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Fast Food Restaurants Join the Meal Kit Renaissance

The drive thru came thru for customers.
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Chick-fil-A

less than 3 min read

Retail news that keeps industry pros in the know

Retail Brew delivers the latest retail industry news and insights surrounding marketing, DTC, and e-commerce to keep leaders and decision-makers up to date.

For those of us who a) lack the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen’s skills but b) want a restaurant-adjacent dinner experience, the drive-thru is coming thru with new meal kits.

  • Chick-fil-A’s chicken parm meal kit arrives on menus today.
  • Taco Bell released its “At Home Taco Bar” kit last week.
  • Panera plans to offer DIY sandwich and salad kits by the end of May.

Zoom out: Stay at home orders have spawned a meal kit renaissance, reports the WSJ. In stores, U.S. consumers spent roughly $100 million on meal kits during the month ending April 11—nearly double the sales for the same period last year, per Nielsen. Online meal kit sales rose 63% annually for the week ending April 15, per Earnest Research.

Why it matters: Whether families order from Chick-fil-A or Blue Apron, they’re after quick, convenient dinners minus a grocery store trip. But the costs of sourcing, marketing, and distributing meal kits have proven to be a recipe for highly unprofitable businesses. For meal kit makers who thought they’d peaked with Pitbull in 2012, the recent demand surge could spell (temporary) salvation.

Retail news that keeps industry pros in the know

Retail Brew delivers the latest retail industry news and insights surrounding marketing, DTC, and e-commerce to keep leaders and decision-makers up to date.