Each week, Hello Fresh customers receive recipes and the required ingredients in exact quantities, delivered directly to their homes. The company’s goal is to encourage Britons to discover the benefits of cooking with fresh ingredients in a convenient format.
Recent news has reported falling profits at some of the UK’s biggest supermarkets. Tesco was reported to reach its lowest level market share for seven years, dropping to 29.7% on 28 February 2012 according to data released by Kantar Worldpanel. Morrisons also lost share compared to a year ago, down from 12.3%-12.2%. The Co-Operative’s market share reduced from 6.7-6.3%.
Hello Fresh aims to promote a totally new way of shopping by cutting out the ‘middle man’ to supply better-quality produce straight to consumers.
The startup company claims to only source quality ingredients, most of which never make their way into big-brand supermarkets. The new service aims to shake up ingrained UK consumer buying patterns and has already experienced wide success in other markets, where similar services are used by hundreds of thousands of people in a consumer base that prioritises home-cooked meals and healthy family eating.
Pit Karbe, MD of Hello Fresh UK, told FoodBev.com: “We believe that more Brits would enjoy cooking fresh meals at home, if only it was easier. Cooking shows on TV are enormously popular, but it takes so much effort to actually buy all the necessary ingredients, many of which aren’t even stocked in supermarkets. We make it very easy for our customers to discover delicious food in their own homes by doing all the hard work for them.
“We want Hello Fresh to launch a revolution in the way people eat, in much the same way that supermarkets radically changed the landscape of grocery shopping when they took the place of independent, specialist stores. We understand that consumers are weary of the impersonal experience and low quality of chain stores, and we provide an entirely new way to shop and cook.”
Customers sign up for weekly subscriptions depending on household size and number of meals per week. Each delivery contains pre-measured ingredients and step-by-step photo instructions from experienced chefs.
The average household generates 600kg of waste per year; a national total of 380m tonnes annually, which Hello Fresh aims to reduce by providing portion-appropriate ingredients, decreasing the amount of food bought and not consumed.
Patrick Drake, head chef for Hello Fresh, said: “The dishes take no longer than half an hour to prepare and contain approximately 500-750kcals, providing a well-balanced combination of carbohydrates, protein, fats, minerals and vitamins.”
UK consumers are becoming more aware of the importance of eating high-quality food that isn’t processed. However, the average Brit’s time-poor lifestyle means that low-grade convenience food and ready meals are still widely consumed.
Hello Fresh may have found a gap in the market that has already been adopted by the health-savvy consumers of Scandinavia, whose diet has regularly been named one of the healthiest in the world.
Supermarkets are constantly playing catch-up with new health trends, labelling guidelines, increasing consumer awareness of ingredients, and sometimes getting caught out for misleading consumers when it come to nutritional value. A company that provides healthy produce with advice on how to create nutritious meals may be the start of a new trend, which, once again, the supermarkets may have to face and overcome.
Is it time to forget a supermarkets’ basics range and simply get back to basics with home-cooked, healthy food with a little help from experts?
It may just be a concept that will turn out to be a flash in the pan, but with the UK battling one of the highest obesity rates in the world, perhaps it’s time for consumers to dip their fingers into a new way of eating and take a lettuce leaf out of the Scandinavians’ cook book.
Rebecca is editorial assistant of FoodBev.com
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