Report: Meal-kit customers sign up, but don’t stick around
Ninety-percent of meal-kit customers unsubscribe within six months of signing up for the service, says Fast Company, after analyzing data gathered by the market-research firm 1010data. The firm’s data indicated that only about half of customers of Blue Apron remain in the program after the first week, with numbers falling off quickly from there. The dropout rate is similar for other meal-kit companies, like Plated and HelloFresh.
Restaurants are hurting as more Americans eat at home
Americans aren’t eating out like they used to, and restaurants are feeling the pain. According to Bloomberg, U.S. restaurant sales “grew in the second quarter at their slowest pace since 2009,” partially because customers find it too expensive to eat out. Restaurants have had to raise menu prices to keep up with higher minimum wages and other cost factors, while grocery prices have dropped for the last 10 months straight.
For the love of ‘bad’ food
A backlash is brewing to our age of food perfectionism, reports The Atlantic. With all manner of "experts" prescribing how and what to eat, there now comes an eruption of blogs, tweets, Facebook groups, listicles, Pinterest pages, and other celebrations of "dishes that are disastrous, unattractive, or just unhealthy."