Current Events > By now, you've probably heard of Blue Apron

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://observer.com/2020/02/blue-apron-disaster-silicon-valley/amp/

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What a horribly written article

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I Like Toast posted...

What a horribly written article

Wordy af...

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I heard of them 2 or 3 years ago. Didn't read the article, but I'm not surprised the business failed.

I Like Toast posted...

What a horribly written article

This is one sentence

If you like to cook but not to shop or plan your own meals, and if you werent too hungry, and if you didnt like cooking for too many friends, then Blue Apronthe startup delivering precisely measured, prepackaged amounts of just enough salmon, green beans, butter and lemon for one meal, no leftoverswas for you.

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TheGoldenEel posted...

I Like Toast posted...

What a horribly written article

This is one sentence

If you like to cook but not to shop or plan your own meals, and if you werent too hungry, and if you didnt like cooking for too many friends, then Blue Apronthe startup delivering precisely measured, prepackaged amounts of just enough salmon, green beans, butter and lemon for one meal, no leftoverswas for you.

Reading some of the rest, it's clear Chris fucking loves motherfucking hyphens.

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I remember this being shilled by Youtubers

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Hairistotle posted...

in theory i have no problem with blue apron. what pisses me off is that the service is obviously designed to rich people but it's marketed to me a shitload

The plans start at $10/meal which is not rich by any stretch

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It's such a stupid product.

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Ivynn posted...

I remember this being shilled by Youtubers

Same.

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The-Apostle posted...

Wordy af...

That's most articles these days. Take forever to say what should be just a paragraph.

"This thing happened. This is why. This is what it means."

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Ivynn posted...

I remember this being shilled by Youtubers

And all over NPR and many other podcasts. These food delivery services will never be sustainable businesses in this economy.

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We did one of these other services when they had a promotion going on, but when that was over and we were spending $55 a week on it, it just didn't make sense to keep it around

I will say the food was really good for the most part

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TheGoldenEel posted...

The plans start at $10/meal which is not rich by any stretch

I mean it's not that rich but then why not just go get fucking jersey mike's or something good

I used to eat out every night and pay maybe $8-12 per meal. Now I cook a little bit to save money, but what's the point of getting literally the worst of both worlds?

I cook to save money but I go pick up drive-thru or whatever because it's easier than cooking. But it's more expensive.

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Heard about this company countless times from Conrad Thompson and his fifteen different podcasts.

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I tried them for a couple weeks, it was ok I guess
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Jagr_68 posted...

And all over NPR and many other podcasts. These food delivery services will never be sustainable businesses in this economy.

I don't understand the mindset of the people why buy from them. If you're willing to cook your own meals, then why not take the extra few minutes to look up a recipe. And you can still have your groceries delivered and come out way ahead financially over using one of these services.

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My friend got divorced a few years ago and his ex-wife got him a year subscription to one of these as a parting gift. I thought she was just being unpleasant, the latest in a series of condescending attacks on him as she walked out.

It turns out he really knew absolutely nothing about grocery shopping and cooking. She got it because she was legitimately worried he would just eat fast food all the time, which had already seriously impacted his health.

It really did help him though.


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DifferentialEquation posted...

I don't understand the mindset of the people why buy from them. If you're willing to cook your own meals, then why not take the extra few minutes to look up a recipe. And you can still have your groceries delivered and come out way ahead financially over using one of these services.

it's good for people who are very busy & cant be bothered with planning meals & also have disposable income to blow on food. the amount of food & ingredients are pre-selected for you so all you have to do is follow the steps and you'll make something that is not on your usual menu

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It always seemed like a novelty for me personally since I already cooked most of my meals. So I wasn't going to pay $8-10 or whatever for a meal kit.

It's one of those things your gf gets because she thinks it'll be a cute activity to do.

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maybe all the customers learned how to cook from all their shipments, realized that they were overpaying for groceries, took all their recipes and just canceled and bought their own food and cooked it at home.

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DifferentialEquation posted...

I don't understand the mindset of the people why buy from them. If you're willing to cook your own meals, then why not take the extra few minutes to look up a recipe. And you can still have your groceries delivered and come out way ahead financially over using one of these services.

Because pick 3 things from this list of 20 is easier then pick 3 things from this infinite list. Not to mention it gives you just what you need so you don't buy an ingredient you need for a recipe and now you need to look up other recipes that use that ingredient, which then has their own ingredients needed just for their.

It's not that much more expensive than shopping and helps introduce you to things maybe you wouldn't have tried on their own.

And anecdotally, myself and many of my friends weren't really taught how to cook or how to pick fresh ingredients. So it helps simplify the process. These services are more aimed at the households that are eating out several times a week than those already cooking at home mostly.

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I Like Toast posted...

It's not that much more expensive than shopping

It's a lot more expensive than grocery shopping. There's always something on sale at the grocery store, and even at full price the grocery store is still far cheaper. This weekend, for example, I'm making a huge pot of soup that will have around $15 worth of ingredients and which I'll easily get 7 or 8 meals out of.

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DifferentialEquation posted...

I don't understand the mindset of the people why buy from them. If you're willing to cook your own meals, then why not take the extra few minutes to look up a recipe. And you can still have your groceries delivered and come out way ahead financially over using one of these services.

I can see the appeal. Most decent recipes require a lot of ingredients, and many of those ingredients need to be fresh. Ive been cooking more recently and it means a lot more trips to the grocery store, and with a meal with 20+ ingredients its also easy to miss one

for those here who say they cook for themselves, are you legit making sauces etc. from scratch? Because thats a time intensive thing that blue apron can make easier

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And? You don't make soup with these services so what point did you think you made by comparing what it cost to make a completely different recipe?

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DifferentialEquation posted... Jagr_68 posted...

And all over NPR and many other podcasts. These food delivery services will never be sustainable businesses in this economy.

I don't understand the mindset of the people why buy from them. If you're willing to cook your own meals, then why not take the extra few minutes to look up a recipe. And you can still have your groceries delivered and come out way ahead financially over using one of these services.

It all leads up to the #1 Top Rated Excuse for Lazy High Income Individuals..."But I don't have time to shop or do all that!". Thing is though, that's a very very small niche of people they should've predicted beforehand because their profit model probably required tens of thousands of subscribers to break even toward food + shipping costs.

They were dumbasses to not figure this out or even test the idea out among people who made average or less than incomes but ya know that's how these quirky businesses operate.

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I Like Toast posted...

And? You don't make soup with these services so what point did you think you made by comparing what it cost to make a completely different recipe?

That was just an example of what I'm making next. Non-soup meals are much cheaper as well.

And a quick google search revealed that Blue Apron does indeed have soup recipes in their lineup.

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TheGoldenEel posted...

I can see the appeal. Most decent recipes require a lot of ingredients, and many of those ingredients need to be fresh. Ive been cooking more recently and it means a lot more trips to the grocery store, and with a meal with 20+ ingredients its also easy to miss one

for those here who say they cook for themselves, are you legit making sauces etc. from scratch? Because thats a time intensive thing that blue apron can make easier

20+ ingredients sounds like a mess of a meal.

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It always seemed like Nutrisystem for Hipsters, to me.

Jiggy101011 posted...

20+ ingredients sounds like a mess of a meal.

Not when you are making sauces and seasonings from scratch

i made this the other day

https://damndelicious.net/2019/04/15/red-beans-and-rice/

and it has 15 ingredients, even with cheating and using Cajun seasoning (itself being a combination of many spices)

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its a really niche product. you have to have some lazy fucks are who are so lazy they cant buy food and cant bother to measure portions
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My brother would use them like 10 years ago. Hes an excellent cook now

TheGoldenEel posted...

for those here who say they cook for themselves, are you legit making sauces etc. from scratch? Because thats a time intensive thing that blue apron can make easier

Na I'm not,I'm more the person that eats the same meal for lunch and dinner 5 days a week.

The blue apron stuff seems fine for like a once a week type thing
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The fact that most major grocery stores will do delivery, and the existence of Postmates, that is really the end for Blue Apron. The convenience of your food coming to your stoop was a big appeal, and now you can do that for less.

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A business is failing. So?

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Questionmarktarius posted...

It always seemed like Nutrisystem for Hipsters, to me.

Haha. This kind of brings up a point, though. How was the food really? If it was just frozen meal quality or a step above, not really worth it. If it was actually fresh/quality ingredients, then maybe.

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emblem boy posted...

Na I'm not,I'm more the person that eats the same meal for lunch and dinner 5 days a week.

The blue apron stuff seems fine for like a once a week type thing

And for me personally the idea of for example making a soup that Ill get 7 or 8 meals out of isnt that appealing

with this you theoretically get 3-4 unique things for dinner per week, and I think its easy to see the appeal of that, personally

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I remember two to three years ago when every YouTuber was shilling this service.

DuranOfForcena posted...

why the hell not lol

i'll make a pot of beef and black bean stew loaded with veggies and seasonings that is fucking amazing, and freeze most of it and half it onhand for a couple months' worth at least, whenever i want it, usually like once or twice a week. preparing something that gets you that many great meals is just awesome. so much work saved versus having to make multiple no-leftover or little-leftover meals.

i didnt realize you were talking about freezing. Thought you just meant eating leftovers for a week

regardless food definitely loses quality freezing and reheating, Id rather have fresher foodimo thats the whole point of cooking

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Why dont people like things I like - the topic

My parents tried HomeChef for a couple months to get some ideas for recipes and to add some variety to what they make. Saved the recipes they liked and then added their own twists to them if they wanted. Also nice because if you dont know what youre doing cooking/shopping wise, they send everything, pretty detailed instructions, and the quality wasnt that bad.

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Generation gap, in pictures:

Boomer


Gen-X


Millennials

oh man lunchables were my jam growing up in the 80s

mom hardly bought them since they were actually pricey for the low quality food they contained.

every kid wanted lunchables though; great marketing.
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I remember a CEman trying to shill this and "free trials" except it was just advertising or making you go through hoops on here and getting modded for it and whining a while back

TheGoldenEel posted...

emblem boy posted...

Na I'm not,I'm more the person that eats the same meal for lunch and dinner 5 days a week.

The blue apron stuff seems fine for like a once a week type thing

And for me personally the idea of for example making a soup that Ill get 7 or 8 meals out of isnt that appealing

with this you theoretically get 3-4 unique things for dinner per week, and I think its easy to see the appeal of that, personally

Ya, I've realized I'm very boring when it comes to food. I don't find it gives me as much enjoyment as others. I like what I cook and think it tastes good, the variety is unimportant for me. But for those who do find it important, these kinds of things are a benefit
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HelloFresh wasn't worth paying the real price for, but at the discount price it was nice to have meals that included elements that if I were to actually buy all of the ingredients myself would go bad/be wasted by the time I used it all.

And there's also something to what @I_Like_Toast was saying about narrowing the choices you have to make for which meals to eat. Even though I have a whole internet's worth of recipes out there, often when I am making a meal I just revert to things I've made before because then I don't have to sift through a lot of recipes trying to see something that caught my eye.

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"All this conspired to, one-by-one, wreck Blue Aprons IPO,crater stock prices to all-time list lows,kick founders out of company leadership and now, at last, the seemingly undeniable, ultimate doom of the company."

This is a sentence from the article. Literally seven commas in one sentence. Wow. People actually get paid to vomit this garbage onto the internet?

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Kyle1022 posted...

People actually get paid to vomit this garbage onto the internet?

No, because everyone uses ad-blockers now.