Blue Apron CEO on Its Business Model, Scaling Distribution & Sourcing [Video]

There have been a bevy of meal kit subscription startups that aim to make home cooking more accessible, easy and healthy which have launched in the last year. Leading the pack, First Round Capital-backed Blue Apron has already racked up 8 million in investment and is already serving 80 percent of the country, since launching in summer 2012.

The company offers flexible vegetarian and ominvore meal plans and delivers fresh, pre-measured ingredients and step-by-step recipes in bio-degradable packaging directly to your door. Its sourcing team seeks out the best local ingredients and saves users time and money, which allows them to spend less time on ingredient scavenging and more time learning new skills and recipes, says founder and CEO Matt Salzberg. Sourcing locally and planning nationally for the weekly-changing menus is a huge challenge, he says. To tackle this issue, the company develops regional distribution centers, which have refrigerated warehouses and flexible packaging operations.

At our October Food+Tech Meetup “The Business of Meal Kit Subscriptions,” Salzberg spoke about his company’s business model and mission (video below), which includes a Q&A section that digs deeper into the company’s sourcing policies, differentiating features and distribution infrastructure.