Daily Harvest Launches New Meal Collection To Expand Product Formats

Building on its success with smoothies, bowls and bites, Daily Harvest is further expanding its offerings with the launch of Harvest Bakes, a new collection of bakeable meals made with vegetables, legumes and whole grains. The product expansion comes after the brand recently announced it had raised an additional $77 million in funding, bringing its valuation to $1.1 billion late last year.

The Bakes mark a new format for Daily Harvest: multiserve meals. Unlike Daily Harvest’s other products, which are either defrosted, blended or microwaved for a few minutes, the bakes require an oven and a longer preparation time.

“With our new collection, we’re delivering the soul-satisfying dishes consumers crave in one easy step,” Rachel Drori, Founder and CEO of Daily Harvest, said today in a press release. “And unlike many convenient options out there, our food never includes harmful, hyper-processed and ultra-refined junk.”

The meals are available online in Cremini + Smoked Paprika Ropa Vieja, Chickpea + Coconut Curry, Gigante Bean + Artichoke Olio and Squash + Wild Rice Gratin varieties. At $11.99 each, the Bakes also mark the company’s highest priced item, coming in $3 to $6 more than most other SKUs.

The exclusively direct-to-consumer brand first launched in 2016 with a line of ready to blend smoothies. The first heat-and-eat offerings came in 2018 with harvest bowls and soups. Since then, the company has focused on further expanding its portfolio, launching plant-based ice cream, sweet dessert bites and flatbreads. The goal is to eventually offer nutrient-dense solutions for every eating occasion throughout the day.

Currently, all items are sold online as part of a weekly subscription. According to Drori, one difference between Daily Harvest and other subscription meal kit offerings, which often see high levels of customer churn, is the brand’s focus on “customer economics since day one.” Adding higher priced items, which bring basket totals up, certainly helps better balance customer acquisition costs in relation to total purchase dollars.

While the direct-to-consumer marketplace was initially dominated by meal delivery services that required preparation and cooking, over the past two years brands such as Sun Basket and HelloFresh have turned to more heat-and-eat options. The impetus for this shift has come as consumers, stuck at home during the pandemic, have looked for more convenient meal solutions. Meanwhile, while Daily Harvest may have been one of the first national players, other brands have also entered the market with their own heat-and-eat meals, including as HungryRoot (which raised $40 million in 2021), Sakara Life (which raised $15 million in 2021) and Freshly (sold to Nestle in 2020).

Faced with increased competition online, Daily Harvest has also increasingly sought ways to connect with consumers through a range of in-person activations, including pop-up “Refueling Stations” and tours with ice cream vending machines. Last spring saw the introduction of a temporary order window in Chicago, which has since been converted to a full-fledged “Tasting Room,” offering shoppers the ability to purchase items a la carte and on demand.

In an interview at that time, Drori said to NOSH that some of the capital would go towards making sure there was “enough variety for each individual where they have options for any time of day.” She added that the company’s then over 100 items and 10 “collections” wasn’t “going to quite get them there.”