
Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark - rayuela
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-17/blue-apron-plummets-after-amazon-files-for-meal-kit-trademark
======
pera
Please Amazon, do something different about the _huge_ amount of material
waste generated by companies like Blue Apron and Hello Fresh. This is the main
reason why I stopped using these services, the footprint is just disgusting:
plastic bags inside aluminum+plastic bags inside cardboard boxes with more
plastic. Please, invent some form of reusable container that can be easily
stored and delivered back so we can stop trashing the Earth.

~~~
chaostheory
Amazon needs to do this with their regular shipments as well. They contain a
lot of plastic insulation (air bags). Instead of throwing mine away, I've been
saving it until it fills up a closet then I give it to a local UPS store to
reuse. My closet fills up in about a month. It would be nice if Amazon had a
formal program for this since you can't recycle them with your garbage
company.

~~~
leokennis
The problem is, if you want to cheaply ship cheap stuff quickly, you need to
reduce costs. So no time to have your packers pick from 20 sizes of boxes;
just toss everything in a huge box. No time to handle returns of broken
shipments; just stuff those huge boxes with tons of air bags. No time to
actually check what's in the boxes (towels or a vase) because you need to pack
200 boxes an hour to break even.

If "we" want to stop trashing the world, first we need to show we are willing
to pay for that.

~~~
r00fus
> If "we" want to stop trashing the world, first we need to show we are
> willing to pay for that.

This is the typical supply-side dodge. Consumers have little to no power here.
I can't dictate to Amazon or major shipping companies (I do buy AMZN's
frustration-free when I can).

What option is there? Do you propose I compete with the packaging with my own
offering?

~~~
abandonliberty
Wouldn't this paraphrase as "I have no power, so I will continue financially
supporting them." ?

Consumers blame suppliers, suppliers blame consumers. No one has to do
anything. Long live the status quo! :)

~~~
r00fus
> suppliers blame consumers

That's the dodge right there. Easy as a supplier to simply say "we provide
what the consumer wants" to justify all business decisions. Courage, that is.

This is normally where the government or watchdog organizations get involved -
those have been gutted or defanged in the past few decades... by business
interest group lobbying.

------
127001brewer
An article called "The Slow-Motion Trainwreck Facing the Meal-Kit Industry"
relates how the meal-kit industry faces the same problem(s) as Groupon:

 _" The problem Groupon faced was that their initial success validated a model
that anyone could copy, and everyone who copied it increased both Groupon’s
cost of customer acquisition and its churn rate."_

[https://medium.com/@byrnehobart/the-slow-motion-
trainwreck-f...](https://medium.com/@byrnehobart/the-slow-motion-trainwreck-
facing-the-meal-kit-industry-345f14df45ad)

~~~
acchow
Wait, isn't this how capitalism works? Can someone explain what I'm missing
here?

~~~
ams6110
Yes, ideally in a competitive market for something that is a "commodity" type
of good, profits fall to (near) zero. Not what VC investors are looking for.

------
jonknee
It would be a great fit given that the main challenge is logistics which
Amazon is already a leader in. With Amazon Fresh they even have the ability to
pick up the previous week's boxes and cold packs (along with delivering the
rest of your groceries at the same time!).

Blue Apron spends a fortune acquiring new customers, possibly up to $460 per
sign up as of recently [1]. I bet the percentage of Blue Apron subscribers
that are also Prime members is amazingly high. Amazon doesn't have to pay a
dollar to advertise to these people, let alone $460.

[1] [https://www.recode.net/2017/6/1/15727182/blue-apron-
ipo-s1-a...](https://www.recode.net/2017/6/1/15727182/blue-apron-
ipo-s1-analysis-customer-acquisition-marketing-churn)

~~~
dtien
And possibly the ace in the hole, the Whole Foods aquisition. Local
distribution centers via the whole foods stores, with fresh foods, even with
premade foods if you wish. Could ultimately be a blue apron/munchery hybrid.

Their advantage would of course be their world class distribution/fulfillment
tech, but also the fact that the costs of the food parts are mostly sunk
already into the Whole Foods biz.

~~~
petra
I agree. The munchery/whole-foods combo is the ace here.

They only need to figure out meals that last 7 days (chilled) with natural
ingredients only, but since freshly(acquired by nestle) did it, it's possible.

Or maybe there's some patent here, and it's really hard to achieve otherwise,
and that's why nestle bought them.

------
bearton
I've tried a few meal kit companies (blue apron and hello fresh) and I was
underwhelmed by the product and the service.

Whole Foods ingredients + Amazon delivery = game over for most of these meal
kit companies.

They would be able to provide users added levels of customization and probably
same day or next day delivery whereas with most meal kit companies, you have
to lock in your menu for the week the prior week, which is inconvenient if
plans change.

Ultimately, I'm excited about this move as I shop at whole foods regularly and
look forward to the ease of delivery that Amazon provides.

I wonder where Amazon will target next; they've already targeted grocery and
meal kit delivery and revealed plans to compete with Zillow and Redfin this
week in real estate. Which industry is next?

------
lubujackson
As someone who has used and enjoyed meal kits (Good Eggs, not Blue Apron), I
don't think this is a slam dunk for Amazon. Meal kits are a lot more than
recipes and portioning.

I have 2 small kids so meal planning is hard to do consistently. I can whip up
a chicken breast and veggie, but what I get from Good Eggs is seasonal recipes
and fresh produce sourced directly from local farmers PLUS prepared elements
including marinated meat and sauces.

So when I cook a meal kit I'm getting a much better meal (more like a dinner
party meal) for about the same effort as a barebones meal I would make
otherwise.

I have used Instacart and bought prepared stuff from Whole Foods, and there
just isn't a comparison. In SF, I often get or see old/bruised produce in
Whole Foods which used to be consistently good.

------
mi100hael
This was bound to happen. A lot of financial analysts have been saying for a
while that Blue Apron is a good idea that will be successful under different
circumstances. Right now, Blue Apron's cost to attract and retain customers is
astronomical and ripe for a competitor like Amazon to undercut.

~~~
DaiPlusPlus
...especially with Apple's acquisition of Whole Foods.

~~~
elthran
Amazon, not Apple

------
notyourday
As I have said before with Amazon eating Whole Foods meal kit companies that
are not currently ramen profitable are toast. Ramen profitable companies would
have to learn how to grow out of their cash flow.

No sane investor would be pumping money into them until they know what and how
Amazon would be looking at this market.

I think over next few years we would see a total implosion of meal-kit
industry with the exception being whoever operates Whole Foods on a national
scale. On a regional level grocery stores and small grocery chains would offer
the local meal kit service as for them the costs of expanding into that market
locally is tiny.

~~~
calafrax
> I think over next few years we would see a total implosion of meal-kit
> industry

I don't think so. Meal kits are a niche business fighting against mass market
competitors already so nothing changes with the Amazon entry.

If anything having an established player like amazon advertising meal kits
increases market awareness and gets people interested.

No one is going to have a monopoly of the food business, ever. It just doesn't
work that way.

~~~
munificent
> No one is going to have a monopoly of the food business, ever. It just
> doesn't work that way.

[http://imgur.com/pnMMj](http://imgur.com/pnMMj)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ConAgra_brands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ConAgra_brands)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yum!_Brands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yum!_Brands)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargill)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBS_S.A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBS_S.A).

We aren't there yet, but the trend line is pretty clear.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIcE4OvnqAY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIcE4OvnqAY)

~~~
calafrax
None of these companies is anywhere close to a monopoly on food.

Cargill might be big at 100B+ revenue (global) per year but US food
expenditures are 1.5T+ per year, so even a company as huge as Cargill is
capturing < 10% of the US market. Hardly a monopoly.

[https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-
expenditures.asp...](https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-
expenditures.aspx)

------
stevewillows
This was heavily predicted around here, and seems like a natural direction for
Amazon (with very little effort.)

It'll be interesting to see who else steps into this market. Hopefully there
will be a focus on local pick ups to eliminate even more of the footprint.

Ideally we'd see something similar to the CSA shares where you get a
rubbermaid bin once per week with everything packed in something similar to
Mason jars (with an initial deposit to ensure people are playing along.)

This is a fantastic opportunity for local supermarkets and grocery stores to
dedicate a section to 'What's for dinner?' \-- where all of the ingredients
are grouped together with a small recipe card and a link to a video, or
something along those lines.

------
rednerrus
This is why Amazon purchased Whole Foods. I've been trying to get my regional
WF competitor (New Season Market) to do these meal kits and have them
delivered with Amazon Prime for the past 18 months. They could have killed
this game and without all of the wasted packaging. I am going to continue to
chip away at them.

~~~
s0rce
New Seasons is great, there has been one in the progress of opening across
from my office in Emeryville (East Bay - SF Bay Area) for the past year.

------
chinathrow
Honestly, WTF Bloomberg and their auto play videos.

~~~
0xCMP
uMatrix has been a blessing for me. Block everything until you need it. I'd
rather have the web broken than let them do whatever they want.

------
madengr
Aren't meal-kits just plain expensive, compared to shopping at a local grocery
store?

~~~
blacksmith_tb
I don't think they are interested in competing on price, the value proposition
is that they save you time, and the effort of meal planning. But they are
pitching themselves as cheaper than eating out, and with at least the illusion
the food is healthier (plus a pinch of the IKEA effect since you cooked it
yourself).

~~~
metalliqaz
I've used Blue Apron. They don't save any time at all. What I saved in
shopping I lost in meal prep. I quickly went back to the prepped food at my
local grocery store, which is also much cheaper.

People who really wish to trade money for time would just eat at restaurants.

------
crudbug
Please use your local grocery store. I am 31, live in Manhattan and shop once
a week for groceries. All these food startups are not solving any real
problems, its Webvan all over again.

~~~
Sargos
Not wanting to spend my precious time researching on the internet for a good
recipe, going to the grocery store to pick up items for said recipe, and them
prepping the ingredients before the cooking process even starts is a "real
problem" that is very much solved by these services.

------
randomf1fan
This was inevitable. I wonder how Blue Apron is planning to compete.

------
butterfi
This seems unsavory to me (pun intended). Would the trademark take away Blue
Apron's ability to operate?

~~~
monocasa
It signals Amazon's entry into the market.

~~~
butterfi
But no actual impact to Blue Apron, other then a 500lb gorilla wanting your
lunch?

~~~
csydas
It indicates that a competitor Blue Apron can't hope to compete with is ready
to compete. Amazon has everything to hit the ground running and more, and with
everyone knowing Blue Apron is bleeding to get customers, it means that
investors aren't going to be throwing money their way. With Echo being as
popular as it is, it's a natural addition to the Echo Ecosystem; undoubtedly
Alexa is about to become the world's best sous chef.

As has been pointed out, Blue Apron fails to mark its territory in any
meaningful way and only had power from first movers advantage. That power is
gone now.

------
desireco42
I am not fan of Blue Apron, but just ability to have this kind of stupid
patents is clearly anti-business and would support any measure to get rid of
those.

~~~
ericwood
Amazon filed for a trademark, not a patent.

~~~
desireco42
OK I see. Thanks.

Then however bad, it kind of is legitimate practice to put pressure on them. I
need to read more carefully next time.

------
ProAm
A meal kit from Amazon sounds gross.

~~~
gberger
Why?

~~~
jbob2000
Probably for the same reason I don't shop for groceries at Walmart.

Both brand images are associated with cheap crap. I don't want to eat cheap
crap.

~~~
jimmaswell
Since when does Amazon have an association like that?

~~~
jbob2000
Since their site was full of knock-offs and half of it ships from China? Every
time I shop on Amazon, I have to cross-reference with like 8 different sites
to make sure I'm ordering the right thing and that the price is fair.

~~~
erik-g
You don't _have_ to shop on Amazon. But I feel like being a cognizant consumer
is your own responsibility. By that I mean I don't have to cross-reference
with 8 other sites, I feel like the prices are fair, and as best I can tell I
have avoided buying cheap knockoff items. I hear this complaint a lot (here,
especially) but have yet to see much evidence of that.

