from Hacker News

Blue Apron lays off more workers

by crunchlibrarian on 11/14/18, 1:01 AM with 335 comments

  • by untog on 11/14/18, 1:14 AM

    Can't help but feel like Blue Apron and its competitors are the next generation of Groupon and its competitors. Burnt through VC funding competing with each other only to find out the actual market for their product isn't that great.

    But thanks for all the free trials, VC investors! I've had a few above average dinners out of it.

  • by usaphp on 11/14/18, 2:34 AM

    I've used 4-5 services similar to Blue Apron, the issue with them for me is that we got tired by being limited to 3-4 recipes per week to choose from, and most of those is just different variation of pasta.

    Also I don't want to pay ~$9 for their pasta dish and also cook and wash dishes after it. Even if someone who is making minimum wage - they will waste ~30 minutes cooking + ~15 minutes washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen after, so it's about $15 on top of the $9 portion, and you still have to go to grocery because their food is mostly for dinner and for 2-4 times a week because they have limited number of recipes.

    On top of that I want to be able to spontaneously decide what I want to eat today, and not being forced to choose my food 2 weeks before. Maybe that works for someone, but whenever we try it just gets really boring and annoying after 3-4 weeks of usage.

  • by jrochkind1 on 11/14/18, 2:30 AM

    I'm a Blue Apron customer, I like it pretty okay.

    But I've thought for a while that:

    A) I wouldn't pay any more than I am now for it (in fact, I keep looking around for cheaper alternatives, but there aren't any, probably because...)

    B) I suspect they can't make a profit at what they charge.

    (especially cause as time goes on, I skip more and more weeks, further cutting into their per-acquired-customer revenue. Either I'm just getting tired of it, or my suspicions that each month the ingredients get cheaper and cheaper are correct, perhaps in response to B above).

    I don't expect them (or their competitors) to stay around.

  • by drcode on 11/14/18, 3:51 AM

    To me, the real appeal to me of meal services are "long tail" nutritional preferences- For instance, if you eat a strict ketogenic diet, you can get meal kits for that as well.

    It's difficult to make your own ketogenic meals solely via your own grocery shopping and recipe research... but I can now eat pretty tasty meals with minimal effort in 2018 via meal services.

  • by throwaway427 on 11/14/18, 2:50 AM

    Literally eating a Blue Apron as I read this.

    This is too bad, I just started doing Blue Apron and I really like it. I'm actually a good cook but I get stuck in a rut with respect to cooking the same things over and over again so it's been nice to have some enforced variety, especially when it comes to sides or bowl/hashes.

    The quality is good, the prices seems fair. Just seems like a fraught model.

  • by towndrunk on 11/14/18, 1:38 AM

    Maybe I'm just not their target but I want to pick my own veggies and meat. I don't want to leave it up to a minimum wager tossing whatever in my box as it heads down the line.

  • by drdeadringer on 11/14/18, 2:48 AM

    The number of podcasts I listen to has mushroomed the past several years. Shortly ago, it seemed like half of them were brimming with Blue Apron sponsorship ads bordering on "Two Starbucks on every corner". Thankfully that's stopped, and now I know why. Perhaps their ad push didn't work as intended and/or expected.

    [Of course, the new ad blitz is for someone else.]

    Personally, I'm currently just not one of their target markets although on paper I probably should be. If/when I move further away than 1 block from a grocery store [I lucked out, a lot], and/or want to eat more complicated prep-time food, and/or have less time or ability to shop for ingredients [and somehow a simple grocery-delivery service just won't cut it] for some ever-increasingly complicated prep-time food, I'll might see the light.

  • by tyingq on 11/14/18, 1:18 AM

    IPO in June 2017 at ~$10 per share. Closed today at $1.22 ...ouch.

  • by neonate on 11/14/18, 1:14 AM

  • by empath75 on 11/14/18, 1:28 AM

    I like their recipes but it’s just a grotesquely wasteful way to ship food around. Ultimately this business belongs in grocery stores. I’d happily drive down to Wegmans once a week to pick up 3-4 locally packaged blue apron style meals.

  • by sjroot on 11/14/18, 1:17 AM

    I am actively job interviewing and I have talked to a lot of startups. One of things I always ask my interviewer is whether or not the company is profitable.

    If you get to be that large of a company (100 workers => 4% of staff => ~2500 employees) and you are not making a profit, there is something wrong. Bringing all of those people onboard seems like a waste of investor money.

    That said, I am a fan of Blue Apron and I do hope that their figure out a way to operate in a profitable manner soon.

    Edit: as replies point out, profitability isn’t a great indicator for the success of a company. While it is fair game to ask, there are other better indicators (churn and burn, existing customer base, etc) that give a better picture. My point was that I think a company at this size should be profitable or working aggressively to make that possible. I think Blue Apron is laying these people off to accomplish that.

  • by g105b on 11/14/18, 1:14 PM

    I never understood business models like this in the first place.

    Those who like to cook don't have a problem buying ingredients themselves.

    Those who don't like cooking don't mind spending the same amount as a Blue Apron subscription to order takeaway.

    The target audience consists of people who would theoretically like to cook, but don't know how to read a recipe book and/or don't want to go shopping or use online grocery shopping.

  • by beerlord on 11/14/18, 3:51 AM

    I think there is a legitimate role for Government or Not-For-Profit here:

    Rather than providing money handouts to the worst off citizens, why not just cut out the middleman and offer basic prefab housing and cheap nutritious meals instead?

    Instead of shipping individual groceries to middle-class hipsters, why not just cut out the middleman and cook the food instead?

    Such a restaurant scheme already operates in India (called 'subsidised canteens'), and is used by all classes there since its cheap and reliable. The meals aren't free - they cost a few cents.

    I'd happily eat almost every meal at such a restaurant which offered no-frills service, a simple (and probably vegetarian) menu, and very low cost. The menu could be coordinated with seasonally and locally available ingredients, and would probably offer a single choice of food, changed daily.

    It would be like a soup-kitchen - but the need to pay a buck, and the presence of the middle classes, would make it acceptable for everyone.

    I think if organised well enough, it could actually be more efficient that having everyone cooking at home - better logistics for the use of ingredients, less food waste, less water wasted in cleaning dishes, etc. Not too mention the better division of labour by having dedicated cooks doing the work with professional-grade equipment, rather than everyone spending ages to do it at home (and for a lot of poor people, they lack the equipment or skills to cook proper meals).

  • by noer on 11/14/18, 2:57 PM

    (non-delivery) Food is a really tough space to compete in. Acquisition costs are relatively high and usually require you to give some amount of product away. Because you're trying to get people to switch from a known quantity (whatever someone buys to prepare themselves) or to make more time for cooking (over prepared food or food delivery), you need to make sure that first experience is excellent and hope that you're going to get a very good number of people to actually pay for the service when it isn't free.

    From my experience (work for an investor in and did product/acquisition/marketing for a food startup), there are very few people who will say no to a free meal, but converting those people is hard and there are a ton of variables that are hard to control for. The biggest thing that is tough to plan for is each person's taste. For example, if you pick a free meal and you don't like it will you really buy another one?

  • by misiogames on 11/14/18, 10:53 AM

    call me old fashion, but dinner (which is the only meal I have at home) is more than just the process to put energy into the body, it's a family ritual that provides additional value via the cohesion and collaboration required by the family members to make it happen, and this ritual starts when, after work the family members got to go out of their way home to personally select the best products they can find, which they will bring home, this part is annoying, but is part of the whole thing. And for the days when we don't want to cook, or want something different, meal delivery is super effective. These offering are in a middle ground with just a little value as a novelty.

  • by lechiffre10 on 11/14/18, 4:00 PM

    Typical problem of "path to least resistance" which is also the reason Amazon succeeded so well by recommending products ( Netflix does the same with show recommendations) We are by nature prone to take the path that requires the least effort so Cooking vs Ordering food ( which arguably has been made a LOT easier with the likes of Postmates,foodora, Uber eats etc...) means that people will have a tendency to order food instead of cook. Especially when you consider the amount of competition among these food delivery companies and the discounts/promotions they throw at users to retain their business.

  • by awicklander on 11/14/18, 4:01 AM

    We signed up for Blue Apron and Sun Basket. Time after time, the actual food provided by blue apron was inferior. Often close to rotten. This isn’t a complicated story( Blue Apron delivers food with instructions but the food isn’t very good.

  • by checker659 on 11/14/18, 7:33 AM

    Ashwin Ramdas's satirical video on Blue Apron is worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDMfDwDUxKE

  • by tjpnz on 11/14/18, 4:51 AM

    What would prevent a supermarket chain from implementing their own weekly boxes and offer them in store or for delivery using their own established logistics? With the access they have to vendors they would be able to offer more range, fresher ingredients and better prices while still being able to make a profit. I don't live in the US but I've seen what they've been doing on YouTube with sponsorships and limited time offers - they must be taking a huge hit.

  • by lolsal on 11/14/18, 5:53 PM

    I have tried Blue Apron and switched over to Green Box and I really like both of them.

    I am a really decent cook, but I mostly cook for 2 people so the value of these services to me is the convenience of just-what-you-need serving-size bits of rarer oddities like a small hunk of a special cheese, 3 shoots of green onions, a small bunch of fresh rosemary, exactly the right amount of this sauce or that seasoning, etc. Often unless my partner and I are doubling-down on a specific ingredient for a week or more, a lot of random things end up spoiling before we can use them up.

    I think in the end since we're paying more for the ingredients, and generating more waste/recycling, it ends up being a wash on total consumption.

  • by JohnJamesRambo on 11/14/18, 3:47 PM

    Everyone I know that tried these (including myself) starts getting them piling up uncooked and rotting and cancels. A month or two of product testing would have told them this model can't succeed. After that, it was just how long can we fool the VCs?

  • by readhn on 11/14/18, 3:44 AM

    I suspected blue apron would fail.

    i did try it - and i had two major annoyances:

    1. Wasteful Packaging - seemed like a waste of materials / cooler / all the plastic containers. (imagine 10,000s of these shipped everywhere and ending up in dumpsters)

    2. I still have to cook! Im paying these guys more than i have to for basic ingredients and i STILL HAVE TO WASTE TIME and COOK! Where is the convenience?

    Most of the people in our circles tried it for fun and recipes, 1-2-3 months then bam most quit.

    This business model is a total failure. Local grocery stores did start carrying meal kits. But what i REALLY MISS is the guacamole kit from TJ! I wonder why TJ REALLY stopped carrying it...

    That said thanks VCs for "free" food!

  • by anonytrary on 11/14/18, 6:57 AM

    Maybe -- just maybe, the market for services like Blue Apron and Eatwith just doesn't exist. They are both romantic ideas, and it's very possible that they that would have taken off in the 1940s (provided we had the same technology), but it's clear that they have been outpaced by the busy world of today.

  • by cardamomo on 11/14/18, 11:54 AM

    Given this downward trend with the rising trend of "luxury" apartments including more and more amenities, I wonder if the next new thing will be building-exclusive, fully-managed micro-farms with produce delivery directly to your fridge.

  • by gricardo99 on 11/15/18, 5:53 AM

    I just saw a new meal kit display at my local supermarket, which to me makes the most sense and was always going to be a huge looming threat, if not guaranteed killer, to the meal kit startups.

  • by ArrayList on 11/14/18, 7:50 PM

    Good, it's a pretty useless service. Has anyone considered, um, looking up recipes and um, going to the store, buying the stuff, and cooking?

  • by perseusprime11 on 11/14/18, 2:39 AM

    Stitchfix will be here in the same boat in a few years.

  • by nradov on 11/14/18, 3:28 AM

    I considered using Blue Apron a while back but their portions are just too small. Maybe that's not a problem for most of their customers but I exercise a lot and need at least 3100kcal (with a high fraction of protein) most days to avoid losing weight. I might consider it again if they offered a larger option.