HelloFresh, America’s largest provider of meal kits, expects many of its customers to shift to refrigerated cooked meals once the pandemic is under control, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
Meal kits, which provide precisely portioned ingredients but leave cooking up to the consumer, experienced a surge in popularity from consumers stuck at home by the pandemic. Germany-based HelloFresh saw its stock price more than double this year, and plans to double its annual revenue to $12 billion by the middle of this decade, the Journal reports.
However, HelloFresh is anticipating an end to that surge as the pandemic subsides and restaurants start opening back up. It’s betting on another form of convenience: Meals that are cooked, refrigerated and delivered to consumers for microwaving.
Such meals, sold on a subscription basis, already have grown by 100% this year, compared with 60% for meal kits that require cooking, the Journal reports. HelloFresh this year bought Factor75, a company that specializes in refrigerated meal delivery. Nestlé now owns Freshly, the U.S. leader in that space.
