Recipe (box) for success
HelloFresh has been growing at a rapid pace in the last decade. In 2013, the company generated a revenue of 14 million euros. Eight years later, in 2021, the global revenue was nearly six billion euros. This staggering growth was not only achieved in the early years. In fact, as recent as 2020, the company more than doubled in size within the year. With these growth figures, it comes as no surprise that the meal kits market as a whole has also been increasing in recent years, and there is much more to come. With a global market valuation of over 15 billion U.S. dollars in 2021, the meal kits market is forecast to grow to a value of 40 billion U.S. dollars by 2027.
Growth factors
Why have HelloFresh and the meal kits market been able to enjoy such rapid expansion? Firstly, meal kits fit right into the convenience consumer trend. Subscribing to a food box service reduces consumers’ grocery shopping, meal planning, and cooking time. Survey results indicate that these are the main reasons for consumers to subscribe to meal kits services. The second contributing factor has been the coronavirus pandemic. With restaurants closing down and supermarket shelves emptied by massive pandemic stockpiling, people cooked at home more and increased their online food spending. This only accelerated the ongoing shift from brick-and-mortar retail to e-commerce. Finally, HelloFresh’s success has inspired countless meal kits startups all over the world, catering to an ever-growing audience. Some notable new competitors include Home Chef in the U.S. and Gousto in the UK.
