Freshly Quits Delivery Service Due To Drastic Drop In Subscriptions
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, meal delivery services were certainly around, but they were nowhere near as popular. Per Grand View Research, the meal delivery industry was only worth around $4.5 billion in 2020, but it skyrocketed to $6.1 billion by 2021. To date, the industry has grown to be worth around $20.5 billion.
However, with the decrease in lockdowns and people feeling more comfortable going out to eat at restaurants, there just wasn't enough business to go around for all the delivery services. According to Explorer Research, meal kit services like GoodFood saw a post-pandemic drop from the revenue spike of 56% last year — and that's just one company.
Another service that has been affected by the recent economic turmoil is Freshly, a delivery service for healthy chef-cooked meals. Freshly was acquired by Nestlé in 2020, per TechCrunch, at which point the service was allegedly "shipping more than one million meals per week." Sadly, this rush of customers was short-lived.
Freshly will focus on freshly prepared meals in the retail channel
Like most online meal delivery services post the COVID-19 pandemic, Freshly has also not fared too well. According to Food Business News, Nestlé "partially offloaded" Freshly in November 2022, at which point the delivery service merged with Kettle Cuisine. Similarly to Freshly, Kettle Cuisine focuses on fresh food and clean eating, but at a much larger scale. Per Food Dive, a Nestlé spokesperson said the merger is intended to improve "convenience and accessibility" by combining the strengths of the two services.
As part of the merger, many Freshly workers are being laid off, with around 454 in Maryland and 329 in Arizona expected to lose their jobs over the next few weeks (via ABC 15). Nearly another 140 in New York City face the same situation, according to the Department of Labor. The Freshly website issued its own statement, and noted that orders may still be placed through January 17, with a final shipping day of January 21. Needless to say, if you still need fully-prepared meals or meal kits delivered, you'd best turn to the likes of EveryPlate, Purple Carrots, or HelloFresh.