"
Based in Berlin, HelloFresh dominates the market for cook-at-home ingredient packages. In the U.S. it accounted for 78% of meal-kit sales last year, helped by various acquisitions, according to an analysis of consumer-purchase data by Bloomberg Second Measure. Home Chef, owned by supermarket chain
Kroger, came next with 12%, followed by
Blue Apron at 6%. Blue Apron’s stock has performed so badly that the New York Stock Exchange in December threatened to delist it.
HelloFresh is clearly big in the
meal-kit business… They tend to be less expensive than eating out, but much more expensive than cooking from scratch: HelloFresh currently charges $60.95 to deliver a box of two meals for two people each…
The extraordinary sums HelloFresh spends on keeping customers support this thinking. The company’s marketing budget last year was 1.3 billion euros, equivalent to about $1.4 billion or 17% of its revenue. Yet it still lost customers, with 7.1 million active globally in the fourth quarter, down from 7.2 million for the same period of 2021. Growth mainly came from price increases. Marketing costs will rise again this year, the company said—a big factor in the weak profit guidance."