Minimum Viable Logistics

Jeffrey Fischer
Jul 26, 2017 · 2 min read

I made miso salmon last night, with sticky rice and baby bok choy. It took me about 20 minutes to cook — the steps are pretty much wired into my brain. I bust the recipe out every month or so, and it’s always delicious and familiar.

I’ve got 10 or so easy, quick, go-to recipes stored in my dome that make a satisfying dinner when I feeling like stepping up from Trader Joe’s frozen pizzas. It’s my brain’s own personal Blue Apron.

This morning Blue Apron’s value is again in chaos, with their C.O.O. stepping into a consultants role and the market predictably reacting poorly to the unpredictability.

Most of the hubbub around Blue Apron has been caused by Amazon buying Whole Foods and announcing plans to release their own meal delivery kits. I’m sure, given it’s scale and delivery infrastructure, Amazon can undercut Blue Apron on price. But is that a kidney punch to Blue Apron or just a face slap?

Blue Apron spent a lot of time on their supply chain, developing relationships with farms and suppliers and building their distribution centers in locations that best take advantage of those relationships.

If there are a bunch of fresh ingredients flowing easily into warehouses where they are prepped for speedy shipping to customers, the bottle neck for Blue Apron may be in the meal kit model itself.

There is certainly a market for step-by-step meal prep, but I’m doubtful the the mom and dad wants to spend eight bucks a head two times per week just to get some new recipe ideas.

If my own childhood eating habits are any indication, those parents will probably spend most of dinner saying “Just try it! You’ll like it, I promise,” and cursing the fact that there wasn’t just mac and cheese and a hot dog in the Blue Apron box.

There hasn’t been much hand-wringing about the quality of Blue Apron’s food. With the supply chain logistics advantage they have built over their competitors, it would make sense to expand their offerings to premium grocery delivery.

Those parents mentioned above might be more apt to sign up for one meal per week, plus all their produce, meat and fish for their other meals delivered. They could use the great ingredients to make their go-to, kid-friendly recipes instead of spending energy forcing the little ones to eat arugula topped burgers.

Blue Apron could also start shipping food used for breakfast and lunches… 21 meals a week they are supplying instead of 2.

Would this pseudo-vertical expansion save them from the Amazon crush? With the Whole Foods brand attached to Amazon, the behemoth put itself in a position to challenge the notion that Blue Apron provides the highest quality food in the delivery space.

But moving to broader delivery services would allow Blue Apron to maximize logistics relationships they’ve already set in place. That’s how Amazon started the march to world domination.

Maybe Blue Apron won’t dominate the world, but the logistics backbone it set up means it isn’t fading away, either.

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