Munchery, an on-demand food delivery service, is launching meal kits that are designed to allow customers that want to cook but have no time to quickly and easily prepare meals.
Munchery has found success in delivering to customers prepared meals, but the four-year-old company has also found out that its customers sometimes want to be able to cook their own food. However, many customers either do not know how to do so or simply do not have time to spend in the kitchen to prepare meals.
The company is looking to provide customers with a solution to this dilemma, as the meal kits will allow them to prepare cooked meals in only 15 minutes.
"When we talk to customers and we say, 'Hey, on the nights that you don't order Munchery or any take-out at all, what do you do?' 75% of them say 'I'm cooking,'" said Munchery CEO and co-founder Tri Tran.
The first batch of meal kits will feature a partnership between Munchery and The Slanted Door, which is a popular upscale Vietnamese cuisine restaurant located in San Francisco. The restaurant, founded by Charles Phan, was already selling meal kits that are based on some of The Slanted Door's most popular dishes at the Ferry Building branch. When Munchery was thinking of delivering meal kits, Phan became the natural first partner for the endeavor, according to the company's chief customer experience officer Pascal Rigo, the founder of the Starbucks-owned bakery chain La Boulange.
"Fortunately for me, they didn't call me last, they called me first," Phan said, adding that the partnership with Munchery will allow him to get his food to more customers that are not able to visit his restaurants.
The first meal kits include five options inspired by The Slanted Door dishes and two options for dessert based on La Boulange dishes. The prices of the meal kits range from $18 to $24, with each kit containing two portions.
Munchery's launch of meal kits places it in competition with other companies doing similar things, such as Blue Apron, HelloFresh and Plated. However, compared to the offerings of its rivals in the space, Munchery's meal kits do not require subscriptions and can be ordered individually. For example, customers can order a meal kit for their main dish along with ready-to-eat side dishes.
In addition, Munchery meal kits contain more prepared ingredients, such as pre-cooked rice and vegetables and meat that have already been chopped.
The meal kits, according to Rigo, could also be seen as the first step to cooking for customers, with the possibility to boost their confidence enough to begin a more expansive exploration of cooking.
The meal kits are initially available in the San Francisco Bay area and will soon expand to Munchery's other service locations in New York City, Seattle and Los Angeles.
