
Blue Apron Files for IPO - coloneltcb
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1701114/000104746917003765/a2232259zs-1.htm
======
reubenswartz
Tried it once, and wanted to like it, but it felt like it was stuck in the
middle of things:

\- Cheaper than eating out for a "nice" meal, but much more expensive per meal
than my usual grocery shopping, or even other decent, low-cost eating out
options.

\- Nice to have stuff show up, but still need to go to the grocery store,
anyway-- didn't feel like I was saving a trip.

\- Food wasn't hard to prepare, but it was much more cumbersome than most of
the things I make in a hurry, like they wanted you to prove to yourself that
you could cook something "fancy". It actually added stress (may not be true
for many folks).

\- Food was reasonably healthy, but not as healthy (or at least as suited to
me) as my own groceries.

\- Most importantly, the food didn't taste bad, but it didn't taste great,
either. (You can always add your own sriracha, garlic, etc, but it kind of
defeats the point if you have to make your own sauce.)

Seems like a great fit for folks who want to start cooking and haven't got in
the routine yet, but it seems hard to imagine lots of people staying on the
plan long term.

~~~
joshstrange
That was my experience with Plated as well a couple years ago. I'm sure I'm
bias because I don't really mind grocery shopping and I enjoy cooking. That
said I didn't enjoy cooking the Plated meals as much as I do one from a recipe
I find online. I completely agree on the "Food wasn't hard to prepare, but it
was much more cumbersome than most of the things I make in a hurry". I'm not
looking for 3 step recipes but a lot of it felt unnecessarily complex for the
sake of being complex.

Honestly if you want to up your cooking game by spending money buy a nice
recipe app like Paprika (I'm in love with this app) and plan your meals out
before you go to the store. It takes me at most 20 minutes to find new or pick
existing recipes and make my shopping list for the week. Then a quick trip to
the store to grab it all (<30min in store as long as I go alone + 15-20min
total driving). Call it just over an hour. Yes I could bill for an hour for
more money than I save with groceries vs plated but grocery trips are
unavoidable so really we are talking about 20min. And the end result is I make
much healthier meals than Plated/Blue Apron/etc and I make what I like.

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temp246810
For the lazy:

>>> In 2014, 2015, and 2016, we generated $77.8 million, $340.8 million, and
$795.4 million in net revenue, respectively, representing growth of 338% from
2014 to 2015 and growth of 133% from 2015 to 2016. In the three months ended
March 31, 2016 and March 31, 2017, we generated $172.1 million and $244.8
million in net revenue, respectively, representing growth of 42%. In the years
ended December 31, 2014, 2015, and 2016, we incurred net losses of $(30.8)
million, $(47.0) million, and $(54.9) million, respectively, and in the three
months ended March 31, 2016 and March 31, 2017, we generated net income of
$3.0 million and incurred net losses of $(52.2) million, respectively.

Edit: there is a page break in between, added the rest of the sentence

~~~
tetrep
You're missing some important net losses, notably, they've lost almost as much
1/4 of this year than all of last year (continuing from where you stopped):

$(47.0) million, and $(54.9) million, respectively, and in the three months
ended March 31, 2016 and March 31, 2017, we generated net income of $3.0
million and incurred net losses of $(52.2) million,

~~~
temp246810
Thanks, I did it quickly and thought I'd gotten the whole paragraph. Went
ahead and added all of it, there was a page break in between.

------
stickfigure
Many of my friends have tried Blue Apron, and not many still use them. As a
strictly amateur chef myself, find the business model pretty strange. At some
point the customers are going to realize they can get all of these ingredients
from the supermarket. And not long after that, they're going to realize that
they _already have most of these ingredients sitting in their fridge_.

My wife and I cook. We look up a random recipe that sounds tasty, make a list
of ingredients we don't already have, pick those up at the store, and follow
the instructions. It's not much harder than paint-by-numbers, which is what I
expect almost every Blue Apron customer to realize at some point.

I don't mean to say Blue Apron is a bad thing - it's training wheels for
cooking, which is great! But when the training wheels come off, so does the
subscription. At what point do they hit the saturation point and the customer
base tops out?

~~~
gigatexal
Shopping is mind numbingly tedious. Getting the best quality food for the
least cost can take a couple hours. Why do that when a company, for a nominal
fee, can do that for you? My only reservation is portions. I tend to eat more
than the average person. So I will continue to waste time in the market
shopping.

~~~
tdeck
What would you consider a nominal fee? Blue Apron costs about $10 per person
per meal for modest portions _, I can easily buy ingredients for half, if not
a third of that.

_ This is based on their podcast ads I'm always hearing; I didn't research it.

~~~
Kalium
> What would you consider a nominal fee? Blue Apron costs about $10 per person
> per meal for modest portions, I can easily buy ingredients for half, if not
> a third of that.

This is excellent logic! However, it's possible that it only really works
ideally if you consider shopping to not be a cost or do it for zero time. When
shopping is both a time and complexity sink, some people choose to consider
the option of spending money instead of time and effort.

~~~
Cyph0n
Don't forget to include prep time, which can vary depending on the recipe and
the number of ingredients. I'm assuming Blue Apron takes care of most of the
prep?

~~~
Kalium
I haven't used it, but from what I've seen they take care of at least some of
the prep and much of the measurement.

------
glup
I hear a lot of my friends trying Blue Apron, but then canceling because of
the 1) excessive packaging 2) excessive salt/sodium content 3) sudden
inspiration to just go to a grocery store and learn more about cooking in
general. For those of you on HN who have done BA for more than a year, what
are your experiences? How do you balance it with other food sources
(groceries, delivery food, going out, other services)?

~~~
sushisource
I just do it once a month. I really wish they would have an option to do that,
instead of forcing me to go on the website once a month and cancel everything
except one week.

I like it because it's a good way to cook things I might not decide to make
otherwise.

Complaint #2 makes no sense to me. You add all your own salt. If they want
less salt, add less salt.

~~~
scottbez1
One of the recipes I tried listed "Add salt and pepper to taste" after
basically every intermediate step, so I could certainly understand why someone
might end up with too much salt if they're not paying too much attention or
don't know how much salt is typical.

~~~
avree
That's basically how cooking works though... you adjust the spice level,
particularly salt, after each step... to taste.

~~~
nemo44x
I wouldn't say after each step. It would be foolish to add salt to a sauce I'm
reducing for instance. You taste your food always before adding salt. And you
generally hold of seasoning until whatever you're doing is reasonably stable.

So imagine I want to cook some chicken breasts. I'm going to dry them and the
season them and let them sit for awhile. Then I will cook them and finish
them. If I want to make a sauce from the nice remains of the pan they were
cooked in I'd remove the chicken and excess oil perhaps and begin that
process. And that process has many steps from adding shallots and garlic to
deglazing with wine perhaps and reducing that and then adding stock and
reducing and then mixing in some butter. The very last thing I'd do is season.

If I'm going to put the sauce on the plate and there is a starch there's a
good chance I won't have to season those much at all as the sauce will carry
that.

New cooks tend to over season. They forget that if everything you're cooking
has salt on it when someone eats one thing there will be salt left on their
tongue and in their mouth. This will help the next they thing eat and it won't
need as much salt.

In general anything like a stew or a sauce should be seasons as late as
possible even if there are many steps in creating it. Meat should be seasoned
early and left to rest so excess moisture can be taken out of the surface
areas of the meat to help form a better surface texture and flavor.

------
seibelj
There is a lot of hate for this company on HN. They are trying to help people
cook healthy food, they are doing a good thing, and have an actual product.
Good for them! And I hope the engineers / common workers get some money too :)

~~~
paulcole
>They are trying to help people cook healthy food, they are doing a good thing

I don't think the idea that they're "doing a good thing" is so cut and dry.

Aren't they producing an astounding amount of waste? And aren't the working
conditions uncomfortable at best?

[https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/the-not-so-
wholeso...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/the-not-so-wholesome-
reality-behind-the-making-of-your-meal)

~~~
nilkn
I've subscribed to Blue Apron before and, regarding waste, it doesn't seem
much different from going to the grocery store. Meat ingredients like chicken
breast, salmon, and beef are individually wrapped exactly like they are in the
store. Blue Apron doesn't wrap all their produce (but they do wrap some of
it); most people I know use a lot of plastic bags for produce when going to
the grocery, so that's a small difference in favor of Blue Apron. The
cardboard box it comes in is of course recyclable.

Miscellaneous knick knacks for the recipes come in small recyclable paper bags
which certainly are made of less material than large grocery store bags.

The only other things I can think of are very small plastic containers for
fluids like soy sauce and the ice packs.

Overall I wouldn't be surprised if Blue Apron is slightly more wasteful than
going to the store, but it's a small difference at best, at least as far as
basic packaging goes.

~~~
koolba
Aren't the meats shipped with dry ice / styrofoam?

~~~
nilkn
I don't remember receiving any dry ice or styrofoam. The ice pack is
recyclable. You just have to let it melt and empty out the water. There's a
foil liner which is also recyclable. If there's no recycling option near you,
you can even send the recyclable materials back to Blue Apron and they'll
recycle it.

~~~
eropple
Do you think that people who are so theoretically time-strapped as to be using
Blue Apron are likely to invest the time to recycle?

~~~
nilkn
I can only speak for myself, but I did recycle whatever I could from the
leftover materials when I was subscribed. My apartment complex made it very
easy to do so.

Either way, needing to recycle is not unique to Blue Apron at all. You can
easily go to the grocery store and come back with dozens of bags and packages
and wrappings. Plenty of folks don't recycle in those circumstances either.

~~~
eropple
Fair enough--that wasn't a trap question, I was honestly curious. I usually go
the butcher's-and-farmer's-market route and the amount of waste I end up with
is very low, usually paper products and the like, so my view of that stuff is
a little different. (If I hit a supermarket, I usually have my big ol'
backpack.)

~~~
kspaans
It's not as simple as a straight comparison of what you bring back from from
the grocery store and what's left over from your meal kit box. Grocery stores
also have waste from the packaging that food comes in.

Disclaimer: I work for one of Blue Apron's competitors, Green Chef.

~~~
eropple
_> Grocery stores also have waste from the packaging that food comes in._

Err...so do you, yes?

------
stevewillows
I think services like this are fantastic for teaching people how to cook and
meal plan, ideally for young adults living on their own for the first time.
Outside of the foundational argument, I don't really understand the benefit.

To go a little off topic, what bothers me about groups like this, whole foods,
and others, is the amount of needless packaging. For me, I buy all of my
animal proteins at one of three butchers and most of my veg and bread at one
of two farm markets (or a farm itself). At least around Vancouver, this is not
difficult process to emulate.

These groups seem to justify their packaging by saying it's recyclable -- but
that's just not good enough.

Whenever possible I try to get friends into the butcher / farm market system
and away from those overly priced supermarkets. For me, I can make a fairly
substantial dinner, braised chicken with plenty of veg in a madras curry sauce
on rice with naan bread (from a local indian restaurant since its $2) for
about $12 total. The main expense is the chicken, but even that comes to about
$7 or so. This meal can easily feed four adults.

Getting these ingredients from a typical supermarket (not Whole Foods) would
easily surpass $30.

~~~
lawkwok
I can see many people signing up for such a service to learn how to meal plan
and get started cooking.

As someone who was never taught cooking and am always exhausted after work, I
need as little friction as possible to consider cooking.

I wouldn't see myself using it long term though mainly because of the
excessive packaging.

~~~
stevewillows
If you find some time, take a cooking class or two. With some basic skills and
some planning, you can easily do most of your prep in advance (sort of like
/r/MealPrepSunday, but for the next few days' recipes). For me, I prefer to
shop daily since I find it extremely relaxing, but most veg will last quite a
long time in the right conditions[1].

Growing up, my mother was a horrible cook (still is), so I was in the same
boat as you. There are lots of ways to get into cooking, but, if you're
interested, one really easy method is to cook your way through Jamie Oliver's
Food Revolution [2]. Don't worry about buying the bigger kitchen tools like a
food processor or anything, just make sure you have a good knife and some
basic pans. I believe there's a list in the front of the book.

[1] [http://www.thekitchn.com/the-kitchns-guide-to-storing-
fruits...](http://www.thekitchn.com/the-kitchns-guide-to-storing-fruits-and-
vegetables-tip-roundup-176308)

[2]
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/1401310478](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1401310478)

~~~
lawkwok
Thanks for the great resources. Just subbed to /r/MealPrepSunday :)

------
teen
The amount of pollution / trash this company produces seems pretty counter to
their mission statement.

~~~
sp332
From what I recall when we had it, it was a lot less trash than going to the
store and getting everything packaged individually. And I'm sure the shipping
is less polluting than having all the customers drive around too.

~~~
jonknee
> From what I recall when we had it, it was a lot less trash than going to the
> store and getting everything packaged individually.

But all the stuff Blue Apron sends you is individually packaged (down to stuff
like a single green onion in a bag)...

~~~
bpicolo
For various small bits they send a single brown paper bag (per meal).

~~~
sp332
Hm, it might actually be worse since they send a small package for each
portion of spices etc. instead of me just buying one glass jar and using it
for ages. I mean they once sent me a single egg in a big cardboard structure.
[https://goo.gl/photos/9xDYYQGtba6LPM1Y7](https://goo.gl/photos/9xDYYQGtba6LPM1Y7)
Very biodegradable in this case but still an interesting question.

~~~
Karunamon
So what's the greater waste? The cardboard necessary to package one egg, or
the other 5 to 11 eggs in your fridge that were thrown out because you didn't
use them?

~~~
ceejayoz
You can buy eggs in packages of six, and they last for weeks.

------
icelancer
My wife uses it all the time and we both know how to cook very well. She gets
"shopping fatigue" which Blue Apron solves very well. No need to go to the
store, make decisions on what to cook, and what to buy.

There are use cases like this that are not the strawmen that I keep seeing on
Hacker News like "it's cooking with training wheels on" and "not worth it" and
blah blah blah.

------
tedajax
I ultimately cancelled Blue Apron because the recipes as written were awfully
bland. I also found the prep times listed on the recipes to be absolute
fabrications. I felt like I could make simpler meals with less prep and cook
time that tasted better... so that's what I started doing.

------
torgoguys
I've never tried BA, but I have heard the ads for them on lots of podcasts.
You can triangulate the sections they want/require the podcast to use exact
wording, and their argument for using the service doesn't appeal to me. Now,
much of this is personal preference but here are comments about things I
learned about the service from the ads:

1) recipes aren't repeated for at least a year. Boo! If I found something I
like, I'd want to reorder it. (I'm not the kind of person who is always
looking for something new).

2) 'regenerative farming practices' might be appealing to me, but the lack of
specificity makes me think this is only done in a fad-ish sense.

3) $10 per person per meal...and I am doing the cooking? Sounds expensive.

4) 'less food waste' that's great but it sounds like it is at the expense of
lots of packaging waste. And as you get experience, you find no need for much
food waste anyway. Leftover ingredients can often be added to other dishes
even if the recipe wouldn't necessarily call for it and you're not using super
specialty flavors (see #6).

5) They used to refer to using 'local farms' in the ads. Local to them maybe,
but not me likely. And I doubt packing the ingredients up and shipping them
individually to me is more efficient than the standard food supply channels
which are very efficient.

6) fancy sounding ingredients (always mentioned in the ads) don't impress me.

It's not all bad IMO though. The 'training wheels for cooks' argument is
appealing to me in that it might get more folks used to cooking.

------
WheelsAtLarge
Very surprising that they've gotten to the point of actually filing for an
IPO. Their business model is overly complicated.

This company reminds me of Webvan during the 1st internet boom. They tried to
do everything a market would do plus delivery. They soon found out it was too
costly and went under.

What they need to do is partner with grocery stores so that customers can pick
up the food or have it delivered without having to deal with UPS or FEDex. One
big pain is all the packing. It gives the impression of waste. True or not
it's not nice to see a bunch of packing stuff going in the trash.

I, for one,order and pick up a Thanksgiving meal every year from my local
market. It's about $10 per head. If they can match that at my local market.
I'd be happy to order it. It probably wouldn't be an everyday thing but I'd
use it multiple times a week.

~~~
bcassedy
Trust me they're already looking at getting faster fulfillment and avoiding
UPS and FedEx. That ice they package with is extremely expensive and their
margins would improve drastically if they only needed to keep the box cool for
~12 hours instead of 24+ with the major carriers.

------
dmode
I gave up Blue Apron after trying for a week for the huge amount of waste it
generated to cook one meal. Multiple dry ice packs, plastic packaging for each
and every ingredient, a large cardboard box. So much environmental negligence
for what ? Cook a meal ?

------
bjacokes
It seems irrational that people are hung up on the time spent shopping, but
not time spent cooking.

When I tried Blue Apron, I spent an hour cooking a meal for two. That's 30
minutes of work per serving.

When I cook with my own ingredients, I spend an hour shopping and an hour
cooking, then make 8 servings and refrigerate/freeze the leftovers. That's 15
minutes of work per serving, and it's significantly cheaper.

I agree that Blue Apron makes more sense if you don't have access to a good
grocery store, or if you don't want to invest time in finding recipes.

------
inthewoods
Agree with all the commentary here but man that is some amazing growth. I
haven't reviewed the S1 yet but I'd love to see their churn numbers. Great
growth on a leaky bucket isn't good.

------
htsh
Seems waste has been covered well but I was curious about what people think
about these services and how they relate to food deserts. I think there are at
least a few interesting takes on this.

First, this helps a ton. Fresh food isn't available in a lot of areas and this
makes it easier for both current residents and it reduces friction for people
looking to move to these towns.

On the other hand, will a societal trend towards this lead to the creation of
more food deserts? These services are not cheap, and food deserts tend to be
in impoverished areas.

~~~
sbov
If you live in a food desert you probably can't afford Blue Apron. They tend
to be very low income neighborhoods.

~~~
r00fus
Untrue, if you're thinking about recently gentrified areas like
Bayview/Hunter's Point in SF or East Palo Alto in the peninsula.

According to the internets, the walk score and bike score for my house is
really high but most of the restaurants and grocery stores around don't have a
lot of variety or organic products. If we didn't already have a good cooking
culture and procurement habits, I might be tempted to use Blue Apron or a
similar service.

~~~
ceejayoz
I suspect there are a lot more Detroit-style food deserts than Palo Alto-style
ones in the US.

------
siliconc0w
Anyone can follow instructions - the real 'cooking' skillset is planning your
own meals, economizing on ingredients, and improving/iterating on dishes. It's
like a 'hunting' app that delivers a deer and a rifle to your door.

------
choxi
Are S1 filings required to look awful? More seriously, are there certain
formatting rules/requirements? They always look like some intern slapped
together copy and corporate stock images into a Word doc and then shipped it.

------
chrisgd
I just don't see them as that big of a time saver. The cooking and cleaning is
still the same. Meal planning is a little easier though. I get recipe cards
from them, red plate, etc. Then use kroger clicklist

------
javiramos
Blue Apron is a rocketship!!

Revenue/Profit 2014: $78 million / ($31 million) 2015: $340 million / ($47
million) 2016: $795 million / ($55 million)

------
smpetrey
Isn't Blue Apron ripe for an acquisition from Amazon?

------
Grue3
Calling it, bigger flop than SNAP. Food startups almost never (never?)
succeed.

------
jonaf
I'm shocked to see an IPO for one of these delivery companies. Not because
there doesn't seem to be a value proposition, but because I don't understand
what sets them apart from the competition. They seem to be in a flooded
market: Plated, HelloFresh, I think I've seen commercials for a few more, and
they seem to barely add value on top of another flooded market, grocery
delivery: instacart, uber has a service like this, probably Lyft does, and
most grocers are getting in on it, too. HEB, Walmart, et al. And HEB isn't
even a nationwide company. Why would the public invest in this company
compared to others? Is it a strategy to put fear in the biggest competitors'
minds as a setup for an acquisition?

~~~
bcassedy
I'd argue that they add a ton of value over grocery delivery. They're handling
meal planning and portioning. That's a lot less wasted food and a lot less
stress for anyone that isn't content to recycle the same few recipes week in
week out.

I do agree that differentiating between competitors is tough though. On the
surface all of these companies look about the same. They try to cater to
different segments - health conscious, upscale, etc, but I'm not sure how
effective this is.

For a while we ordered mostly takeout which was both expensive and unhealthy.
We were able to start cooking for ourselves for a bit on our own, but
eventually the weekly meal planning and shopping run got to be too much of a
burden. That's where we found Blue Apron which had us eating healthy for
another ~6 months. During this time we tried Plated too, but that week was
guest recipes from some magazine and they were poorly timed and included
practically inedible ingredients. After 6 months work situations changed and
we just didn't have time for an hour of cooking 3 times a week. Since then
we've been using Munchery which we're very happy with.

~~~
randycupertino
Exactly the same- we use Munchery and love it. I don't get why people want to
fake-cook Blue Apron when you can just heat it up with Munchery... same
quality!

------
ceejayoz
> Blue Apron, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware on December 5, 2011 under the
> name Petridish Media, Inc. and changed its name to Blue Apron, Inc. on
> August 29, 2012.

That's going to be a fun tidbit if they ever have an _E. coli_ outbreak.

~~~
downrightmike
That's going to be a fun tidbit when they ever have an E. coli outbreak. FTFY

------
dominotw
blue apron sucks. Who are the people getting an onion shipped from wherever in
12 layers of packaging and $10 chicken breast.

~~~
dragonwriter
No one who uses blue apron, since an onion for blue apron comes in exactly one
layer of packaging (the outer box), usually.

Which is one less layer (though possibly a _heavier_ layer) than is typical
with grocery shopping.

~~~
dominotw
> since an onion for blue apron comes in exactly one layer of packaging (the
> outer box)

you have never used blue apron.

~~~
dragonwriter
> you have never used blue apron.

Yes, I have. (Now, admittedly, onions were a poorly chosen example, and with
many other items you could get up to three layers—for meats that are shipped
in the chilled section—layers of packaging. But regular onions were usually
one layer, green/spring onions usually two.)

