One of the food innovations of the pandemic has been Meal Kits: courier-delivered, high-end food, prepared in a restaurant kitchen and finished at home.
For me, a meal qualifies as a Meal Kit vs a traditional delivery if it ranks these two points above convenience and cost:
- Access. I’m having food from a restaurant that is too far away, too exclusive, too skilled, too closed right now for me to otherwise experience.
- Quality. It would be more convenient to get the meal already hot, but it wouldn’t taste as good. So I have to pre-book, and finish meal prep myself according to the instructions.
There’s an art to making the meal prep foolproof. So the sauces are pre-prepared and pre-bagged, and you have to heat separately. And fats for any frying are provided in tiny baggies because you might not have the best grade of butter at home. Etc. It’s not totally foolproof. I can still screw it up, and that’s part of the experience.
There’s a question about they will survive as restaurants re-open: Are Meal Kits Going Back in the Box? (This is a great article on Eater London with a ton of links to good kits.)
So these are not the same as, say, Tovala which is a subscription food service combined with a smart oven that reads the barcode and cooks your dinner for you. Nor Blue Apron/HelloFresh/and so on which provide recipes and weekly ingredients boxes.
Meal Kits: Access x quality > cost x convenience.
I have a few friends who sew. I read their blogs and see their pics and I am entranced. Whereas: I buy my clothes from Uniqlo.
Actually clothes are an interesting one. As Benedict Evans pointed out recently, e-commerce in UK has jumped considerably - the UK has 50% higher penetration than the US - and we’re seeing new behaviours. Example: I know some folks who buy two sizes of every garment, for two people in the house. The person who likes it most keeps the one that fits, all the rest are sent back. The traffic in returns is enormous. It feels like the system is not meeting needs elegantly.
So… what are Meal Kits for sewing? High fashion, hard to source fabrics, home finished for perfect tailoring?
How could tailoring be made foolproof? An interesting challenge.
And: Meal Kits for what else?
One of the food innovations of the pandemic has been Meal Kits: courier-delivered, high-end food, prepared in a restaurant kitchen and finished at home.
For me, a meal qualifies as a Meal Kit vs a traditional delivery if it ranks these two points above convenience and cost:
There’s an art to making the meal prep foolproof. So the sauces are pre-prepared and pre-bagged, and you have to heat separately. And fats for any frying are provided in tiny baggies because you might not have the best grade of butter at home. Etc. It’s not totally foolproof. I can still screw it up, and that’s part of the experience.
There’s a question about they will survive as restaurants re-open: Are Meal Kits Going Back in the Box? (This is a great article on Eater London with a ton of links to good kits.)
So these are not the same as, say, Tovala which is a subscription food service combined with a smart oven that reads the barcode and cooks your dinner for you. Nor Blue Apron/HelloFresh/and so on which provide recipes and weekly ingredients boxes.
Meal Kits: Access x quality > cost x convenience.
I have a few friends who sew. I read their blogs and see their pics and I am entranced. Whereas: I buy my clothes from Uniqlo.
Actually clothes are an interesting one. As Benedict Evans pointed out recently, e-commerce in UK has jumped considerably - the UK has 50% higher penetration than the US - and we’re seeing new behaviours. Example: I know some folks who buy two sizes of every garment, for two people in the house. The person who likes it most keeps the one that fits, all the rest are sent back. The traffic in returns is enormous. It feels like the system is not meeting needs elegantly.
So… what are Meal Kits for sewing? High fashion, hard to source fabrics, home finished for perfect tailoring?
How could tailoring be made foolproof? An interesting challenge.
And: Meal Kits for what else?