Chick-fil-A
The fresh-food meal kit industry is booming. The burgeoning industry enjoyed $4.65 billion in sales in 2017 and is expected to explode to $11.6 billion by 2022. Chick-fil-A understands that this is not only a threat to their business, but also an opportunity to reach new clientele.
Starting in late August, Chick-fil-A will start to offer their own version of prepared meals that they call the “Mealtime Kit.” However, it will only be a limited release for only the Atlanta area. At 150 Chick-fil-A locations in Georgia, the fast food restaurants will offer chicken-centric meals that are simple to make and can be prepared in 30 minutes or less.
Chick-fil-A will originally offer five meal kits: chicken parmesan, chicken enchiladas, crispy Dijon chicken, pan-roasted chicken, and chicken flatbread. Each Mealtime Kit comes with pre-measured fresh ingredients, serves two people, and costs $15.89. Customers can order their meal kits from the restaurant, drive-thru, or the Chick-fil-A One app. Chick-fil-A’s Mealtime Kits are only available until mid-November to test the demand and then the company could roll out the program nationally.
“We designed our offering so our guests don’t have to order ahead, subscribe to a service, or make an extra stop at the grocery store,” Michael Patrick, an innovation program lead at Chick-fil-A, said in a statement. “They simply pick up a Mealtime Kit at their convenience — for example, when they’re already at a Chick-fil-A restaurant grabbing a breakfast or lunch, or in the drive-thru on their way home.”
This is a brilliant idea by Chick-fil-A since millennials are eating out more and putting an emphasis on convenience. Plus, Chick-fil-A could sell customers a fresh fried chicken sandwich to eat immediately as well as a meal kit for consumers to eat the next day because how are you not going to get a delectable fried chicken sandwich when you’re already at Chick-fil-A?
Chick-fil-A enters a crowded meal kit market that already has big players such as Blue Apron (which recently started selling their kits at Costco), Hello Fresh, Plated, and Home Chef. Amazon recently starting selling meal kits and they were a huge success, selling out in the first days of release.
Chick-fil-A
Chick-fil-A
Check it out – @ChickfilA is entering the meal kit market! Metro Atlanta will be the test market for #MealtimeKits starting August. 27. #11Alive #MorningRushATL pic.twitter.com/eDbWaJF5Kt
— Jennifer Leslie (@jleslie11alive) July 23, 2018