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Albertsons snaps up meal kit startup Plated

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Re: Albertsons snaps up meal kit startup Plated

#31

Post by pbreit »

CapnCrunchie wrote: post #16
x2f10 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But it seems kind of antithetical to how grocery stores make money. They're low margin, high volume businesses. And this directly attacks volume. Not necessarily. The margin on meal kits are stronger than the ingredients alone (e.g. sliced fruits & veggies). In relation to the volume, meal kit buyers still need to eat. The hungry buyer must cook at home (w/ groceries), go to a restaurant, or buy a second meal kit. T…

>Grocery stores can market these meal kits as more affordable, healthier, and 'hip'. I did a meal kit service for a little while, and my biggest complaint was that it was not any cheaper than if I were to go out to eat, but I still had to cook the meal and clean up afterwards. If there were a cost savings versus going to eat at a restaurant, I would have kept the subscription.

Where can you eat for less than $10 besides McDonald’s or a pizza place?

Re: Albertsons snaps up meal kit startup Plated

#32

Post by pbreit »

fotbr wrote: post #28
tclancy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>an obligation to making a big dinner is not convenient As someone who likes to cook (and has test-driven 3 or 4 of these services), I don't see them as that at all. Blue Apron, et al are paint-by-number compared to actually cooking from a normal recipe where you have to measure and prep. I liked having them as an option, but they didn't scratch my "cooking" itch at all. They were more like a convenient way to put a…

There's no way I'm doing a subscription. I'm open to trying new things, and regularly do when I'm traveling, but at the end of the day I'm a midwestern, meat and potatoes type of person. I've yet to see one of these services that would work for me without feeling like I'm wasting my money more often than not. I'd LOVE to have a paint-by-number, better than hamburger helper, set of options I can pick up from the groce…

Dinnerly is $6/portion and pretty basic.

Re: Albertsons snaps up meal kit startup Plated

#33

Post by chimeracoder »

pbreit wrote: post #31
CapnCrunchie wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Grocery stores can market these meal kits as more affordable, healthier, and 'hip'. I did a meal kit service for a little while, and my biggest complaint was that it was not any cheaper than if I were to go out to eat, but I still had to cook the meal and clean up afterwards. If there were a cost savings versus going to eat at a restaurant, I would have kept the subscription.

Where can you eat for less than $10 besides McDonald’s or a pizza place?

> Where can you eat for less than $10 besides McDonald’s or a pizza place?

Depends on where you live. In New York, for example, it's incredibly easy to find good food for under $10, even for dinner.

Re: Albertsons snaps up meal kit startup Plated

#34

Post by rrdharan »

chimeracoder wrote: post #33
pbreit wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where can you eat for less than $10 besides McDonald’s or a pizza place?

> Where can you eat for less than $10 besides McDonald’s or a pizza place? Depends on where you live. In New York, for example, it's incredibly easy to find good food for under $10, even for dinner.

I live in New York (four years in Manhattan and a couple more in Brooklyn).

I think "incredibly easy" is a gross exaggeration. I supposed you might be talking about the street carts, but street meat is questionably healthy / "good". The deeper you get into parts of Queens it's certainly possible, but I think the previous poster had in mind some sort of sit down establishment rather than street food.

Re: Albertsons snaps up meal kit startup Plated

#35

Post by kalleboo »

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #2

This is just the start. Eventually all supermarket companies will buy a meal kit company.

In Sweden all the major supermarket chains already have their own meal kit services. They didn't have to buy anyone up they just started them in-house. I wonder what keeps US chains from innovating themselves?

Re: Albertsons snaps up meal kit startup Plated

#36

Post by chimeracoder »

rrdharan wrote: post #34
chimeracoder wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where can you eat for less than $10 besides McDonald’s or a pizza place? Depends on where you live. In New York, for example, it's incredibly easy to find good food for under $10, even for dinner.

I live in New York (four years in Manhattan and a couple more in Brooklyn). I think "incredibly easy" is a gross exaggeration. I supposed you might be talking about the street carts, but street meat is questionably healthy / "good". The deeper you get into parts of Queens it's certainly possible, but I think the previous poster had in mind some sort of sit down establishment rather than street food.

I live midtown, and yes, it is incredibly easy to find prepared food for dinner that is cheaper than what these meal kit services charge, or even cheaper than the equivalent in groceries. I'm not talking about street carts either.

Re: Albertsons snaps up meal kit startup Plated

#37

Post by qq66 »

kalleboo wrote: post #35
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #2

This is just the start. Eventually all supermarket companies will buy a meal kit company.

In Sweden all the major supermarket chains already have their own meal kit services. They didn't have to buy anyone up they just started them in-house. I wonder what keeps US chains from innovating themselves?

US grocery chains have no institutional expertise in building new offerings or generating demand for those offerings because the manufacturers do it for them. Manufacturers advertise the crap out of their products and rent shelf space from the grocery store to put them in front of consumers. Except for a few exceptions like Whole Foods, Wegmans, Market Basket, etc., grocery stores are pure logistics operations with no marketing capabilities.

Re: Albertsons snaps up meal kit startup Plated

#38

Post by rdlecler1 »

vlahmot wrote: post #25
digikata wrote: post #23

I think the disconnect to be bridged here is the quality expectations between a meal kit ingredients, and just picking up ingredients at the supermarket yourself. I don't think the kits coming out of just reassembling the existing inventory a many supermarkets would quite be as attractive unless some additional logistics are added to make higher quality ingredients available.

I've only used BlueApron and HelloFresh but the quality of the ingredients has been comparable to stuff picked up at Safeway. The real value for me besides time saved (and the insane coupons/free meals) is using ingredients that I wouldn't have otherwise picked up. I'll just grab button mushrooms most of the time but getting some different variety is nice. I also usually grab the store brand meat because its cheaper.…

I’ve been subscribing to Blue Apron for about six weeks. Really enjoy it. It’s cut down on our food waste, healthier portioning (I love about 9 pounds) and I’m getting more diversity in my diet. Pre-planning your meals and grocery shopping takes a lot of time and mental work. This kind of cook-by-numbers approach takes away a lot of mental resistance that has you eating out more often. Plus, I’m learning a lot.

Re: Albertsons snaps up meal kit startup Plated

#39

Post by KGIII »

fernly wrote: post #17

Plated should be able to lower costs by participating in Albertson/Safeway's purchasing system. Everything that they pack in a meal kit is also an SKU for a grocery store. Then, there's lovely marketing synergy. On the one side, people going through the store looking for the stuff they need to cook for dinner, are going to see how "oh, I could have all this packaged up for me and sent to my door and I wouldn't have t…

The store will also have data that shows what items are frequently purchased together. With this, they can find out what meals are popular and market those to increase popularity. With additional monitoring, they can probably go so far as to individualize it and optimize for profit.

Of course, there are privacy concerns but I think we've established that people are quite willing to give up their privacy for a perceived benefit.

Re: Albertsons snaps up meal kit startup Plated

#40

Post by KGIII »

qq66 wrote: post #37
kalleboo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Sweden all the major supermarket chains already have their own meal kit services. They didn't have to buy anyone up they just started them in-house. I wonder what keeps US chains from innovating themselves?

US grocery chains have no institutional expertise in building new offerings or generating demand for those offerings because the manufacturers do it for them. Manufacturers advertise the crap out of their products and rent shelf space from the grocery store to put them in front of consumers. Except for a few exceptions like Whole Foods, Wegmans, Market Basket, etc., grocery stores are pure logistics operations with n…

Can you elaborate on 'with no marketing capabilities' for me?

My company started out modeling vehicular traffic and expanded into modeling pedestrian traffic. Large grocery store chains do a lot of research and marketing. The store layout is heavily modeled and optimized for marketing purposes.

It was so heavily researched that we had a mock-up store for a lab and would research the way people would navigate and where they would spend their time. These days, they are probably doing real-time monitoring by cameras and tracking your mobile device as you traverse the floor. In my day, we simply would monitor video feeds and take notes of the behavior, often from recordings of real stores and real customers.

I may not be understanding your use of the term marketing, however. From store brands to reputation management to ads and a Sunday flyer, it seems like marketing to me? It may well be that I'm misinterpreting something.

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