Blue Apron To Sell Food Kits In Stores, A.k.a. "Grocery Shopping"

Correct us if we're wrong, we thought that the whole point of Blue Apron was to avoid grocery store shopping. Ingredients for an entire meal delivered right to your door, in perfect amounts! But now, as Uproxx points out today, "the new plan for Blue Apron is essentially an inverse of its original model: putting meal kits on shelves in grocery stores."

For a while, it looked like Blue Apron had cornered the market on meal kits. Then Amazon bought Whole Foods, and there was a new horse in the grocery delivery race. In fact, when Blue Apron went public last year, "it flatly stated it may never be profitable," according to Uproxx. Today reports that the company's stock has plummeted 78 percent since it went public.

Granted, Blue Apron is now following an existing trend of other food kits available in stores like Whole Foods and Kroger. But once you're in the store, buying a food kit seems a little lazy even for us. All the food is already there, after all (although we can appreciate the savings of valuable prep time).

A Blue Apron spokesperson released the following statement to Today in an impressive creation of corporate gobbledygook: "This offering is part of our strategy to leverage the strength of our brand and the quality of our product to expand to new channels and new consumer segments." Translation: Blue Apron is looking for any avenue to make the company more successful, even if it means closing the grocery delivery circle by returning the food to the stores from whence it came.