Fresh Start: Blue Apron Turns Eye to Innovation While Helping Build “Super App”

Aiming to put a troubled period behind it, meal kit maker Blue Apron is embracing a leaner business model in 2024 that prioritizes flexibility and accelerates innovation targeted at consumers’ growing interest in convenient, clean label offerings.

The formerly public company faced ongoing financial challenges in 2022 and 2023, culminating in the sale of its operational infrastructure including fulfillment centers and equipment to manufacturer FreshRealm in June. Blue Apron CEO Linda Findley noted that that transaction was “the biggest catalyst for the business,” and helped the company lock in a deal to cure its financial woes.

As a newly asset-light entity, Blue Apron was then acquired by serial entrepreneur Marc Lores’ Wonder Group for $130 million in September and removed from the public markets. Wonder, a vertically-integrated “Fast Fine” dining delivery service, operates a food delivery app and five brick and mortar stores in New York and New Jersey.

With Wonder’s tech and logistics platform behind it, Blue Apron now aims to help build a mealtime “super app,” said Findley.

“We’re excited to enhance our ability to deliver exceptional, chef-curated meals to more customers through the availability of Blue Apron on Wonder’s app and in their brick and mortar stores,” Findley highlighted. “The two companies together can address all meal occasions over time with the highest quality and flavor.”

Clean Label & Convenience Steer Innovation Strategy

In early December, the meal kit maker launched its first new innovation since the acquisition: Prepared and Ready, a 16-SKU line of refrigerated meals that are ready-to-eat in under five minutes.

According to John Adler, Blue Apron’s head chef and VP of physical product, the line had been in the works for numerous years and built on learnings derived after the launch of its frozen Heat and Eat line in 2021.

“As we entered into our operational partnership with FreshRealm – who had been our manufacturing partner for the Heat and Eat meals – we used that transition as an opportunity to really dial up our convenience meals, using their manufacturing expertise, our culinary expertise, and customer feedback,” said Adler. “What we honed in on was that frozen was actually a barrier to people.”

Adler explained that while the freezer case is some of “the most valuable real estate in grocery stores,” most consumers still associate the aisle with products that are full of additives and preservatives. He emphasized that Blue Apron’s shift to refrigerated innovations is because from a formulation standpoint, products that go from a frozen to a thawed temperature state often require the use of stabilizers so that liquids and sauces don’t separate and deteriorate the meals’ overall quality and appearance.

“A cleaner label is something that people are willing to pay a premium for,” said Adler. “It’s also something that people rightfully associate with quality so that was one of the big pillars that we wanted to go after.”

That sentiment is backed up by recent SPINS data, which tracked a 0.3% decline in sales in frozen meals and entrees over the past year, for the period ending December 31, 2023. During that same period, the refrigerated meal market grew to $6.5 billion in total sales, a 6.5% increase.

Finding Whitespace

As Blue Apron looks to continue innovating in 2024, Adler said Prepared and Ready will be its main focus with plans already underway to increase the line’s total SKU count to 20 meals.

The company will also focus on expanding deeper into convenience with more add-on and side dish products that allow consumers to “Frankenstein together a meal,” of their choice, Adler joked.

But within Prepared and Ready, Blue Apron will also seek a broader consumer reach by introducing meals that hone in on three main wellness groups: “carb conscious,” under 600 calories and containing 30 grams of protein.

Labeling the meals in different dietary-habit “buckets” is also a benefit for consumers with Adler emphasizing that a person looking for a quick and convenient meal likely does not have a lot of time to read about products.

“Being really upfront about this stuff in the digital environment and making it easy to understand, not using some Blue Apron-generated term, but just being plain and simple about it… [has been] incredibly important to help customers immediately understand the evolution of the product, why it’s different than the legacy heat-and-eat product and whether or not it fits their needs,” Adler stated.

While some of the ingredients may be flash frozen prior to assembly, the meals themselves are never frozen after being packaged. The new line also differentiates itself from other fresh, prepared meal suppliers due to its shelf life – which ranges from six to nine days, depending on the product, from the point of fulfillment.

“We did a lot of investigation around where the competitive set had benchmarked [shelf-life] and one of the things that was unique that we didn’t want to really do is… we received some competitor products where you would get five meals, some of which had two days of shelf life on them and some of them had seven. As a customer, that’s a really confusing experience.”

Creating meals with a longer shelf life also helps to mitigate the potential for food waste. According to Findley, Blue Apron’s food waste diversion programs saw over 1.3 million meals donated to Feeding America and over 400,000 free meals offered to fulfillment center employees in 2022.

The new line will also enjoy wider availability via both Wonder’s app and physical storefronts. Additionally, Blue Apron subscription boxes will also now be available for delivery via Wonder’s couriers at no additional cost. For customers within Wonder’s delivery zones, Blue Apron is working on a new option for customers where they can select specific delivery time slots and opt for deliveries with less packaging.

“We also continue to be dedicated to managing packaging waste,” Findley said. “In 2021, we committed to a goal of 100% recyclable, reusable or compostable meal kit packaging by 2025. We continue to make strides towards that goal and are proud to say that our meal kits are now approximately 87% recyclable.”