It makes sense. My girlfriend and I have been doing it for about a month. We like the variety, the sense of surprise, and the ingredients are actually fresher than most of the produce at our grocery stores so the price per meal is almost worth it. (Though we'd prefer bringing it down to about $7 per rather than $10.

Where the value falls down is in how much of a time sink it is. These meals take a fair amount of prep, and in exchange for all that time you only get two meals.

When I cook on my own I usually batch enough to have at least another 2-3 meals worth of leftovers. If they set it up as a channel for weekly meal prep rather than 3 fun new recipes to try we'd be much more inclined to stick with it, but as it is it's just too much work for busy people to do every week.

It's funny because the difference between their current prices and the price people would prefer to pay is exactly their margins, per above.

That is pretty funny.

If they provided larger meal sizes it would probably come closer. They'd be able to provide you one meal's type of food (less variety, fewer things to measure, and fewer types of ingredients = easier supply chain management) and you could get 5 or so meals out of one cooking session's worth of prep.

It probably still wouldn't come down to $7. But I assume there are people more willing to pay than me out there who would be happy with it.

I know I'd do it if I could lower the per-meal cost by buying more of the same thing. I typically do all my prep work for a whole week of meals on Sunday night so that cooking each night takes 10-20 min. I'd pay for a Blue Apron type service that saved me that work and the trip to the store. Plus, it would be somewhat more environmentally sustainable to ship a week's worth of food instead of just 2 meals.

But Blue Apron, as it is now, isn't cheaper or easier than what I do now and it's a nightmare of wasted packaging.

Yeah I had the same experience. Ingredient quality was fine, recipes were pretty good, but prep time was too long for just a weeknight dinner. Makes a good date-night activity, but my wife & I don't have time to do that three times per week.

Ah that would be a deal breaker for us as well (married w/ small child). Leftovers are essential to make the timing work, every bit we have to spend at the stove the kid needs to be kept busy somehow, so batching everything is the only way to stay sane.

That's been sort of my feeling when I've tried it.

Three fancy-ish meals during a typical week tends to seem like a bit much. I'm also cooking for one at least some of the time. On the one hand this usually gives me leftovers. On the other hand, I don't have the portion control I'd have if I bought the ingredients in the store and not all their recipes lend themselves well to leftovers.

On the other hand, I look at some of the services that more explicitly try to simplify. Those that do more of the pre-prep make sense to me but I also see recipes that make me go: "Umm, I could grab the three ingredients for that in 5 minutes at the store."

All that said, I'll probably give these things a try again when I have some periods at home. I don't actually have a good grocery delivery option where I live so it's easier to justify these services on that basis given that they can cut out a visit to the store.

Go for the "4 person" option instead? Then you cook more each meal.

Until they make the Blue Apron Soylent version and solve all those problems!

I can't read WSJ, so I don't know if they address this, but I wouldn't be surprised if people find favorite recipes over time and then just go to the store and buy the ingredients. I've never tried Blue Apron, but that seems pretty likely given their business model.

I wonder what fraction of that 60% are people who come to realize that doing your own shopping and cooking is actually not that hard, in addition to being way cheaper.

Yeah. I kind of appreciate these services as a way to introduce people to home cooking, but I imagine most people end up a grocery store at some point and realize they can get an onion for a couple cents instead of a couple dollars.