Despite upheaval, consolidation, and the struggles of brands such as Blue Apron and Chef’d, the meal kit business continues to look to high-profile properties from outside the industry for new branded and signature programs. One of the strong pockets of activity of late consists of celebrities launching healthy meal kits, with many examples focused on vegan cooking:
- Kate Upton paired with Urban Remedy earlier this summer for the plant-based Kate Upton Meal Plan. The launch is timed to the introduction of Upton’s new wellness app, Strong4Me Fitness.
- Cookbook author and chef Chloe Coscarelli joined Peapod for a range of meal kits under the Chloe Flavor brand, also a plant-based offering geared toward vegans, vegetarians, and flexitarians.
- Tom Brady and his brand TB12 partnered with Purple Carrot last year for another plant-based offering, TV12 Performance Meals, which centers on vegan dishes meant to power the lives of active consumers.
- Beyoncé Knowles teamed with her trainer, Marco Borges, to found 22 Days Nutrition, a vegan, non-GMO, and gluten-, dairy-, and soy-free program based on Knowles’ own diet.
A number of other celebrities, meanwhile, have introduced kits with a healthy (but not vegan) positioning, often emphasizing deliciousness first and nutrition second. Examples include Ayesha Curry, who launched her own initiative, Homemade Meals; Chrissy Teigen, who paired with Blue Apron; Shannon Beador of Real Housewives of Orange County, who introduced Real for Real Cuisine through QVC; and Jonathan Cheban, known for his appearances on Keeping Up with the Kardashians, who launched his own company, Prepped.
Brands are also getting into the healthy meal kit space, with martial arts organization UFC being the most recent example. It allied with Trifecta Nutrition in August for a program that includes branded meals as well as a variety of promotional activities.
While the meal kit space still offers many opportunities for brands, celebrities, and other licensed properties—and the deals continue to pile up—there are also risks. YouTube fitness celebrities Karena Dawn and Katrina Scott, and their brand Tone It Up, had launched Tone It Up Fresh, billed as nutritionally complementary to their workouts, with Chef’d. That range is in limbo now, however, after Chef’d suddenly shut down in July, despite making a number of significant distribution and partnership announcements in the previous months. A week later it sold its assets to True Food Innovations, which expects to use the Chef’d brand, factory, and equipment to expand its meal kit business, currently marketed under the True Chef name. The company has not said whether any of the licenses Chef’d held will relaunch under the new ownership.
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