Meal Kit Buyers Want Convenience and Interesting Recipes, But May Need More Wooing

Consumers may be slow to fully jump on the meal kit trend, but they seem interested.

Restaurants are adapting to delivery, supermarkets are promoting and perfecting their delivery services, Amazon is shaking up the food industry, and meal kit startups are popping up all over the country with a variety of different spins on the concept. These days you can subscribe for meal kit delivery from everything to baby food to gluten-free meals. 

We went directly to our consumer panel to find out their feelings about meal kits and subscription services. And here is what they had to say.

We asked them how often they buy meal kits, and 46% told us once a month or less per year. Another 40% said they never purchase meal kits. Nine percent said two to three times a month, four percent said once a week, and one percent said more than once a week. 

Okay so the trend that exists all over the place in the form of startups and trending foodie concepts may have not completely caught on yet with our panel, but we did dig a little deeper. 

We asked when they do buy meal kits, where they prefer to purchase them. Thirty-two percent said from a delivery services, 17% said shopping their regular store, and 14% said they like a little of both. 

It is not surprising that “delivery” is the most preferred method when also we found out that forty-one percent said they have tried a meal kit subscription service! And 59% said that convenience is a motivating factor to buying meal kits, and in another question 38% said convenience is the MOST motivating factor. 

Something we believe retailers should also pay special attention to is that in that question about motivating factors, while convenience is the clear winner, 32% say they buy meal kits because the recipes are tasty, and 30% say the recipes are interesting.