This week we talk expanding customer choice in the competitive mealkit market with Andy Levitt, Founder & CEO of Purple Carrot.
August 9, 2018
Can you tell us a little about your company and role?
I am the Founder & CEO of Purple Carrot which I launched in October 2014. We were the first and remain the only 100% plant-based mealkit on the market. We provide all of the raw, pre-measured ingredients people need to cook 3 plant-based meals at home each week, for both their health and the health of the environment. And this week, we’re excited to launch meal choice which includes the introduction of three new plans: Chef’s Choice, Quick and Easy, and High Protein. This provides our subscribers with 35 different dinner combinations each week.
What was the drive behind the launch?
We take a very data-driven approach and it was abundantly clear that consumers prefer to customize the meals they get each week. As the category gets more competitive and commoditized over time, we want to create unique and differentiated experiences for our subscribers, all centered around convenience, health and culinary exploration. We know from our research that customers prefer to have some degree of choice, but no so much that they feel paralyzed and overwhelmed. We also knew that key to our continued growth was expanding the scope of our offerings, and Meal Choice was a very logical step for us to take. It has been a cross-functional lift, cutting across culinary, operations, tech and marketing teams, to make the experience as smooth and positive for our customers. I’m really proud of what our team has done in short order, and our customer feedback has been exceptional so far. Upfront, there were complexities in scoping the project, defining the constraints and limitations of choice, agreeing on the offering and determining the roll-out plan. Then we spent about six months optimizing our approach.
What results have you seen?
The early results have been fantastic! Customer skip and cancellation rates dropped significantly to the lowest levels we’ve seen since we’ve been tracking it. Qualitative feedback from customers has been really strong as well. Our operations team certainly has their hands full but I have total faith in their abilities to manage the inherent challenges of expansive choice.
What obstacles have you encountered along the way and how are you overcoming them?
The meal kit industry is inherently complex, even without choice in meals. Managing the supply chain of perishable and often hard-to-find items is remarkably challenging. We have spent a lot of time working through these operational complexities, expanded our teams at all of our fulfillment centers, and invested in higher levels of training to ensure we put out a great product every single week. We expect that at times, people might customize their box with a particular recipe – but if demand is so high, we might need to adjust offerings in a given week if we can’t access enough supply of goods in short order. We never want to disappoint customers, and we’ll do all that we can to minimize any shortages.
So what is the end goal here?
Our aim is to help people eat more plants every week by giving them a choice of incredible meals that satisfy their palette and their preferences. We believe this project enables that to happen, all the while improving people’s perception of our company and the value we offer.
If you could start meal choice all over again, what would you do differently?
Well, with respect to Purple Carrot as a whole, I’ve realized that things cost twice as much as you think, and take twice as much time as you hope – but I have loved the whole experience of starting a company and it’s a real honor and a privilege to do the work I do every day with the people with whom I do it. As for the meal choice project, the only thing I would have done differently is to start sooner!
This week we talk expanding customer choice in the competitive mealkit market with Andy Levitt, Founder & CEO of Purple Carrot.
August 9, 2018
Can you tell us a little about your company and role?
I am the Founder & CEO of Purple Carrot which I launched in October 2014. We were the first and remain the only 100% plant-based mealkit on the market. We provide all of the raw, pre-measured ingredients people need to cook 3 plant-based meals at home each week, for both their health and the health of the environment. And this week, we’re excited to launch meal choice which includes the introduction of three new plans: Chef’s Choice, Quick and Easy, and High Protein. This provides our subscribers with 35 different dinner combinations each week.
What was the drive behind the launch?
We take a very data-driven approach and it was abundantly clear that consumers prefer to customize the meals they get each week. As the category gets more competitive and commoditized over time, we want to create unique and differentiated experiences for our subscribers, all centered around convenience, health and culinary exploration. We know from our research that customers prefer to have some degree of choice, but no so much that they feel paralyzed and overwhelmed. We also knew that key to our continued growth was expanding the scope of our offerings, and Meal Choice was a very logical step for us to take. It has been a cross-functional lift, cutting across culinary, operations, tech and marketing teams, to make the experience as smooth and positive for our customers. I’m really proud of what our team has done in short order, and our customer feedback has been exceptional so far. Upfront, there were complexities in scoping the project, defining the constraints and limitations of choice, agreeing on the offering and determining the roll-out plan. Then we spent about six months optimizing our approach.
What results have you seen?
The early results have been fantastic! Customer skip and cancellation rates dropped significantly to the lowest levels we’ve seen since we’ve been tracking it. Qualitative feedback from customers has been really strong as well. Our operations team certainly has their hands full but I have total faith in their abilities to manage the inherent challenges of expansive choice.
What obstacles have you encountered along the way and how are you overcoming them?
The meal kit industry is inherently complex, even without choice in meals. Managing the supply chain of perishable and often hard-to-find items is remarkably challenging. We have spent a lot of time working through these operational complexities, expanded our teams at all of our fulfillment centers, and invested in higher levels of training to ensure we put out a great product every single week. We expect that at times, people might customize their box with a particular recipe – but if demand is so high, we might need to adjust offerings in a given week if we can’t access enough supply of goods in short order. We never want to disappoint customers, and we’ll do all that we can to minimize any shortages.
So what is the end goal here?
Our aim is to help people eat more plants every week by giving them a choice of incredible meals that satisfy their palette and their preferences. We believe this project enables that to happen, all the while improving people’s perception of our company and the value we offer.
If you could start meal choice all over again, what would you do differently?
Well, with respect to Purple Carrot as a whole, I’ve realized that things cost twice as much as you think, and take twice as much time as you hope – but I have loved the whole experience of starting a company and it’s a real honor and a privilege to do the work I do every day with the people with whom I do it. As for the meal choice project, the only thing I would have done differently is to start sooner!