To help boost its fledgling grocery business, Jet.com has partnered with Blue Apron to offer four Blue Apron meal kits on its e-Commerce site, starting Oct. 29. Jet.com customers in the New York City area can make the meals part of their regular grocery order without having to subscribe to Blue Apron’s service.
With this new partnership, households across most of New York City, as well as Jersey City and Hoboken, N.J., can access Blue Apron through same-day or next-day delivery via Jet.com’s City Grocery offering.
Jet.com, acquired by Walmart for $3.3 billion in 2016, is making a play for busy, affluent city dwellers who already shop the site for general merchandise and household goods. Two major elements of this pivot include increased localization and personalization, and improved grocery delivery options. The company will open a new fulfillment center in the Bronx, N.Y. later this year, and grocery deliveries will be handled by Parcel, a New York-based logistics company that Walmart bought last year.
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“Food is now the center of everything,” said Jet.com CEO Simon Belsham in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “I think it’s the most emotional category of products you can sell. With that in mind, today’s consumers are looking for convenience, speed and control in their shopping experience. We are offering scheduled, same-day delivery that will help busy families fill up on necessities.”
As a priority partner in the City Grocery offering, Blue Apron will have a dedicated branded experience featuring a rotating selection of two-serving recipes. For the initial launch, Jet.com and Blue Apron will offer four on-demand kits. The kits will rotate approximately every six weeks, and the first Blue Apron meals that will be available on Jet.com include:
- Seared Steaks & Peperonata with Fregola Sarda Pasta & Grana Padano Cheese (2 servings, 28 oz.) for $22.99
- Dukkah-Spiced Beef & Couscous with Tahini-Dressed Broccoli (2 servings, 41 oz.) for $20.99
- Togarashi Popcorn Chicken with Sweet Chili Slaw & Jasmine Rice (2 servings, 32 oz.) for $18.99
- Italian Farro Bowl with Roasted Vegetables & Mozzarella (2 servings, 32 oz.) for $16.99
The Blue Apron culinary team developed these recipes based on extensive feedback from customers regarding their preferred flavor profiles and cooking preferences. The team then used these insights to specifically select and exclusively sell these recipes through Jet.com. Additionally, these quick recipes were created for a market of busy consumers and can be prepared in 30 minutes or less.
The Jet.com partnership is critical for Blue Apron as well. The number of people ordering its signature home-cooked meals dropped 24% in Q2, leading the company to seek out new selling venues, including Costco and online delivery services such as Seamless and GrubHub. Blue Apron has projected declining sales over the second half of 2018, and its shares have fallen more than 70% this year, to nearly $1.31.
“Teaming up with Jet enables us to dynamically serve the lifestyle of metropolitan consumers, who will now be able to conveniently fill up their online shopping carts with high quality Blue Apron meals that can be cooked in 30 minutes or less while shopping for other everyday needs,” said Brad Dickerson, CEO of Blue Apron in a statement. “This exciting launch is another step forward in our channel expansion strategy and reflects the strength of the capabilities we are developing to readily support a variety of opportunities to broaden our access to consumers.”
