Gobble (YC W14) Raises $10.75M for Its 10-Minute Dinner Kits

> To me, the highest cost of cooking for myself is planning and shopping

I agree with shopping. But not so much with planning. Once you've been cooking for yourself for a couple months you can pretty much nail down a rotating meal plan that requires no substantial planning

On the packaging waste, I was delving through the Gobble website and found out they offer a free "Return & Re-Use Program" [1]

[1] https://gobble.com/faq

It's a pretty standard line of products at most upscale grocery stores (Whole Foods, HEB's Central Market, etc.), with the advantage of fresh ingredients and preparation. Though, to be fair, the Gobble menu looks pretty good.

I'm not sure who actually falls into the target demo of "wants to cook gourmet meals but doesn't actually know how to buy produce or cook a meal," (I want to see those user interviews and persona decks!) but they're in the Bay Area if they're anywhere at all.

I can't pretend to understand this sudden spate of high-valued Series As for companies that are just everyday small businesses with a lick of startup paint, but I suppose it's a case of too much money chasing too few opportunities -- or, at least, too much money unwilling to look outside the San Francisco to San Jose loop.

Because most people are happy enough to either use the frozen food isle or actually cook.

They do have this at the grocery store.

My wife and I use Blue Apron and I am a big fan. I have to admit the packaging is extensive but at least they are trying to reduce the net waste [0].

A few other positives:

- You get the experience of making the dinner (chopping, cooking, mixing, etc.). It's a good entry point for novices.

- Many of the ingredients are somewhat exotic, so you wouldn't usually buy them in the grocery store. Or if you did you end up with a lot left over that you won't use again.

- $59 for six meals actually seems like a bargain to me. Maybe we were doing it wrong but when we used to go to the store for all our meals, we spent a lot more and ended up wasting a lot of it.

The downside is that you don't save that much time (other than the shopping trip). So I could see how Gobble is great for more time-constrained people.

In the end, I think all of these services are trying to own the space, starting with their own niches. Once they get enough traction they can land and expand to take over the other services' niches. This comes at a cost to them (poor unit economics initially), but we the consumers benefit...for now at least.

[0] https://support.blueapron.com/hc/en-us/articles/202510818-Ho...

I'm #2. Price doesn't matter at all, in fact I was saving money using Blue Apron 3 times a week ($60) as opposed to paying $15-30 at restaurants. Zero cooking experience initially. After 3-4 months I got tired of getting home at 6, then spending 2 hours prepping, cooking and cleaning. By the time I was done I'd get a bit of book reading or Seinfeld in and go to bed. So I went back to a) making stupid simple meals (roasted vegetables, baked chicken etc) b) restaurants/takeout.

I'm a bachelor so it wasn't like I was doing some fun social thing when cooking. I'd listen to podcasts, which was nice, but I'd rather do that at the gym or getting some sort of exercise/relaxation done. Also, I'm absolutely fine with eating boring meals throughout the week. I'm practically on the fence about Soylent because I'd rather spend less time planning, shopping, cooking, etc.

The great thing that Blue Apron did was build up my kitchen confidence.

I feel like I was #2 when I had forage/din earlier this year. It's even worse being single so you have to eat leftovers half the time. For me the reason I cancelled was the meals were too "fancy", were a lot of work for something less good than at a restaurant (since it pushed the limits of my cooking skill), and around the same price or slightly more expensive at $15/meal than the restaurants I would be eating at, since I don't live in San Francisco or go to nice restaurants.

You can also just cook any meat and vegetables in the rice cooker with the rice.

Thanks for putting that front and center.

My biggest issue with these services is that for a regular home-cooked meal, that is quite a premium for something where the portion size is quite often way too small or the ingredient quality isn't justified by the price.

I know I'm looking for something that may not be able to exist because of the razor-thin margins, but if someone came out with a service at the <$10 price point with decent ingredients and portions, and healthy (read: low sodium, low sugar, low processed-crap) options, I'd likely switch a significant percentage of my weekly meals to them.

As it stands now, it is just hard to justify at that price. But perhaps I'm not the target market.

First world problems are still problems; this is "What's the most convenient way to deliver a home-cooked meal without dispatching a chef to cook it for you?", which is a thing that well-off professionals historically buy. Systemize the human labor there and it makes it affordable to more of the middle class while allowing people to cook for themselves, which at least some people want to do.

Cooking is not hard like reading is not hard: if you grew up doing it, you might not remember having learned it at all. The historical expectation that at least half the population grew up cooking has fallen apart, particularly among some social classes. I would not suggest contempt of business models which only succeed by helping more people learn to cook.

(Cards on table: can cook, do so rarely, would be very open to doing more and very willing to trade money to decrease time investment required.)

As to the economics of it: doesn't strike me as having unit economics compatible with investor expectations but oh well capitalism happens -- if it does they make a bundle, if not they're sophisticated rich people who can afford to lose money while buying food for less-rich people at a loss. "Even the poorest Americans will have cooked food prepared by servants" was once science fiction, too. That business worked out pretty decently, modulo latter-day concerns that "Well maybe poor Americans shouldn't have their food cooked by servants."

The price goes down the more meals you order their service is intended for people that would want to have "ready to cook" meals rather than an unplanned take-away.

They can offer more verity in their menus over time and some people actually enjoy cooking even if the majority of the work was already been done.

Their kits are also intended to be able to stored up to 5 days in refrigeration and up to 2 weeks if frozen which means you can use them on your own schedule which you can't do that easily with take-away or order-in.

Another important fact is that when you are cooking you can adjust the recipe yourself add or remove ingredients, over cook or under cook the veggies depending on how you like them, add or replace seasoning etc.

Oddly enough I don't understand why these types of kits aren't available in grocery stores I can go down to Marks and Spencer or Waitrose and get pre-cut veggies, meats, pre-cooked pasta/noodles and rice or whole premade meals including ready to cook steaks, fish, poultry, pasta dishes, pies, soups even deserts...

Blue doesn't do any prep work though. You gotta chop those onions yourself.