Popular meal kit delivery service Blue Apron is partnering with the experts Whole30 to bring new meal kit recipes to customers this New Year, aimed at helping them achieve healthy eating goals.
According to Blue Apron, customers will see two recipes from each weekly two-person menu, which will be marked “Whole30.” Blue Apron will offer their signature pre-portioned and pre-packed ingredients to go along with the Whole30 recipes.
Whole30’s meal plan is rather strict and aimed at Paleo eaters, emphasizing whole foods and banning sugar, alcohol, grains, legumes soy and dairy – good for those participating in a January food cleanse. Some of the recipes customers will see include seared steaks and warm lemon salsa verde with roasted broccoli and sweet potatoes, or Mexican-spiced barramundi with kale and avocado salad.
The partnership will also be an opportunity for those who follow strict diets due to food intolerances, like celiac disease, to participate in meal kit services catering to their needs.
Whole30’s mission is to help reset your eating habits in 30 days with its plan. Rather than delivering ingredients like Blue Apron however, Whole30 allows you to sign up, input your food goals, intolerances, and preferences, and the company sends you a customized weekly list of recipes to try, along with a detailed list of what to buy at the grocery store, taking the planning out of healthy eating.
Blue Apron has struggled in recent months with spending on marketing and logistics coupled with falling stock prices, even though its revenue has increased in 2017 and it’s still one of the top players in the industry. The partnership with Whole30 is aimed at attracting new customers, and perhaps competing with the Amazon/Whole Foods acquisition.
A few weeks before Blue Apron’s IPO, Amazon announced its purchase of Whole Foods grocery, and offered a limited assortment of its own meal kits, with one-time meals for those customers who wanted to try it out. This acquisition (and speculation that Amazon would launch its own meal kit service brand) disrupted not only Blue Apron’s IPO, but the industry itself, as competitors struggled to redefine themselves.
Many meal kit services offer weekly subscriptions and deliver meals to customers two or three times a week, which is much more cost-effective then offering one-time meal kit services as Amazon does with its large distribution network.
The Whole30 partnership kicks off January 8th and lasts only through February 26th, so it might be a good time to try a meal kit service and implement your healthy eating goals without having to do the legwork of research and shopping.