NEW YORK—Consumers can now purchase Blue Apron meal kits on Walmart.com without a subscription to the meal-kit company, according to a news release. Blue Apron is the only meal-kit provider on the Walmart Marketplace platform. The boxes will be directly fulfilled by Blue Apron.
“Through our work with Walmart.com Marketplace, we will be able to scale our e-commerce presence and introduce restaurant-quality meals without a subscription to a new group of customers who may not have considered meal kits before,” said Dani Simpson, Blue Apron’s chief marketing officer. “We are offering Walmart.com’s customer base convenient and delicious meal options that feature a variety of unique and quality ingredients. This is just the beginning, and we look forward to expanding the offering throughout the year.”
Blue Apron is offering four meal kits that serve up to 12, with plans to expand the options in the coming months. The meal kits currently feature a selection of curated recipes that include classic options like Cheese Crisp Burgers with Dijonnaise, Arugula & Balsamic Onions; family favorite recipes like Rosemary & Panko Chicken with Roasted Potatoes & Creamy Lemon Sauce; or a selection of Heat & Eat meals, Blue Apron’s prepared, single-serving options that are ready in five minutes or less.
“We are thrilled to work with Blue Apron to offer an assortment of meal kits to Walmart customers,” said Sheetal Patel, GM of food consumables, health and wellness, Walmart U.S. Marketplace. “At Walmart, finding ways to help our customers live a little better each day is at the heart of everything we do. These fantastic meal solutions will make it easier and faster for busy families and individuals to discover, plan prepare and enjoy delicious and quality meals.”
Last week, Walmart announced it will open four "next generation" fulfillment centers over the next three years, with the first opening this summer in Joliet, Illinois, according to the company. The centers will be the “first of their kind” for Walmart and will use a combination of people, robotics and machine learning.
The retail giant says these four new fulfillment centers alone will provide 75% of the U.S. population with next- or two-day shipping on millions of items, and when they are combined with its traditional fulfillment centers, Walmart says it will reach 95% of the U.S. population with next- or two-day shipping.
Last month, Walmart announced the expansion of its DroneUp delivery network to 34 sites in six states by the end the year, reaching up to four million U.S. households to deliver over one million packages by drone each year.
Walmart has said it is homing in on delivering convenience to its customers.
“We’ve watched in real time as people foundationally changed their shopping habits, spurred not just by a global pandemic, but by the expectation for availability to also mean convenience,” wrote Walmart. “That need for convenience led to six times the number of customers using delivery in the fourth quarter compared to pre-pandemic levels, signaling a huge change in how our customers shop.”