Blue Apron was one of the first “meal-kit” companies, and the first to have an IPO. Meal-kit companies like Blue Apron offer pre-prepped, pre-packaged, fresh raw foods in appropriate amounts to create an entire meal at home, usually for a single person. Blue Apron’s current business model involves consumers signing up for a subscription service to commit to delivery of a specified number of meal kits per month. At it’s peak, Blue Apron had more than a million subscribers. The number has dropped by about one-quarter today, in part because of operational snags and in part because of increasing competition from other meal-kit providers, including HelloFresh, Weight Watchers, Walmart, Kroger, and Amazon. The grocery category of prepackaged fresh foods, which is targeted at consumers who are too time-pressed to shop for the raw ingredients of meals in supermarkets but who still desire healthy home-cooked meals,is the fastest growing category of grocery-store sales. This is one of the reasons Blue Apron is now considering distributing its meal-kits through select grocery chains. The other reason is that although most meal-kit customers still subscribe to a delivery service, research has revealed that some consumers are turned off by the expense and commitment of meal-kit subscriptions. The typical price of a single meal-kit for Blue Apron subscribers is about $9 per person, which is line with the company’s positioning of premium-quality ingredients. According to the company, the quality of a Blue Apron meal will “speak for itself,” no matter where the kit is sold. And: “We are in active conversations with a variety of retailers, and plan to have product in stores in 2018.” Blue Apron did not specify the grocery retailers it is in talks with but said some of them currently sell their own meal kits.

TASK: Evaluate the challenges to Blue Apron’s proposed plan in terms of the marketing mix, and briefly highlight the major potential benefit(s) of Blue Apron establishing the proposed new distribution channel. Should be around 200 words.