I feel like grocery stores could easily compete with blue apron for much lower costs. Just ration the food they already have in stock in little packages. Charge a little more than you would otherwise for the employees time picking recipes and combining them into the packages. I would happily use this service at local grocery stores. But compared to grocery stores and cooking from scratch blue apron is too expensive for me.
edit: Blue apron is currently $7.50 - $9.99 per serving. I cook delicious food for myself regularly for less than $4 per serving if I make enough to have leftovers for a day or two. It really seems to me that grocery stores could eat blue apron alive with their lowered costs to provide this same service.
Some already do this [0] and it's 10000x better than Blue Apron/Plated/Hello Fresh. Also they don't have the same perverse incentives that BA/P/HF have. Kroger might make a profit off their meal kits but they aren't 100% reliant on that revenue, in fact I'd bet they don't really care that much if you but the meal kit or all the parts of the meal kit because you are still buying it in their stores.
That's really good to hear. I don't have Kroger near me now unfortunately. I might contact some local grocers and suggest this as I really think this model of cooking could improve my quality of life significantly.
My partner and I have used it a few times and if we like a meal I record the recipe in Paprika (amazing recipe app, really love this app) and we just buy the ingredients "raw". It means we can adjust portion sizes, plan for leftovers, and alter the flavor as desired.
Yup this is already happening. Save-on-Foods in British Columbia has this and they also have their own food delivery service, so they're successfully replicating both Blue Apron and Instacart.
This is like saying, "Why take your car to the mechanic? I do my own repair work and it's way cheaper!"
Blue Apron is for people who don't know what to buy at the grocery store. Grocery stores could definitely attack this by doing what you're suggesting, but part of this is the very concept that I can't walk into a grocery store, buy some chicken, and turn it into something tasty.
edit: Blue apron is currently $7.50 - $9.99 per serving. I cook delicious food for myself regularly for less than $4 per serving if I make enough to have leftovers for a day or two. It really seems to me that grocery stores could eat blue apron alive with their lowered costs to provide this same service.