than the houses affordable to students in London.

Only one dorm offered cooked evening meals, and then only Monday-Friday. It was a fair bit more expensive to take this dorm.

In any case, most universities only offer dorms for the first year.

[1] https://www.imperial.ac.uk/ImageCropToolT4/imageTool/uploade...

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

#275

Post by gambiting »

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?

Oh god - because it would be vastly more expensive than the meal kit service? I've been with Hello Fresh for a very long time now(85 boxes and counting) and the price per meal per person is £5 - you can't eat that cheaply at a restaurant, it's just not possible, especially if you factor in the cost of driving there and parking plus time, it's just a lot more hassle. Even takeaway can't really be had for that cheap, unless you are happy with some really crappy pizza, but then no one will deliver food below the threshold.

And then you have the priceless benefit of actually learning how to cook - when I started I was positively mediocre in the kitchen, now I feel very confident and rarely make something that tastes bad, I would say I definitely know how to cook now.

Even ignoring the price effectiveness of this solution, the benefit of cooking 5 different recopies every week and trying out new things and getting better at cooking is in my opinion absolutely 100% worth the admission cost.

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

#276

Post by gambiting »

mothers wrote: post #77
harryh wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can afford a meal-in-a-box service, why would you not just go to a restaurant Because I'd rather eat at home. Especially if I have kids. It's easier. Because it's a lot cheaper. Because it's better for me from a health perspective.

I highly doubt any of these claims are true on the low end. Maybe if you only go to expensive restaurants.

As I said in my other comment, my total cost per meal per person with hello fresh is £5. You literally can't eat that cheaply at a restaurant. Even if you have the cheapest item on the menu and only ask for tap water to drink, it will be more than £5/person, and then you have to include the cost of getting to the restaurant and back. I was going to say that maybe you could eat for less if you were happy with a frozen burger or hot dog, but even cheap pub food will cost you more than £5 per person.

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

#277

Post by nailer »

fludlight wrote: post #177

> Really, if you wanted proof that there was a bubble, you’d look for a refrigerated warehouse REIT. I know someone working on a roll up of refrigerated warehouses. A REIT might be part of their exit plan but I don't think these meal-in-a-box companies even register on their radar.

For anyone else: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/reit.asp

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

#278

Post by notyourday »

pm90 wrote: post #154
pjc50 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

True, your food would probably taste better than the food in 99% of the restaurants.

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

#279

Post by ghaff »

Avshalom wrote: post #251
jessaustin wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems kind of niche, but a service could do the browning in-house before they package and send the meal? I have to think a browned cut of meat would last just as long, if not longer, than a raw cut?

A company could do all the cooking in-house but these companies are all walking a line between "grocery delivery" and "freezer aisle food" and I'm sure they're all really hoping they don't accidentally step onto a slippery slope and wind up being "Hungry Man for rich people" (not that that isn't honestly a perfectly great company, it's just not sexy enough for VC money).

At some point, you're just a personal chef which is a perfectly fine but not a very scalable business.

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

#280

Post by dnzm »

thedangler wrote: post #91

I feel like they should have Meal-Kits at grocery stores. They could make them with all the extra food they have. That way you can go pick up 3 of them and then grab more groceries if need be. It would be way better than all the frozen meals they have.

Some chains in the Netherlands already do this; they'll have a few different kits (a curry, a soup, a stew for example) with enough vegetables and a recipe for around 3. They don't include meat but you can add those yourself. Not exactly sure how popular they are.
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