INDUSTRY

food

Category

meal kit delivery services

products Profiled

Blue Apron meal kit subscription delivery service

Blue Apron market

H-Score

57

ranked 6th of 25 within the food industry

ranked 30th of 76 overall

product descriptions

Blue Apron’s meal kit service allows subscribers to choose from a variety of recipes and ingredients for weekly delivery. Subscription plans have flat rates, based on the number of meals and servings per meal. Blue Apron market includes prepared, fresh (not frozen), microwaveable “Prepared & Ready” meals, as well as special event seasonal boxes when available and one-off meal kit options, with no subscription necessary.

product use

Subscribers have the opportunity to customize their order every week online. Subscribers select a type of meal (meal kits or Prepared & Ready), then a line of menus (Meal kit: Chef Favorites, Wellness, Family Friendly, Fast & Easy, or Veggies; or Prepared & Ready: 600 calories or less; carb conscious or 30g of protein) and the number of meals per week and servings per meal. Meal boxes come in once a week for subscribers and may contain ingredients, recipes, extra instructions on meal-prepping or food handling and information on ingredient sourcing.(1) The average Blue Apron meal should take 30-45 minutes to prepare, with the majority taking 35 minutes,(2) allowing subscribers to fit in cooking to a busy schedule if necessary.

who’s affected

Blue Apron has stated its target market includes cooking enthusiasts, healthy eaters, last-minute planners, and families.  Blue Apron reported that it had 267,000 customers, who averaged five orders (representing a week of meals) for the quarter ending June 30, 2023.(3) Their customers are spread out fairly evenly across age groups, with two-thirds of customers averaging an annual household income over $100,000.(4)

influence on health-related behaviors

EATING

moderate positive influence

Blue Apron’s meal kit service enables people to cook meals with fresh ingredients each day of the week.

In general, fresh, home-cooked meals have been shown to be healthier than meals eaten at or taken out from sit-down or fast food restaurants.(5-9) People who cook at home more frequently also tend to have diets that have higher compliance with dietary guidelines.(10)

In Building H’s consumer research, nearly 80% of meal kit users (not specific to Blue Apron) said that meal kit meals were healthier than (34%) or as healthy as (46%) the meals they cooked for themselves. In addition, 69% of users said that their meal kit meals were healthier than meals that they got via delivery or takeout.(11)

In an analysis conducted by Building H, Blue Apron had a modified Restaurant Nutrition Quality (RNQ) score,(12,13) of 1.32. Of the five meal kit services in the Index, the range of modified RNQ scores was 2.30 (best) to 1.15 (worst). Blue Apron’s score placed it 4th highest of the five meal kit services profiled. For context, the median RNQ score for 11 chain restaurants analyzed by Building H was 0.71. 

In terms of calories, Blue Apron’s top 25 most popular recipes had a median of 670 calories per serving, representing 0.98 times the recommended calories for women and 0.75 times the recommended calories for men at dinner.(14)

Blue Apron facilitates healthier food decisions by offering a designated Wellness line of meals. These meals are advertised as “balanced, nutritionist-approved recipes designed for your holistic health.” (15) Also available is a line of vegetarian meals for customers looking for meat-free options.

According to Blue Apron, the Prepared & Ready meals are made with the same fresh ingredients as their meal kit meals and should have similar nutritional profiles.(16)

PHYSICAL ACTVITY

neutral influence

Cooking a meal certainly involves more physical activity than preparing ready-to-eat or takeout/delivery meals.

While Blue Apron promotes home cooking, it also potentially deters subscribers from the physical activity associated with grocery shopping (to the extent that the meal kits obviate some amount of grocery shopping).

neutral to slight positive influence

By offering a relatively healthy alternative to fast food and other food delivery services and by providing a way to prepare meals that is more efficient than cooking from scratch, Blue Apron could potentially be saving people time for sleeping while allowing them to still eat healthy. 

Blue Apron offers a “Fast & Easy” line of recipes with quicker prep as a way to save time. Their Prepared & Ready meals require even less time to prepare.

Engaging Socially

neutral to slight positive influence

Blue Apron offers subscription meal plans for a minimum of two and up to four people. Requiring this minimum and offering additional meals might help bring families and friends together for meals. The Prepared & Ready meals can be obtained in single-serving size.

Blue Apron’s market offers a selection of seasonal boxes that are intended to serve groups of 6-8 or 8-10 people. They include more dishes than the typical meal kit of one entree and one to two sides. These seasonal boxes also include tips to entertain guests. These offerings encourage the hosting of friends or family for a special meal.

In Building H’s consumer research, 77% of respondents who use meal kits (not specific to Blue Apron) indicated that they eat with others (23% eat them alone). This result compares with a finding, from a 2015 report from the Food Marketing Index,(17) that Americans eat approximately 46% of meals alone – suggesting that meal kits could contribute to increased social engagement.

To the degree that the service leads to less time in grocery stores, it likely reduces the casual social interactions associated with in-person shopping. In Building H’s consumer research, 54% of shoppers rated these interactions positively, as compared with 9% rating them negatively.(18)

Getting Outdoors

slight negative influence

To the degree that Blue Apron’s service cuts down on trips to grocery stores, Blue Apron could potentially reduce time spent outdoors.

Blue Apron’s summer seasonal options rotate yearly and have included a picnic box intended to serve 6-8 people.(19) The name suggests that the meal should be shared outdoors. While Blue Apron offers seasonal boxes throughout the year, the “picnic box” is only available during the summer months when weather is most suitable across the country.

Return to 2024 Building H Index

1. Blue Apron website, accessed August 2023.

2. Blue Apron, Communications Team. Direct communication, March 2022.

3. Blue Apron. Blue Apron Holdings, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2023 Results. Blue Apron Investor Relations website, August 9, 2023.

4. Blue Apron. 2022 Investor Day presentation. May 10, 2022.

5. Julia Wolfson and Sara Bleich. Is Cooking at Home Associated with Better Diet Quality or Weight-Loss Intention? Public Health Nutrition. Volume 18, Supplement 8 (June 2015), pp. 1397-1406.

6. Junxiu Liu et al. Quality of Meals Consumed by US Adults at Full-Service and Fast-Food Restaurants, 2003–2016: Persistent Low Quality and Widening Disparities. The Journal of Nutrition. Volume 150, Issue 4 (April 2020), pp. 873–883.

7. R. An. Fast-food and full-service restaurant consumption and daily energy and nutrient intakes in US adults. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Volume 70 (2016), pp. 97–103.

8. Sharon Kirkpatrick et al. Fast-food menu offerings vary in dietary quality, but are consistently poor. Public Health Nutrition. Volume 17, Issue 4 (2014), pp. 924–31.

9. Lisa Powell and Binh Nguyen. Fast-food and full-service restaurant consumption among children and adolescents: effect on energy, beverage, and nutrient intake. JAMA Pediatrics. Volume 167, Issue 1 (January 2013), pp. 14–20.

10. Arpita Tiwari et al. Cooking at Home: A Strategy to Comply With U.S. Dietary Guidelines at No Extra Cost. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Volume 52, Issue 5 (May 2017), pp. 616–24.

11. Steve Downs. A Survey of Modern Life: Food; Delivery Apps, Meal Kits, Groceries and Cooking Dinner. Building H on Medium. January 20, 2022.

12. Iris Liu et al. A continuous indicator of food environment nutritional quality. MedRxiv. November 26, 2021.

13. The RNQ is based on the ratio of nutrients recommended by dietary guidelines, e.g. protein and fiber, to ingredients whose consumption should be restricted, such as sugars, sodium and saturated fats, for the median menu item. Building H modified the RNQ by selecting the 25 most popular meals, as provided by direct communication from Blue Apron in September 2023.

14. Based on a Building H review of 25 most popular recipes (provided by Blue Apron in direct communication to Building H in September 2023), as compared with federal data on how Americans distribute their calories across meals (see Eliana Zeballos et al. Frequency and Time of Day That AmericansEat: A Comparison of Data From the AmericanTime Use Survey and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. USDA Economic Research Service, Technical Bulletin Number 1954. July 2019) and federal dietary guidelines for moderately active adults (see U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025. December, 2020. P. 140).

15. Blue Apron website, accessed November 2023.

16. Blue Apron, Communications Team. Direct communication, January 2024.

17. Alison Aubrey and Maria Godoy. Party Of 1: We Are Eating A Lot Of Meals Alone. National Public Radio: All Things Considered, August 13, 2015.

18. Steve Downs. A Survey of Modern Life: Food; Delivery Apps, Meal Kits, Groceries and Cooking Dinner. Building H on Medium. January 20, 2022.

19. Blue Apron. Blue Apron Introduces Two Easy Summer Meal Kits with Brand-New Ingredients. June 24, 2023.