Source:  Supermarket Perimeter Weekly – Emily Park

KANSAS CITY, MO. – Since more families have been spending time at home, most consumers are also cooking more at home. Data from Boston-based Influence Central shows that 88% of consumers are cooking from home more than they were pre-pandemic, with 49% of those people making their meals from scratch. The instore deli can offer an easy solution for consumers who are new to cooking from home with instore meal kits.

On Feb. 25, stocks for online meal kit provider Blue Apron were sitting at $2.10 per share, which soared to $16.25 per share on March 18, days after the United States declared a national emergency due to the pandemic. Entering the month of June, the stocks for the meal provider were going for $11.41 per share. In a post-pandemic era, investors seem to have confidence in meal kits. According to the Wall Street Journal, revenue for the entire meal kit sector has nearly doubled year-over-year.

It’s not just online delivery meal kits that have been seeing heightened success either. That success has also trickled into retail meal kit offerings as well. According to data recently collected by New York-based Nielsen, fresh instore meal kits experienced a 26% sales bump over the 13 weeks leading up to May 30 compared to the same timeframe in 2019. Shelf-stable instore meal kits are up even further at 55.6% over the same 13-week period.