> I'm a bit confused by people who say the big benefit of Blue Apron is time. When we tried it, it took about as much time as cooking the meal from scratch - maybe 20 minutes of prep and 20-30 on the oven/stove.
Blue Apron is cooking a meal from scratch (so, obviously, it doesn't save time in cooking.) The time saving is in shopping and inventory management.
Pre-cut & pre-measured ingredients, though, right? At least, that's what I remember their service being like, unless I'm confusing it with another delivery startup.
I don't personally get the timesavings of not going to the store, either - my wife or I will go after work, we have a list, it'll take half an hour and then we'll be done for the week. But then I realized that the target market for these services probably doesn't have a car and/or doesn't have a produce market a mile away. It makes a lot more sense if getting groceries is a half-hour trek just to get there and then you need to carry the bags back.
At least when I had BA (and judging by their current recipes, still now) measured, but not cut for the most part. You still prep the ingredients.
> I don't personally get the timesavings of not going to the store, either - my wife or I will go after work, we have a list, it'll take half an hour and then we'll be done for the week.
Meal kits means you aren't planning those meals, aren't making a shopping list for what is needed for those meals, and aren't shopping for those meals.
I have a produce market 10 minutes walk from my home - unfortunately, my working patterns prevent me from using it except on extremely rare occasions.
Supermarkets do have much longer opening hours that fit with my working patterns, but sadly don't have the quality of produce as my local farmers' market.
Blue Apron is cooking a meal from scratch (so, obviously, it doesn't save time in cooking.) The time saving is in shopping and inventory management.