Google Trends: A look into the modern 'home cooked meal'
Individual Homework 1- A look into the modern ‘home cooked meal’.
Utilizing Google Trends,
I took a dive into the new world of weekly meal kit delivery services. This is
an industry that has grown to $2.2 billion with promises of growing 25-30%
annually over the next five years1. Families and busy professionals
are looking for a solution to the ever daunting but necessary task of the
evening meal. Weekly meal kit delivery services are providing a solution to
this pain point with turnkey meals that are pre-measured, packaged, and
delivered with step-by-step cooking instructions right to your doorstep.
Since there are several meal
delivery companies out there, I simplified my research to four: Blue Apron (a
pioneer in this industry), Purple Carrot ( a new, vegan player in the field),
Green Chef (currently the only USDA organic option), and Hello Fresh, which I
personally subscribe to. Plated is also a top meal delivery service, but I felt
that the search term was not unique enough to give a fair performance report on
Goggle Trends. Search queries included: Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, Purple Carrot,
and Green Chef. Each of these queries were limited to a 1-year time period and
within the United States.
Upon reviewing the
initial 12 month trend, it is clear that Blue Apron (Blue) is the most searched
brand. Average weekly searches for Blue Apron are double the amount of Hello
Fresh (Red). This could be due in part to the fact that Blue Apron is US based
while Hello Fresh is based in Germany. From personal experience, Blue Apron has
held a prominent Facebook marketing presence for several years, while Hello
Fresh has recently come on to the scene in the past couple years. Green Chef
(Green) and Purple Carrot (Yellow) rank third and fourth in popularity respectively.
As recent niche companies in the meal delivery industry, it is not surprising
that searches are significantly lower for these two companies than the two
main-stream pioneers of the industry.
Search term popularity over past 12 months: Blue Apron (Blue), Hello Fresh (Red), Green Chef (Green),
and Purple Carrot (Yellow)
When looking at the
interest over time, there is a clear increase for Blue Apron and Hello Fresh
during the first week of January. The increased search trend declines for Blue
Apron in the following months but remains steady for Hello Fresh. During the
week of June 25, Blue Apron received a surge in popularity and a lesser
increase occurred only three weeks later on July 16th. Starting in
August, the popularity of Blue Apron begins declining towards the search level
of Hello Fresh. There is a single increase in searches for Purple Carrot during
the week of March 5th-11th. Green Chef search levels
remain relatively stable but at a steady decrease over the year.
Increased popularity of
Blue Apron and Hello Fresh during the beginning of 2017 could naturally be due in
part to the common resolution efforts to eat better in the new year. Families
that have gorged on treats and holiday meals would be eager to get back to a
healthy routine and a well-organized meal plan is just the ticket. Expanding
the search to five years does show a peak around January each year but it is
not as significant as 2017. Perhaps both companies invested in a bigger January
marketing campaign? It will be interesting to see if a similar increase occurs
this January.
Search term popularity over past five years:
On June 28th,
Blue Apron made its debut on Wall Street, which is the most likely cause of the
popularity increase during that week. The second uptick could be attributed to
the internet swarm over the launch of Amazon’s meal kit delivery service2.
With Blue Apron recently in the headlines for their IPO, it was natural for
articles to compare the two and make predictions for the fate of Blue Apron,
which were not positive.
During the week of March
5th there is a significant increase in the otherwise low Purple
Carrot search amount. From personal experience, I can correlate this popularity
to the news articles and internet swarm over Tom Brady’s TB12 meal delivery
option with Purple Carrot3.
Sorting popularity by state reveals that Massachusetts is the
number one state to search for Purple Carrot. This could likely be attributed
to two factors: Purple Carrot is based out of Massachusetts and Massachusetts
fans love anything that has to do with Tom Brady. Other New England states
follow suit with Vermont and New Hampshire rounding out the top three.
Interestingly enough, New York ranks number five. Perhaps some closet Brady
fans here or just a lot of vegans???
Purple Carrot search term popularity by state:
Green Chef does not
display any significant increases in popularity over the course of the year but
taking a look at the state ranking reveals some interesting insight. While the
top states for the other three companies are mostly located on the East Coast,
Green Chef’s popularity resides in the Mid and South West including Colorado,
Montana, Wyoming, and New Mexico. Since Green Chef is a Colorado based company,
we could attribute this shift in popularity to the occurrence of proximity and
resulting increased awareness by customers in those areas. It could also
suggest that residents in those states prefer a USDA Organic option in their meal
delivery kits. However, a quick Google Trends search of ‘USDA Organic’ did not show
any overlapping states in the top 5 subregion ranking.
Green Chef, Hello Fresh, and Blue Apron search term popularity by state:
‘USDA Organic’ search term popularity results by state:
The amount of insight or
perceptions that can be produced by looking at a small timeframe, region and specific
subject was beyond my expectations. Possible seasonal increases were observed,
and a few popularity peaks could be explained after some informed and uninformed
internet research. Several new companies have entered the meal kit delivery market
and they will present challenges to the current leaders like Blue Apron and
Hello Fresh by chipping away at their broader target segments. From the above
research, it is notible that some of these new companies are zeroing in on
particular nieche markets by promoting unique features of their product or
forming a strategic partnership with celebrities. It will be interesting to see
how the meal kit delivery business evolves over the next few years, especially
with the recent introduction of Amazon to the mix.
References:
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