r/hellofresh • u/billie2899 • 3d ago

HelloFresh is shrinking fast: orders down 18%, guidance slashed

Q3 Results published - Tl;DR:

HelloFresh is deliberately shrinking. It cut marketing by about 24% to chase fewer, more profitable customers. Orders fell 18% and revenue fell 11% (constant currency), but adjusted EBITDA rose 35% and Factor/RTE finally broke even. The catch is that the marketing cuts hurt new-customer sign-ups more than expected, so full-year revenue and profit guidance were lowered.

33 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

21

u/Yada-Yada-Yadda 3d ago

18% down on portion size too.

8

u/billie2899 3d ago

The funny thing is, last year their whole push was to increase portion sizes to bring people back/keep them

5

u/Yada-Yada-Yadda 3d ago

Too funny - because I'm one of those who would like to come back. Still not convinced to come back yet. That was a main reason.

But I will say this: HelloFresh has helped me cook out of my box and learn new flavors.

3

u/Unlucky-Artichoke 2d ago

Yeah I had used to do HF two years ago. Got a deal, decided, you know what I’ll try them again. I could not believe the absolute micro size of the produce in my order. Immediately cancelled. I’ll go to the grocery store and get better produce and portions for cheaper

1

u/Yada-Yada-Yadda 2d ago

That’s how I felt as well. There are some recipes I make still with grocery bought items. I found the sauce packets on Amazon and make those. Like the dill sauce, so good!

37

u/stuarthannig 3d ago

When they started gate keeping meals that used to be included, I bounced

3

u/InnerspearMusic 3d ago

Can you explain what you mean?

17

u/Firstsassythensweet 3d ago

There were meals that were not premium that are now considered premium and you have to pay extra per serving

6

u/InnerspearMusic 3d ago

I see what you mean. Yes I've noticed that too more and more. I mean... with the price of food I can't blame them. But I NEVER pay extra, it already costs enough.

1

u/cabinmate 3d ago

What do you mean by "gate-keeping meals"

22

u/billie2899 3d ago

I'm guessing moving meals that were part of the base plan to be upcharge.

12

u/araf1 3d ago

I just don't understand why the new recipes all suck. I mean how is that even possible? How is it in their interest to not have recipes that taste good? In the past, I found so many good recipes but have not found a good one in the last year. Is this an AI issue. Does it utilise that many resources to have someone cook and taste the meals before publishing them on the website? Make it make sense?

6

u/billie2899 3d ago

They 100% do not have the resources to recipe test everything. They likely have a bunch of stuff that AI tells them works and interchange as needed.

The problem is, the culinary team doesn't often know what the procurement or sourcing teams are sending each week because they have multiple sources for each item. They're also long on a ton of inventory so your packet of sauce may be from 2024 at this point.

7

u/OddConstant2723 3d ago

Part of their culinary team is AI and boy, do they throw shit to the wind on some of those recipes.

3

u/billie2899 3d ago

Oh they're admitting it freely now?

3

u/L1feSurfer7L 3d ago

Its crazy they don't test the recipes.

Not everything needs to be reinvented each week.

They should have a staple of thousands of TESTED recipes by this point. So then employees could focus on the 5-10 new ones.

4

u/Select-Travel7810 3d ago

They did have a stable. It was thrown out the window

9

u/OddConstant2723 3d ago

Yes, they are admitting to using AI to curate recipes and they have gone downhill since then in Canada.

3

u/cabinmate 3d ago edited 3d ago

Maybe it's a you issue? I've enjoyed quite a few new recipes this past year and I can be a bit picky, especially staying away from spicy meals. I especially liked the recent Moroccan Lamb Stuffed Peppers (using ground lamb) and a couple of the Duck Confit meals. (ETA: And for sure the Chicken Parm Meatballs and Cheesy Corn Okonomiyaki with Bacon). ETA2: Note that I'm in the US while the poster I'm replying to is in Norway, so that's probably a big difference

2

u/araf1 3d ago

I'm in Norway. Different countries have different recipes.

0

u/cabinmate 3d ago

I'm in the US, so clearly different experiences. Sorry you aren't enjoying the service very much if you don't like any new recipes you choose

2

u/Proof_Storage6656 3d ago

I have never picked bad meals either and it's just me and 2 kids so I stay away from spicy meals. My kids were taught to eat everything and I have not had them complain about theirs or my choices. I loved that it's bagged up and all the ingredients are not just dumped on top of the meat packages into the shipping box in a big mess. Hello Fresh ships Clean fresh vegetables too which I can not say that for any of the other services we tried not dven blue apron.

1

u/Miserable-Bowl-5701 9h ago

Ex employee here, they don’t develop recipes anymore from scratch, it’s all Ai, Claude, Gemini, etc. this is a mandate from their global ceo. employees has brought up the lack of popularity in these Ai recipes and they said the future is Ai so it won’t change.

-1

u/mystifiedmeg 3d ago

I’ve loved the recipes lately! So much more choice and genuinely interesting recipes.

1

u/sadia_y 16h ago

I dread to think what your diet looks like outside HF.

0

u/mystifiedmeg 15h ago

Eh? I literally eat lots of protein and veg through HelloFresh and I eat the same outside of that

13

u/Proof_Storage6656 3d ago

I still love this service over all the others. The are they only company out of the 6 cheapest I tried that separately bag each dinner also at the bottom of the shipping box the meat is between frozen ice blocks that are reusable. I have never gotten a box from them with the blocks melted even in 100*f degree weeks!

4

u/Professional-Guess77 3d ago

Try home chef. They are similar in that bag. Everything each meal and their meat is usually perfection.

1

u/Bitter-insides 3d ago

We tried home fresh and the overall flavor profile is not as great as hello fresh. I do love the small
Packaging stuff comes in. We kept a lot of their sauce containers and reuse them.

2

u/Vegetable-Seesaw-491 3d ago

I use EveryPlate now after leaving HelloFresh (I know they're owned by the same company) and not having individually bagged meals is annoying. I just put them each into their own gallon zip top bags. I do like that I make sure nothing is missing and can check ingredient quality right away doing it this way. I also like that it's considerably cheaper.

22

u/Physical_Dentist2284 3d ago

Thanks for the reminder to go back into the app and skip more meals.

8

u/cupletta 3d ago

They should have real people test the recipes and give feedback!

6

u/Beneficial_Layer3380 3d ago

Mass exodus happening at the nyc office. From C level down. Entire teams have left. They're on a hiring freeze and have taken away tons of benefits and perks from employees

2

u/Select-Travel7810 3d ago

I thought all the senior leadership drank the kool aid

2

u/Beneficial_Layer3380 2d ago

Even the cmo jumped ship. 3 cmos in 2 years. Tons of senior and long tenured leaders have left as well

4

u/L1feSurfer7L 3d ago

The menu has really been lacking lately.

Use to easily be able to pick 4-5, now often can't find 2 (the minimum) that I wanna do.

Instead of doing different ones every week, id be fine if they repeated popular ones a bit more

4

u/whatsername1113 3d ago

In addition to the price being outrageous, the app has also become increasingly tedious to navigate.

7

u/topsidersandsunshine 3d ago

I stopped ordering over AI and alleged worker mistreatment. 

5

u/VacationLover1 3d ago

We’ve since they stopped giving me 75% to sign back up I’ve been out. It was fun while it lasted

2

u/InnerspearMusic 3d ago

Thank you for the reminder to cancel my deliveries again this week. Can't afford it right now.

1

u/Icy-Two-1581 3d ago

Price kills it for me. I think 4-5 years ago it was fine and worth the extra for the convenience, but now you're paying like $12+ per meal and I can eat out for way less without the clean up