Anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit has had the thought before, “Why didn’t I think of that?” In a world where big names like Blue Apron and HelloFresh reign supreme in the meal kit delivery industry, many people have that thought of wishing they had thought of that first while also thinking, “I can’t compete with them.”

Thankfully, as many smaller businesses have shown, you can compete with the “Big Guys” of meal kit deliveries. Keep reading to learn more about starting your own meal kit delivery service and how Delivery Biz Pro can help.

Why Do People Like Meal Kit Delivery Services?

Meal kit boxes represent many things that people these days love. Convenience and the option to have healthy food are the two main benefits of meal kits. With a meal kit, a person has everything they need to cook a healthy, homemade meal in thirty minutes. Sure, ordering food in is convenient, but often options are less-than-healthy. Of course, a person can purchase groceries at a store, but that requires finding time to go shopping, fighting the crowds, and deciding what to actually cook. Many people who need to make quick meals on weeknights have some standard options that they cook regularly. They might stick with chicken and steamed broccoli because there’s no way they’d have time to cook a gourmet meal. Thankfully, meal kits solve that problem. They give people the best of every world: interesting meals, fresh food, thirty-minute recipes, and no hassle.

With all that said, the desire for meal kits is already there. The concept already makes sense. Now, your goal is to find your own way to do it and be successful.

The Meal Kit Delivery Business Model

The meal kit delivery business model is very straightforward and doesn’t vary much from company to company. Deciding whether or not you want to follow this standard business model is an important step in starting your own meal kit company. You might want to find a way to put your own spin on things, but keep in mind that the biggest names in meal kit delivery follow this model.

The first point in the process of meal kit delivery is having new recipes every week. The recipes should be available online and offer something for every taste. Customers will browse these recipes and choose the ones they want to have delivered to their homes. Most companies allow variations for the number of meals that can be made with the recipe as well as options for how many meals a customer wants that week.

After the customer chooses their meals, the meal kit delivery company will provide that customer with the ingredients and recipe they need to make that meal by delivering it right to their door. Meal kits come in special packaging that ensures the safety and freshness of the food inside.

What Meal Kit Delivery Companies Need

When thinking of starting your own meal kit delivery business, there are a few elements you will need to take into account. While these are just some basic guidelines, without them a meal kit delivery company cannot succeed. Of course, there are also many little details that will need to be accounted for as well.

Recipes

Recipes are at the heart of meal kits. Finding a balance between interesting, easy, gourmet, and fast is the key. If your recipes consist of meals that are too simple, customers will start to wonder why they are paying for your service when they can do all of this on their own. If they take too long to prepare and cook, customers might find a meal service that offers faster meals. In addition to keeping recipes interesting and fast, also consider offering family-friendly recipes with food that parents and children will both love.

You might also consider providing recipes that meet certain dietary restrictions. For example, you can provide certified halal or kosher recipes with corresponding ingredients. You might offer vegan recipes, gluten-free recipes, low carb recipes, or low sodium recipes.

Food

The next component of meal kit delivery is, of course, the food. Finding sources for your food is incredibly important. If you are starting small, it is a good idea to partner with local farmers in your area. Not only will this ensure the freshest food for your customers, but it will also give your company an edge that the “Big Guys” don’t have. Many people want to support local farms and businesses but don’t know how. If all of your produce and meat is coming from ten minutes down the road, capitalize on this fact.

Packaging

The packaging used for meal kit delivery boxes is essential to ensuring the food is safe and fresh. This area is often what makes or breaks a delivery business in terms of revenue. Packaging used for meal kit deliveries isn’t cheap, so you need to ensure you are finding the best bang for your buck. That might even mean following in the footsteps of the milk delivery industry.

Milk deliveries typically work by dropping off glass bottles of fresh milk and collecting empty bottles that the customer has left on their porch. Those empty bottles will then be cleaned and used for the next round of delivery. While there is a bigger upfront investment in the glass bottles, in the long run you can make that money back by not having to provide disposable bottles for every single pint of milk you sell.

The same system could work for meal kit deliveries. Each meal kit can be delivered in a plastic cooler with reusable ice packs. The customer will bring the cooler inside, cook the meals, and leave the empty cooler and ice packs on the porch for the delivery driver to collect. While this system may seem complicated, home delivery software like ours can help drivers easily keep track of these deposits and allow you to know exactly where your coolers are.  

Delivery Service

With everything above, you have your actual product. Now, it’s time to turn that product into a service. This is often where meal kit delivery companies fail. You need to be able to deliver the items to your customers on time and accurately.

As a home delivery software provider, we can help ensure this by providing you with a home delivery program that is tailored to your industry. Delivery Biz Pro offers a plethora of customizable features to meet the needs of your specific business. One of the most valuable features of our software is route management.

Our route management algorithm allows you to decide how and when your deliveries are made. You can decide how you would like your routes to be organized whether it is grouping customers by neighborhood, by day of the week their deliveries are scheduled, or by some other element.

The route management software takes the guesswork out of everything from loading the trucks to making each stop. Best of all, as we mentioned above, if you are using a reusable packaging system, the driver can easily mark who has or has not returned their deposits.

Mobile-Ready Website

While meal kits can appeal to any demographic, many of the people who utilize meal kits are the same ones who spend more time on their phones than their computers. A huge portion of your customer base will be making their orders via their smartphones, so it is important to ensure that your website is mobile-friendly.

When you use Delivery Biz Pro, we can build you a modern, sleek, and easy-to-use website that is mobile-friendly. Once you have the base of your website, our admin tools make it easy to update your website with the latest recipes, new options for your customers, seasonal promotions, new offers, and so much more.

Customer Communication

Finally, to run a successful meal delivery kit company, you want to make sure you are in frequent communication with your customers. The larger your business grows, the more difficult this will be to manage without the right meal kit delivery software. With Delivery Biz Pro, you can create settings that offer automated communication for various parts of the order and delivery process. For example, customers can receive emailed receipts when they place an order and text message reminders when their order is delivered. You can also have automated emails sent out to wish customers a happy birthday, offer discount codes, provide them with upcoming menu selections, offer seasonal specials, and more.

Start Your Meal Kit Delivery Business With DBP Today

Starting a business from scratch can be intimidating. There are a lot of elements that need to fall into place in order for your business to be successful. Thankfully, with the right tools, you can start checking off those boxes.

Our goal at Delivery Biz Pro is to provide you with all of the easy-to-use software solutions you need to run your business. While we can’t create unique recipes or grow tomatoes for you, our meal kit delivery software can handle the logistical side of things so you don’t have to worry about it.

Reach out to Delivery Biz Pro to learn more about how our meal kit delivery software can make running your meal kit delivery service easy.