Are Meal Kit’s the New Food Marketing Tool?

Companies the ilk of HelloFresh, Plated, and Blue Apron, are driving hard to garner Millennial customers nationwide. They ship premeasured quality ingredients and tested foolproof recipes for consumers to prepare meals in their own kitchens knowing full well they really don’t want to cook. 

Meal Kits save time, shopping and cooking and the tradeoff is they cost just a bit more. Fresh meals-by-mail from most companies tend to run between $8 to $15 per serving, depending on the company and ingredients used. However the undercurrents of change are revealing entrepreneurs and local restaurants may be ready to enter the Meal Kit Gold Rush according to Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru®. 

Meal Kits have become cooking training wheels for Millennials, and Baby Boomers according to our own Grocerant Guru®.  All Americans have been exposed to a plethora of international flavors, spices, and entrees that they do not have the skill-set to prepare at home on their own according to our Grocerant Guru®.

Today, the Meal Kit Gold Rush has estimated sales of $1.4 billion a year in the US. Convenience stores, grocery stores, restaurants, and entrepreneurs are rapidly entering the meal kit industry by introducing their own convenient home-cooked meals.

Kroger’s new concept store Main and Vine opened offering a meal kit priced at $9.00 for a meal for two that significantly undercuts the current price offered from mail order companies the ilk of Plated.  One big problem at Main and Vine they merchandised the Meal Kits like a left over sack lunch.  Meal Kits are just taking up shelf space if merchandised like yesterday’s left-overs not today’s dinner.  

Food retail is evolving faster than many legacy food retailers, today meal kits are a $1.4 billion dollar business in the US.  Again that is $1.4 Billion that came out of the grocery store sector in large part.  Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food continues to be a conundrum for legacy retailers but a BOOM for entrepreneurs.  Don’t be disrupted, become the disruptor call Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® like so many have since 1991. 1-253-759-7869

Success does leave clues.  Are you trapped doing what you have always done and doing the same way?  Interested in learning how Foodservice Solutions 5P’s of Food Marketing can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization?  Or do you need a Grocerant Program Review or Grocerant Scorecard conducted? Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us