
Blue Apron's 90% Drop Makes It Third Worst U.S. IPO This Decade - isseu
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-18/blue-apron-s-90-drop-makes-it-third-worst-u-s-ipo-this-decade
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rawrmaan
Good. I hope they fail. This is an insanely wasteful business model, and any
claims they make about sustainability are ancillary at best.

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sdinsn
But is it less wasteful than grocery stores, which trash _so much_ of their
stock/produce?

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therobot24
no

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sdinsn
Any source to support that?

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heipei
As much as I love certain aspects of the US, companies like Blue Apron just
serve as a reminder of the absolutely twisted and unhealthy relationship that
Americans seems to have regarding their daily meals.

I know people who eat out multiple times a week (with their spouse), every
week of the year, and other people who eat out every day during lunch. I guess
it's somewhat understandable if you're single and maybe even working at one of
the places where they have catered lunch, but if you have a family at home and
have to actually pay for restaurants yourself it's a huge item on your monthly
expenses.

And that's just the economics of it. Let's not even talk about how having
catered meals for nearly every occasion distances you from the act and ritual
of preparing a meal together with your family, taking the time, sitting down
and enjoying it.

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ryanmercer
>As much as I love certain aspects of the US, companies like Blue Apron just
serve as a reminder of the absolutely twisted and unhealthy relationship that
Americans seems to have regarding their daily meals.

Eh. Most Americans can't afford this type of service, even if they think they
can. 10$ for a meal is insanely expensive, sure going out to eat once in a
while but not for multiple meals a week. You can eat for multiple days off of
10$, one of their 10$ meals can be less than 1/3 of a 2k kcal diet's needs
meaning you need 25-35ish dollars a day to survive off their service.

This is for suckers, like the 'dollar shave club' customers that don't realize
they can buy the exact same blades they sell (at least initially) direct from
the manufacturer (Dorco) or spend far less and use a safety razor. Or suckers
that fall for 'loot crate' type services where you get garbage product,
sometimes stuff that just didn't sell well retail, and are told you're getting
a bargain.

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dragonwriter
> You can eat for multiple days off of 10$, one of their 10$ meals can be less
> than 1/3 of a 2k kcal diet's needs meaning you need 25-35ish dollars a day
> to survive off their service.

Well, surely, you were trying to survive off their meals you'd use the family
plan, where it's $9/serving, rather than the $10/serving plan.

Plus, we're talking Blue Apron, not Soylent; it's not even aimed at people
living off of it.

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baron816
If I were to do a start up right now, I think I would do a meal kit start up
(not that I actually know what I’m doing). There’s still a market for
it—people really like the kits—it’s the business model that’s the problem. I
think the delivery part is where they go wrong. It’s too expensive to cold
pack these things every day and deliver them to individual addresses.

I’d try to partner with restaurants to prepare the meal kits. Restaurants have
a staff that’s trained to handle food, plus a kitchen to do it safely, and
time during the day when they’re not busy. Oh, and they already received
regular large food deliveries. Restaurants are well distributed enough that
it’s easy enough for people to pick up a kit on the way home from work.

From the point of the startup, there’s not intense capital costs, you just
have organize orders and pickups and ensure quality.

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giarc
I think the cost to subsidize this program is too much. I have countless
flyers for $50 off first order etc etc.

I think if I were to enter this space, I would start a B2B meal prep where I
have staff go into grocery stores, put together boxes that the stores own
customers can buy. I'm not talking about the prepped food, but boxes with all
the ingredients. Stores retain some lost customers from these meal kits and
people get the experience of cooking something new.

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ryanmercer
"Company with absurdly expensive food that still requires considerable
preparation gets rejected by non-tech workers".

Federal minimum wage is $7.25 and median HOUSEHOLD income is around 59k so
let's look at their pricing: the cheapest plan they offer is $39.96 a week for
4 servings a week ranging to $143.84 for 16 servings a week for $143.84.

That means 1-day's kcals for someone on a 2k kcal diet is $25.68 to $39.96 a
day depending on the plan. PURE INSANITY.

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jpeter
What food has the most calories per dolar?

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dsfyu404ed
>What food has the most calories per dolar?

For DIY food my wild guess would be butter. My somewhat educated guess for
prepared food would be something off the value menu at McDonalds/Burger
King/Wendys.

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ken
My first guess would have been rice. Rice is super cheap. According to [1],
it's oils and flours, followed closely by rice and sugar.

Butter is around $5/lb for 32 x 100-Kcal servings, so it's only around 640
Kcal/$. That would put it pretty far down the list, below milk and eggs, and
on par with lentils.

[1]: [https://efficiencyiseverything.com/the-highest-calorie-
per-d...](https://efficiencyiseverything.com/the-highest-calorie-per-dollar-
food-in-human-history-flour-vs-oil/)

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ProAm
Doesn't matter, had exit.

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isseu
Why the article got dupe?

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detaro
because an article about this is already on the front page, and you should
have checked for duplicates before submitting.

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isseu
ohh, thanks!

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DanCarvajal
This surprises me in no way.

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jeron
I'm more surprised that it's not the worst, then again "a provider of
helicopter transport for offshore oil drillers" does sound like a worse idea

