Hello Fresh Spices Up the Meal Kit Delivery Market

Following the lead of its largest U.S. competitor Blue Apron, German meal kit delivery startup Hello Fresh went public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange last Thursday. The Berlin-based company with large ambitions for the U.S. market is now valued at around $1.9 billion – more than twice the market capitalization of its American rival Blue Apron.

Blue Apron had gone public on the New York Stock Exchange in June, but its stock price has more than halved since, mainly due to concerns about the company’s lackluster growth and customer retention.

As our chart illustrates, Blue Apron had 856,000 active customers in the third quarter of 2017, down from more than a million in the first three months of 2017 and 907,000 in last year’s September quarter. While Blue Apron appears to be losing customers, Hello Fresh is quickly closing the gap between the two companies. The challenger from Germany served 790,000 U.S. customers between July and September, up from 413,000 a year earlier.