Profile: Daily Harvest's Healthy Frozen Meals
Many people are turning to diets filled with organic ingredients and with less emphasis on artificial flavors that most find difficult pronouncing their names. Sweet treats such as smoothies, sundaes, and frozen yogurts (sometimes known as “fro-yo”) are getting healthier as brands are trying to adjust the way they create their food products so that they can remain wholesome for customers to consume.
One health-food delivery startup that is a rising name in the frozen meal industry is Daily Harvest. The company is passionate about serving customers the frozen, yet delicious, fruits and vegetables in ready-to-eat meals they will consume. Daily Harvest’s website presents valuable facts to customers about the health benefits of the fruits and vegetables that are in their meals such as fruits being frozen retain their maximum flavor and nutrients and freezing food can help food stay fresh for several months, which can help fight food waste.
Daily Harvest was founded in 2015 and it stressed on the importance of ensuring customers eat healthy food that is not only quick to arrive at their doorstep but also that food contains no trace of refined ingredients. The ingredients that Daily Harvest use for their frozen-meal creations would have to be researched thoroughly and that the customers won’t have to waste time having to go find fresh fruits and vegetables that can stay fresh as long as possible.
The startup was founded by its current CEO, Rachel Drori, who was once a marketing specialist for companies such as Four Seasons, American Express, and Gilt’s Group Forrester. One of the strategies that she put in place for Daily Harvest’s success would be her hiring of Michelin-trained chef, Jessica Young, and nutritionist, Sara Jane Mercer, who possess knowledge of the ingredients that consumers are tasting as they enjoy their frozen meals.
Another reason for Rachel Drori in regards to the founding of Daily Harvest was her desire to bring respectability to the frozen-food aisle, which doesn’t have a lot of options regarding meals stacked with fruits and vegetables. According to an article on Well+Good, an online work and leisure magazine, Rachel Drori stated,
The freezer aisle has a bad reputation. It’s actually a great place to provide nutritious, convenient, preservative-free food.
Daily Harvest’s food, whether if it’s a bowl of Chia Parfait, a cup of Cauliflower and Leek Soup, or a Dragonfruit and Lychee Fruit Smoothie, are made with organic fruits and vegetables that are picked straight from the farms and straight into the freezers. That way, once the desired meals arrived at the customers’ doorsteps, the fruits and vegetables will still look the same as it was a few months prior after it grew on the fields. This can be considered as a very good example of the “farm-to-table” strategy conducted correctly, although mainly for the frozen-meal delivery industry.
When it comes to customer subscription of its meals, however, it can be somewhat pricy. The options that customers have when it comes to how many cups they can order are 6 cups a week ($7.99 per cup), 9 cups a week ($7.75 per cup), 12 cups a week ($7.49 per cup), and 24 cups a month ($6.99 per cup). One piece of information that customers may appreciate is that they can have the choice to modify or delete their order before 6:00 PM Eastern Time every Saturday so that they wouldn’t have to be charged extra for something they do not want, as well as expecting their delivery to arrive on the exact date as listed on the checkout sheet.
As the likes of DoorDash and GrubHub continue to increase consumers’ craving for rapid food-delivery service, Daily Harvest is doing the same but with an emphasis on healthy meals with extra amounts of vital antioxidants and vitamins. The list of prominent celebrities putting their support behind the healthy frozen-meal startup include Olympic gold medalist Shaun White, Grand Slam tennis legend Serena Wiliams, Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow, and celebrity chef Bobby Flay.
The aforementioned celebrities, along with investors such as Lightspeed Venture Partners and VMG Partners, had participated in a $43 million Series B funding round, enhancing Daily Harvest’s profile amongst a growing number of consumers. Daily Harvest had also announced a Series A funding round last year as well although the amount of money the startup raised was not disclosed.
There have been ‘healthy’ food companies in the past that had successfully marketed frozen foods that are usually considered unhealthy and those companies later got acquired by larger corporations. Examples include Annie’s Homegrown before its $820 million acquisition by General Mills, Applegate before Hormel acquired it for $775 million, and Morningstar Farms before Kellogg bought it in 1999 for $300 million.
Many Americans are becoming very knowledgeable about the food they consume, especially food that is equally beneficial for their well-being, contain the same nutrients as freshly-picked fruits and vegetables, and does not cost a lot of money for customers to spend. Instead of the usual TV dinners and pre-packaged servings of processed food products, consumers can turn to Daily Harvest whenever they want readily available meals that are healthy without them having to go to grocery stores or supermarkets to purchase fruits and vegetables that may become too ripe or unfit for human consumption.
People want food that not only looks appetizing, but also something that is not simplified, artificial, and that actually can help them to lead a genuine, healthy lifestyle. Hopefully, Daily Startup can continue to provide its subscribers a vast variety of health-based frozen food options without changing the way it approaches the handling of the fruits and vegetables.