Blue Apron Buzz: How this Meal-kit Company Took Our Kitchen by Storm

Meal-kit deliveries have taken this country by storm in the past 5 years. Both Blue Apron and Hello Fresh began delivering to U.S. homes back in 2012, and since have posed to transform the way people eat. Their ordering processes are very similar: you pick a plan (2 person or 4 person), choose which meals you want and on what day, and wait for them to be delivered to your doorstep. However, the way both companies haven chosen to attract and engage their audience is a little different. This week I will take a look into Blue Apron's marketing strategy, and next week I will compare them to Hello Fresh.

Let's begin by giving you a little background about this creative culinary company. Blue Apron was founded by Matt Salzberg, Ilia Papas, and Matt Wadiak back in 2012. They began their initial beta testing by sending pre-assembled meal kits to their friends. Just a few short years later, they now ship over 8 million meal kits a month, have raised over 193.8 million in venture capital, and can be valued at an astounding 2 BILLION dollars. Talk about rags to riches my friends. 

Their first ad, "A better way to cook" (shown above) is a short 30 second video shown mainly on television. It begins by featuring a women opening up her Blue Apron box and showing the various ingredients. They go on to emphasize that "inside everyone is an incredible cook" and that with their step-by step recipes, everyone can chef it up like a professional. It seems, however, that they struggled to find an effective way to communicate their new service to customers. Jared Cluff, the Cheif Marketing Office of Blue Apron, spoke about this dillema, stating that "The marketing problem in the early days of Blue Apron was explaining to people really what a meal kit is and what Blue Apron does,". 

However, as their brand awareness increased over time, the marketing team felt they needed to take their message in a different direction. Instead of encouraging "the chef inside of you", they want to change the way we look at the food system as a whole. In their newest ad, "Building a better food system from scratch" (shown above), they highlight their hopes to transform the food system from a highly manufactured industry to fresh food straight from the farms to your table. They talk about how chefs and farmers plan meals together to make farmland healthier and grow ingredients that taste better. The end the video with their tag line "Higher quality, better for the environment, and more delicious - because food is better when its made from scratch. " They plan to now run this in every screen possible, from our home televisions to even movie theaters, as well as incorporate this new look into their packaging and recipe cards. Their overall mission of improving the food system is well aligned with the health-conscious trend sweeping throughout our country, and gives the consumers more of a reason to invest than just the self-satisfaction of cooking high-end meals. It will be interesting to see where they plan on taking us next!


Works Cited:

Woft, Jessica. "Rivals Whip Up New Pitches as Meal Delivery Kits Gain Ground." Advertising Age, 11 

     Jan. 2017.

Brad. "Advertising Strategies from the Billion Dollar Business of Meal Kit Delivery." Adbeat.