Martha Stewart has entered the fast-growing meal-kit delivery market with the launch of Martha & Marley Spoon.
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In a US relaunch on Tuesday, Marley Spoon announced its “Martha & Marley Spoon” line, a meal-kit service priced between $8.70 and $12 per meal that promises recipes customers can cook in 40 minutes or less. The new venture is a licensing deal with existing meal kit company Marley Spoon and brand management company Sequential Brands Group Inc., which bought Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia in 2015.
“Our everyday lives demand better weeknight cooking solutions”, said Stewart.
Marley Spoon, the cook-at-home food delivery startup that competes with the likes of Blue Apron, Plated, and Rocket Internet’s HelloFresh, is effectively re-launching today in the USA through a tie-in with household name Martha Stewart. According to analytics firm CB Insights, there are 20 start-ups offering meals on-demand or meal-kit delivery, and not all will be successful.
Ready-to-cook meal kits have proliferated in recent years and have been popular with city folk who want to skip the supermarket and still whip up a meal at home. TV chef Jamie Oliver appears in commercials for rival HelloFresh and cookbook author Mark Bittman joined vegan meal kit company Purple Carrot previous year. People around the world spent $1.5 billion on meal kits previous year, with less than half of that coming from the U.S. Cooking method is easy and it usually takes less than 40 minutes to cook the meal.
The culinary team at Martha & Marley Spoon is headed by culinary director Jennifer Aaronson, former Food & Entertaining editor for Martha Stewart Living. They can be ordered on Marley Spoon’s website and can be purchased in a two-person box, family box or as additional meals. The industry is expected to grow by $6 billion over the next four years. Marley Spoon could also benefit from the built-in fan base of Stewart, her recipes and also the star power.
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‘We’re starting now here in the USA because everybody knows Martha, ‘ said Marley Spoon CEO Fabian Siegel. Even the august New York Times is vying for a slice of the meal-kit space, as is e-commerce giant Amazon. ‘But why not, in the future, try it out somewhere else?
