Dining kit In the 13 years since the launch of Blue Apron in the United States, it has grown rapidly. Today, nine major cutlery kit services operate across the country, their convenient dinner packages have become relatively cheap and are more suitable for those with dietary restrictions.
Increased competition has brought diversity and a consumer-friendly makeover to catering services, but most of the population remains skeptical. In the nearest one CNET Investigation Of the more than 2,600 American adults, most of those who haven’t tried the service (61%) have some preconceived idea of pulling them back.
Barrier 1: Meal kit cost
Despite the surge in grocery prices, the cost of dining kits is still relatively stable.
More than 60% of respondents said the high cost prevented them from trying out the meal kit. While dining kits used to be a higher-priced alternative to grocery shopping and cooking at home, stubborn grocery store inflation has challenged this over the past few years. In fact, the price of dining kits remains relatively stable, and some brands offer it Better or equal value Compared to buying expensive ingredients in the store.
Read more: Meal kits get cheaper, but are they cheaper than groceries?
Inflation hasn’t affected much
Grocery prices surge More than 35% since 2012. The previous one CNET Survey 2024 Discovering the rising cost of groceries is the biggest financial pain point for most Americans.
As meal kit services thrived in customer retention and competition, most companies were reluctant to raise prices at the risk of closing existing and new subscribers.
consider Blue apronCNET’s highest tableware kit service in 2025. When Blue Apron was launched in 2012, the average cost per copy was $10. Since then, the cost per service has hardly increased. Today, most meals on the current menu on the Blue Apron are between $10 and $12 per serving.
Each deck is CNET’s highest budget meal kit.
HellofreshIt’s the most popular cutlery kit service in the United States (and Blue Apron’s biggest competitor), and it’s $10 per serving in addition to one of its subscription plans. Other dining kit services are even cheaper. Each board Dinner is available with plans, with a recipe of about $6 to $8 per serving.
Budget grocery shopping Cooking at home is still the biggest savings compared to eating out and ordering delivery in restaurants. However, the cutlery kit offers more meaningful savings than when it was first introduced, in addition to convenience.
Barrier 2: Subscribe to Commitment
With so many subscriptions, some people don’t want to add a monthly cutlery kit promise.
Subscription requirements are another common reaction to why cutlery kits are not on the table. Nearly half (46%) of those surveyed said they did not want to commit to another subscription service.
The disgust of subscriptions is not unfounded. Just last month, Hellofresh was Ordered to pay $7.5 million California court found the cutlery kit company guilty of misleading customers’ subscription model.
Blue Apron Clear Subscription Requirements
Perhaps inspired by competitors’ ongoing lawsuits, the blue apron has been quietly planning to eliminate its subscription requirements and Announced news A few days after the trial.
The blue apron now represents the only major cutlery kit service that does not require a user to sign up for subscription, although there are subscription options for those who want it. Customers can order more than 30 order-based recipes for the service without repeated charges. This may encourage other companies to do the same.
Methodology
CNET commissioned YouGov to conduct an investigation. Unless otherwise stated, all numbers are from YouGov. The total sample size was 2,607 adults, of which 2,172 did not use the delivery service of the cutlery package. Field inspections were conducted from July 16 to 18. The survey was conducted online. These numbers have been weighted and represent all U.S. adults (ages 18 years and older).
