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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

#311

Post by TheCoelacanth »

motles wrote: post #269

The one difference between Groupon and meal kit services to me is that the meal kit services actually provide value over and over for something I actually need to do every day, 3 times a day: Eat. If I don't use the meal kits, that's fine, but I'm just going elsewhere - restaurants, delivery, take-out, grocery store. I don't need discount yoga classes or buy one get one froyo coupons every day. You don't need discoun…

There is clearly some value to the meal kits, but when all of the alternatives (restaurants, grocery stores, etc) are very low margin businesses why would you expect meal kits to have the kind of margins that would justify the high customer acquisition costs that the current incarnations of meal kit companies have?

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

#312

Post by qqg3 »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #125
kbenson wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention, if you're really local, you can beat out the competition in freshness and probably delivery costs as well (beyond a certain critical threshold of local customers at least). It's the resurgence of the milkman.

That's the best idea I've seen in this thread so far. Taken one step further with the farm-to-table concept, I can see suburban delivery of local meal kits directly from nearby farms on a subscription basis. It becomes a value-add on the CSA concept. In my area we have a pretty big concentration of high-income earners in relatively close proximity to small farms. It could probably be made to work in a situation like…

Delivery from local farms like https://www.farmdrop.com/

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

#313

Post by qqg3 »

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.

That may be the case in the US and/or other countries. Most of the accommodation in the UK is self catering however, private rooms with a shared kitchen between 5-10 people.

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

#314

Post by Fjolsvith »

btilly wrote: post #215
munchbunny wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Often, they promise it only takes 15-30 minutes for an entire meal, but apparently I'm not a professional chef who can wash vegetables, dice them, prepare marinades, chop garlic, and do all of this in just a few minutes. I end up usually spending between 60-90 minutes just to cook a recipe, which is way too much labor for a meal that is already priced about the same as a restaurant meal. I think this is one place w…

Are we talking your time, or wall-clock time? Melt butter, add lemon juice, salt and a dash of hot sauce to make a liquid. Rub liquid over chicken. Put chicken in oven at 400 until done. (How much you need and how long you take depends on whether you did this with a whole chicken or pieces of chicken. Let's call it an hour. Use an oven thermometer if you don't know how to tell.) Put some water in the bottom of a pot,…

Hah, this made me think of cooking Hamburger Helper - 20 minutes cook time with 3 minutes of my time spent in preparation.

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

#315

Post by diiaann »

vec wrote: post #186
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 started using these services (originally Blue Apron; more recently Hello Fresh) with the express goal of learning to cook. I originally planned to continue the service until I had a catalog of recipes I knew I liked and enough skill to do for myself. I met my initial goal six months ago, cancelled my subscription, then restarted it a couple of months after that. I found that when I had to choose a recipe to cook, I…

There is another meal planning serving called Cooksmarts without the raw ingredients.

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

#316

Post by knodi123 »

logicfiction wrote: post #297
munchbunny wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Often, they promise it only takes 15-30 minutes for an entire meal, but apparently I'm not a professional chef who can wash vegetables, dice them, prepare marinades, chop garlic, and do all of this in just a few minutes. I end up usually spending between 60-90 minutes just to cook a recipe, which is way too much labor for a meal that is already priced about the same as a restaurant meal. I think this is one place w…

The trick all recipe writers use is the recipe time assumes you are mise-en-place, that all your ingredients are prepared for the recipe ahead of the recipe time. I'm fairly certain Blue Apron and such are no different.

> I'm fairly certain Blue Apron and such are no different.

You're half wrong. Blue Apron gives you two values, "prep time" and "recipe time". They don't include dicing and peeling, but they don't overlook it either.

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

#317

Post by knodi123 »

pm90 wrote: post #185
criddell wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Granted, the food is much healthier than restaurant food I wouldn't automatically grant that. I cook Blue Apron with my teen-aged kids and it's fantastic. I've become a much better cook while helping them learn how to cook. The recipe cards are a big part of what makes it work for us. I don't always know what medium dice or chop means, but I can pretty much always match what's in the picture.

> I wouldn't automatically grant that. While this deserves qualifications, most of the time restaurant food is simply not as hygienic as meals prepared at home. And its not some deliberate plan to make it so. Despite their best efforts, a somewhat large scale food establishment just allows a lot more opportunities for food contamination. And I say this as a person who eats out everyday (Lunch out, dinner and supper a…

> most of the time restaurant food is simply not as hygienic as meals prepared at home

I've become much more conscious of this lately. I called the health inspector to report a restaurant for the first time this month, and did it again just a week ago.

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

#318

Post by arshmand »

eresing wrote: post #191

Here's what my family does: We hired an older woman (from thumbtack.com) to come to our house once a week for 4 hours and cook whatever is in the fridge. I make sure to have plenty of food in the fridge, spices, canned goods, etc. Then she cooks enough food for my 4 person family for about 5 - 6 days (excluding breakfast). She knows our preferences and takes requests. We pay her $25/hr ($100 week). I feel like everyo…

What search term did you use on thumbtack to find your cook. I would love to be able to pay only $100/week for what amounts to 40 servings (4 people * 2 (lunch and dinner) * 5 days). That comes out to $2.5 per serving for the labor of cooking. I've looked into personal chefs before and the quotes I've received are generally $15+ per serving (not including food costs).

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

#319

Post by Vendan »

Chris2048 wrote: post #284
tomjen3 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a sousvide cooker and a slow cooker so that I can have the machines make food for me when I am not at home. Throw some meat into the sousvide in the morning, come home to a really nice piece of meat that you can take right out of the machine. Save any excess and reheat out the next day.

You need a pretty good (tight) container though, or the water evaporates. I intend to get one of those blowtorch attachments to sear afterwards, although I suspect griddle/thick base pan might do just as well.

Not terribly, rough fit (like, my tub has a half inch gap around the hole where the circulator goes in) will be negligible water loss unless you start talking multi-day cook times. I just cooked some meat for 24 hours and lost about 2~4% of the original water level

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

#320

Post by Fjolsvith »

Fjolsvith wrote: post #314
btilly wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we talking your time, or wall-clock time? Melt butter, add lemon juice, salt and a dash of hot sauce to make a liquid. Rub liquid over chicken. Put chicken in oven at 400 until done. (How much you need and how long you take depends on whether you did this with a whole chicken or pieces of chicken. Let's call it an hour. Use an oven thermometer if you don't know how to tell.) Put some water in the bottom of a pot,…

Hah, this made me think of cooking Hamburger Helper - 20 minutes cook time with 3 minutes of my time spent in preparation.

I guess the majority of HN readers don't eat Hamburger Helper...
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