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 local meal kit business is only going to go down.
In fact, I see a reason local variations will become stronger. A lot of these customers have money and are interested in "farm to table" and "buy local" ideas. So, I'd expect that they could find meal kits that fit whatever diet they want, prepared by a local chef, using ingredients from local farms. This is a great potential avenue for local chefs to promote their brand, in addition to appearances on shows like Top Chef, etc.
So... why would a large company with a national brand matter at all? I could easily see business like Blue Apron just fold overnight, but the meal kit concept shift entirely to, well, small business. Sure seems like the big investment dollars are basically paving the way for local competition, by planting the idea of "meal kits" as a viable option in people's minds.
Another turn of thought: the Amazon acquisition of Whole Foods could play into supporting these small businesses. Amazon likes to think of things as "primitives" that get turned into other businesses. Today, your small businesses can use Amazon tools for product warehousing, selling, and even all the associated web properties.
Now, with WF, Amazon may be able to treat fresh produce in a similar way. Sure, Whole Foods could produce and distribute meal kits. But I'd suspect the components of what goes into the meal kits could also be made available, such that the "local restauranteur" could come up with the creative bit - the recipe - and then have parts like the supply chain of high quality produce, distribution, sales, etc, basically available via Amazon.
It's a little scary thinking about how far ahead Amazon is from it's competition.
I think the future is supply chain automation - where a product/service delivery requires multiple sub-services (packaging, storage/indexing etc) and the use of these can be fluid and automated - Why can't I redirect stock to a different packager at the click of a button?
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 that.
The benefits you listed are huge - buy local, decreased packaging, fresher food. That alone is compelling enough for me to choose a local competitor given all else equal. I can see cost savings for local competitors with shipping and packaging. Food costs will be higher, i'm assuming, since volume will be much-much lower than BA.
Devils-advocate: how can a local meal-kit delivery business compete with Blue Apron on user-acquisition and tech? It's very easy to waste ad dollars on FB and taboola, which will drive up your CACs to a point where any cost savings from packaging and shipping will be minor at best. Hiring outside help for user-acq is prohibitively expensive for most small businesses, and fraught with scammers and "local SEO expert" types.
On the tech side, if you've ever used a local CSA, that's what I imagine most small business meal-kit software will look like unless some SaaS steps in and makes a killer, Shopify-like product for managing these businesses. Maybe this exists, I don't know.
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.
Blue Apron may not have a "moat", but successful small businesses do. Those moats are personal service and personal connections. It doesn't scale up so you can't turn it into a unicorn IPO, but it could be a comfortable life.
I've wondered about some sort of food/prep API that all these services could use. Pick your products, quality rating, pricepoints and essentially build a service where you handle the choices and instruction, but the more difficult stuff is white-labeled interfacing with growers and anyone going as far to peel/chop, etc.
A lot of those Farm 2 Table and local recipes/kits would still need staples that can be more cheaply provided on a national scale. One could foresee a large, national company owning many of these local "branches", with their own branding and identity, but taking advantage of the national supply chain for some things.
"Hey folks, Emeril Lagasi here. With my new meal kit Lagasi@Home, you get all the ingredients and instructions for my favorite recipes. All you have to do is...KICK IT UP A NOTCH!"
Yes, this kind of business could create opportunities for a lot of local small businesses. To me that's much preferable over all-dominating national or global brands.
In fact, I see a reason local variations will become stronger. A lot of these customers have money and are interested in "farm to table" and "buy local" ideas. So, I'd expect that they could find meal kits that fit whatever diet they want, prepared by a local chef, using ingredients from local farms. This is a great potential avenue for local chefs to promote their brand, in addition to appearances on shows like Top Chef, etc.
So... why would a large company with a national brand matter at all? I could easily see business like Blue Apron just fold overnight, but the meal kit concept shift entirely to, well, small business. Sure seems like the big investment dollars are basically paving the way for local competition, by planting the idea of "meal kits" as a viable option in people's minds.