The History of Meal Kits in the USA

Short answer: The US meal-kit market is a bit over a decade old — kicked off by Blue Apron in 2012 — but it only became a mass-market habit once the pandemic hit. Lockdowns drove a surge in subscriptions in 2020-2021, and while growth has cooled since, the category never went back to its pre-pandemic size. HelloFresh now dominates, controlling roughly 78% of subscription meal-kit spending once you count the brands it owns (EveryPlate and Green Chef). After a hard round of consolidation, the market in 2026 is left with a handful of durable players — most of them backed by deep-pocketed parent companies.

The meal kit feels like an everyday fixture today — a box on the porch with pre-measured ingredients and a recipe card that makes dinner easy (see our breakdown of what a meal kit actually is). But when Blue Apron packed its first boxes in 2012, neither the word "meal kit" nor the market around it really existed yet. In just over a decade, the concept has gone from a scrappy startup idea to a market run by publicly traded companies, grocery chains, and international operators.

The story is far from a straight line up and to the right. It includes an explosive pandemic boom, a string of bankruptcies and exits, and a consolidation phase where large, well-capitalized owners have taken over the stage. In this walkthrough you'll follow the timeline chronologically — from the pioneers through the boom years to the shakeout — and come away with a clear picture of who's left standing in 2026, and why.

The story begins in New York City. In 2012, Matt Salzberg, Ilia Papas, and Matt Wadiak founded Blue Apron with an idea that was radical at the time: ship pre-portioned, chef-designed ingredients straight to people's doors along with an easy-to-follow recipe card, removing the guesswork from cooking a real dinner at home. The model was ambitious from day one — sourcing directly from farms and producers and building out its own fulfillment network — and it introduced Americans to the no-commitment subscription format that would define the category for a decade. Blue Apron would later go public in 2017, becoming the first meal-kit company to list on the stock market (see our full Blue Apron review).

Blue Apron wasn't alone in experimenting with the format for long. In 2013, Home Chef launched in Chicago, founded by Pat Vihtelic, with a focus on flexible, customizable recipes (see our Home Chef review). These early movers defined the category before the international players even looked at the US market. They built out logistics, customer trust, and subscription habits from scratch — a head start that's still felt in 2026, where both remain among the most recognized names in the space.

Over the course of the 2010s, the market matured fast. The meal kit evolved from a single format — raw ingredients plus a recipe card — into a much wider range of concepts. Where Blue Apron and the early movers delivered ingredients you cooked yourself, new entrants began experimenting with convenience as the core promise.

Green Chef launched in 2014 out of Denver with a focus on USDA-certified organic ingredients and diet-specific plans (read our Green Chef review), while Sunbasket started in 2014 in San Francisco, founded by Adam Zbar, with an emphasis on organic sourcing and, later, chef-prepared, ready-to-eat options (see our Sunbasket review). Meanwhile, HelloFresh — founded in Berlin in 2011 by Dominik Richter, Thomas Griesel, and Jessica Nilsson — expanded into the US market and quickly became a serious national competitor. At the same time, the subscription model itself got polished: pausing, skipping weeks, and canceling without a contract became standard practice across nearly every provider.

This period laid the tracks for what was coming. Americans were getting comfortable with recurring grocery-adjacent deliveries, and the flexibility made the format appealing to busy families. But the real breakout moment was still a few years out — and it took a global pandemic to trigger it.

When lockdowns hit in the spring of 2020, American shopping habits changed overnight. With stay-at-home orders, remote work, and a widespread desire to avoid crowded grocery stores, meal kits caught a tailwind unlike anything the category had seen before. Subscriptions surged as households searched for a low-contact way to get dinner on the table. It was in this climate that the category's eventual leader pulled decisively ahead.

HelloFresh — by then a publicly traded company with tens of thousands of employees worldwide — used its scale, supply chain, and heavy performance marketing to grow its US business faster than any competitor during the pandemic years (read our HelloFresh review). The established players felt the boom too: demand across the category spiked broadly as new customers signed up in record numbers (see our Home Chef review).

The demand was real, but it was also artificially amplified by lockdowns. Many new customers were acquired through aggressive welcome discounts — a model where the first few boxes are sold cheap to win long-term subscribers (see our roundup of current coupons and deals). The question nobody could answer in 2021 was how many of those new customers would stick around once everyday life resumed.

The answer came fast, and it was harsh. As the country reopened, a large share of the artificial demand disappeared, and the market suddenly felt too crowded for everyone in it. Growth flattened out after the pandemic surge, and 2022-2023 turned into a brutal consolidation phase in which several well-known names didn't make it through.

The most widely covered casualty was Freshly, the ready-to-eat delivery service backed by Nestlé, which shut down in 2023 after failing to reach sustainable profitability despite major backing. Around the same time, financial pressure spread more broadly across the category — several subscription meal-kit operators posted losses as post-pandemic demand cooled and customer-acquisition costs climbed. Marley Spoon and its budget brand Dinnerly also came under serious financial strain, with their US operating entity facing a Chapter 11 restructuring — a reminder that even recognizable brand names aren't immune to the category's thin margins.

The shakeout sent a clear signal: the meal-kit market had matured, and there wasn't room for everyone. The operators that survived either had a strong niche, loyal customers, or — most importantly — a well-capitalized owner behind them. As a consumer, it's a good reminder to read the fine print: see how to avoid subscription traps before you commit.

Out of the shakeout, a new pattern emerged: the earlier pioneers were increasingly absorbed by larger, deep-pocketed owners. Independence was traded for scale, distribution, and financial stability.

Home Chef had already been acquired by grocery giant Kroger back in 2018, and that grocery-store backing proved decisive during the shakeout years, giving it distribution and financial support that independent competitors lacked. Blue Apron was acquired by Wonder Group in 2023, ending its run as an independent public company; in August 2025 it relaunched as a no-subscription, à-la-carte service, letting customers order individual meals without committing to a recurring plan. Meanwhile EveryPlate and Green Chef both operate under the publicly traded HelloFresh SE, which acquired Green Chef back in 2018 and built EveryPlate as its budget-focused brand.

The result is a market shaped by a small number of very large owners. HelloFresh, once you count the brands it owns, now controls roughly 78% of US meal-kit subscription spending — an extraordinary level of concentration for a category that started out as a handful of scrappy startups. Want the full picture of where the market stands right now? We've laid it out in our 2026 US meal-kit market analysis.

After a bit more than a decade, the market has settled into a handful of durable players — most with a well-capitalized owner behind them. Below is an overview of the key survivors and where they stand today. Trustpilot scores are snapshots (July 2026) and shift over time; see our methodology for how we collect them.

The picture is clear: the earlier pioneers (Blue Apron, Home Chef) are still around, but now operate under well-capitalized owners. The international giant (HelloFresh, along with its sister brands EveryPlate and Green Chef) covers both the classic recipe-kit format and the budget and ready-to-eat niches. Alongside the giants, smaller independent players like Sunbasket continue to compete on specialization — organic sourcing and premium convenience — rather than scale. Choosing between them today? Use our best meal kit roundup as a starting point.

The American meal-kit journey reveals a few clear patterns worth keeping in mind when you choose a kit today. First, the market rewards patience and a clear niche: Sunbasket has built a loyal following on premium organic sourcing and now holds one of the highest customer-satisfaction scores in the category (4.4/5 on Trustpilot), while EveryPlate has carved out staying power purely on price.

Second, price remains the ongoing battleground — and that's not just a hunch. Across the category, affordability is consistently cited as the top reason subscribers cancel, and welcome discounts exist precisely because most new customers are price-sensitive rather than loyal from day one. That matches what we see in our own pricing analysis: starting prices range from about $5.99/serving (EveryPlate) up to $13.99 (Green Chef), with most mainstream plans landing somewhere in the middle. The operators that survived the shakeout are the ones that could either compete on price through scale or justify a higher price through a clear niche — if you want to minimize the cost, start with the cheapest meal kits.

For you as a customer, the consolidation paradoxically means more stability: the surviving kits have solid owners behind them and are less likely to shut down abruptly — the way Freshly did. On the flip side, stay alert to welcome discounts and cancellation terms, because the competition for new customers still runs on the same aggressive intro offers that fueled the boom. Curious where the category is headed from here? We look into the crystal ball in the future of meal kits.