Competition in the meal-kit industry is fierce.
Rivals are looking for creative strategies to minimize time in the kitchen and still cater to varied dietary restrictions and preferences.
But how can smaller players stand out from the pack?
“Focus on needs,” Sun Basket’s Co-founder and CEO Adam Zbar, told Cheddar. The executive argues that the industry has become big business, with meal-kit companies bringing in $5 billion in revenue last year.
Sun Basket currently has less than ten percent of the meal-kit market, according to research firm Second Measure, but it's managed to create big waves. Just in 2017’s first quarter, the company saw sales grow 80 percent. But the industry is constantly changing, and participants have to keep up.
Blue Apron is currently the dominant player in the market, holding a 40 percent market share. But Second Measure says that the leader's recent challenges, including layoffs and a plunging share price since its IPO, open the door for other players.
Sun Basket hopes to capitalize on the opportunity. The company rolled out a new strategy Tuesday and now features more premium meat selections, the CEO told Cheddar.
“All of our consumers were really asking for that,” Zbar said. “We are always talking to our consumers, and they said that they wanted even better premium proteins.”
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A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
