Like so many questions, the answer to this is, “The devil is in the details.” Meals and branded solutions are far different businesses than ingredients and branded products. Being good at the latter is no guarantee you’ll even be competitive when it comes to the former. Meals are complex from conception to execution and require a whole new battery of skill-sets to pull off, especially for companies whose corporate mental models still revolve around the notion of people cooking meals and sitting down and eating them together. I’m not saying large manufacturers couldn’t (or won’t, for that matter) get into the meal kit business, but I am saying that they ought to look carefully before they leap. The potential exists to do great damage to brand loyalty established over decades. If I was a manufacturer and thinking about this I wouldn’t look to a retail partner but instead look to partnering with or acquiring a company — or at the very least hiring people — with proven meal kit experience, from chefs and nutritionists to… Read more »

Are Unilever and ConAgra planning to really change their product offerings to appeal to this group? The really successful fresh food delivery services offer fresh ingredients, healthy ingredients (low salt, low sugar, low preservatives) and interesting food options. Those three descriptors, in combination, are not what consumers think of when thinking of ConAgra or Unilever. Making ingredients that are pre-packaged with high salt, sugar and preservatives will not make ConAgra or Unilever products competitive in the meal delivery space.

I was going to rant on about the foolish “me too” mentality that seems to pervade our business communities. My goodness, come up with your own breakthrough ideas! We already have five times too many providers of pretty much everything.

However, having read Anne’s comment above, I have nothing further to say and yield my time to her. I can just see it now: “Monsanto Meals” delivered to your home. Their competitive advantage? Shelf life!

These are truly exciting times for the consumer! Anytime you have a growth area with above-average profit potential it will attract new entrants. So, while we have a new horizontal “category” in the making, the key skills required for success are also emerging as players adapt and attempt to scale. Large CPG companies are better suited at scaling than creating a business with newly defined (and dynamic) needs. It’s best for food suppliers to evaluate their entire value proposition and ecosystem to understand how to connect in the meal kit delivery service area. For some partnering with a retailer for an easy pickup location will be ideal, for others acquiring a start-up for direct deliveries will be a better fit with their long-term strategy. The important point here — in this specific new business area — is that exploration, speed and agility taken together are more important than all the data research and focus group results. Far better results will happen from going out there and trying new limited approaches versus trying to data analyze… Read more »

Forward-thinking grocers should be launching such meal kits for sale in their stores or for home delivery. Giant Eagle’s Market District is already doing so, and more should follow. The kits are a good place for a grocer’s store brand ingredients. Makers of name-brand ingredients would be wise to reach out and partner with these grocers.

It’s not a coincidence that this month’s (October) Consumer Reports magazine includes a major feature comparing services and food from meal kit purveyors Hello Fresh, Green Chef, Plated, Purple Carrot and Blue Apron. This is a business concept whose time has come — with a strong accent on fresh ingredients. Like many others here, I am skeptical whether packaged foods companies can wield the right kind of credibility and trust with consumers to succeed with their own meal kit solutions. Even a highly convenient bundle of cans, boxes and pouches filled with processed foods won’t meet many people’s standards for their dinner tables. For supermarkets, on the other hand, I believe meal kits are a grand opportunity to refresh the “meal solutions” concept that has been hanging around since the 1990s. Here’s my thinking: Click-and-collect-my-meal-kit. Shoppers use your store mobile app to select from a limited number of menu offerings each day of the week. Enter the number of servings. Pick up a bundle of raw and/or prepared items on the way home from work… Read more »

While I too am skeptical that the big CPGs can pull this concept off, I do give them credit for at least considering it. Many need to carefully examine where they are at today and where they are going to be in the future with the quality and healthfulness of food products offered.

Could be just me, but in any other industry/market these innovators would be natural acquisition targets by larger, well established brands looking to capitalize on the innovation and drive their own business growth, i.e. technology, pharma, transportation, etc. Based on plenty of examples, success would be based on not destroying the value of the innovator while leveraging the economies/scale of the acquirer! Makes for a good business strategy for big brands working to stay relevant.