This is up from last year, when the company was shipping just half a million meal prep kits a month. Combine that with competitors like Plated and Hello Fresh, and the trend is clear a significant number of people are cooking from kits that take the grocery shopping and guesswork out of cooking.Įach of the companies offers a similar promise of good-tasting meals that aren’t too fatty (they have calorie limits) and take only about 30 minutes to prepare.

But the business of selling Americans everything it takes to make a home-cooked meal is booming.īlue Apron, a company that creates and delivers kits of recipes and ingredients, now sends out three million build-it-yourself meals a month.

That implies 2022 marketing spend of roughly $96.3 million, which compares with $49.93 million spent in 2021.The number of meals cooked in American homes is declining. Total marketing spend for the year is expected to be “around double” what was spent in 2019, which was $48.13 million. The company also said higher logistics costs had a more significant impact on results that anticipated.įor 2022, the company said it expects marketing spending to continue to increase through the year, to support expectations for faster revenue growth. “This past quarter, we significantly ramped up our marketing spend, focusing on targeted investments that are helping to raise brand awareness,” said Chief Executive Linda Findley in prepared remarks for a conference call with analysts.

Meanwhile, total operating expenses increased 6.0% to $132.48 million, as cost of goods sold slipped 1.0% to $69.19 million but marketing expenses jumped 68.1% to $20.98 million. Orders declined 4.7% to 1.68 million and customers were down 4.0% to 336,000, but average order value increased 2.4% to $63.78 and average revenue per customer grew 1.9% to $319.

““While profitability remains a goal over the longer-term, we are focused on taking advantage of an important opportunity to accelerate customer and top-line growth.” ” - Chief Executive Officer Linda Findley

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