In: Operations Management
HelloFresh is at the forefront of disrupting a multi
trillion-dollar industry at the very beginning of its
online transition. HelloFresh is a truly local food product,
uniquely suited to individual tastes and
meal-time preferences offering delivery of a giant box of delicious
food with recipes to enable easy
and enjoyable meal preparation for a weekly fee.
HelloFresh aims to provide each and every household in its 7
markets with the opportunity to
enjoy wholesome home-cooked meals with no planning, no shopping,
and no hassle required. Everything
required for weeknight meals, carefully planned, locally sourced
and delivered to your door at
the most convenient time for each subscriber. Behind the scenes, a
huge data driven technology platform
puts us in the prime position for disrupting the food supply chain
and for fundamentally changing
the way consumers shop for food. HelloFresh has local founders
across the globe who are able to
leverage the global platform, and at the same time ensure that the
HelloFresh product in each market
truly reflects the local community.
The soft subscription model business enables us to leverage our
weekly subscriber touch points to
consistently manage supply chains and demand, and to optimize the
customer experience as well as
our business economics. Customers sign-up for a box containing
between 2 and 5 meals per week
for a flat fee. If the customer is out of town or unavailable he
can easily cancel any week without a
penalty provided they notify HelloFresh in advance.
Dominik Richter has been CEO since starting HelloFresh in 2011. He
has responsibility for keeping
a general oversight of the business and strategy. Prior to
HelloFresh, Dominik worked with Goldman
Sachs in London. Dominik graduated with a degree in International
Business in 2009, and from the
London School of Economics in 2010 with a Masters in Finance.
Thomas Griesel has been responsible for the logistics and
operations behind HelloFresh since
founding with Dominik in 2011. Previously, Thomas had spent time at
OC&C Strategy Consultants and
worked on a range of his own businesses and ideas. He graduated
from with a degree in International
Business Administration in 2009, and from the London Business
School in 2010 with a Masters in
Management.
2011
All the way back in 2011, Dominik and Thomas arrived in Berlin,
intent on starting a new and disruptive
business. With a love of healthy food, nutrition, cooking, and a
desire to make access to healthy food
as easy as possible for as many people as possible - starting a
Food at Home business seemed the
natural choice.
2012
After examining business models from Sweden to Japan to very local
ideas, they and a group of
like-minded individuals formulated the recipe for HelloFresh. The
team started early in 2012 packing
shopping bags in Berlin, Amsterdam and London with a view to target
the highest density population
areas in Europe. Quite quickly, they started getting requests from
people outside those areas who all
wanted to become a part of the HelloFresh family. Wanting to serve
as many people as possible, the
team developed a logistics model that enabled them to deliver to
every single household across a
given country.
2013
The HelloFresh product started to rapidly gain in popularity, as
subscribers shared the excitement
about their weekly boxes, with friends and colleagues. Subscriber
referrals accelerated, as it became
clear that HelloFresh had finally solved the “What’s for dinner
tonight” problem for its subscribers.
2014
Having launched on the East Coast of the U.S in December 2012,
HelloFresh moved to cover the
entire country in September 2014. Over the short time since then,
HelloFresh has grown rapidly to
become one of the largest players in this market.
Questions
1. Do you consider HelloFresh a form of disruptive or sustaining
technology?
2. Is HelloFresh an example of Web 1.0 (ebusiness) or Web 2.0
(Business 2.0)?
3. Describe the ebusiness model associated with HelloFresh.
4. Describe the revenue model associated with HelloFresh.