Amazon Has Already Stepped into the Meal Kit Market

Susmita Baral
Susmita Baral
Susmita Baral is New York City-based multimedia journalist covering food, culture, technology, health and science.
published Jul 19, 2017
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Amazon is the Jack of all trades: It’s an online marketplace, has its own video and music streaming service, owns upscale organic retailer Whole Foods, and has a popular home assistant (Hi, Alexa!). Now the company is slowly dipping its toes into the meal kit market.

As GrubStreet reports, Amazon has been selling meal kits since late June. It looks like they are currently being sold in a limited quantity and most likely to expand. Right now it appears that they are only available if you have Amazon Fresh. TechCrunch reports that Amazon filed a trademark this month for something resembling a meal kit program. “We do the prep. You be the chef,” reads the trademark (think: the likes of Blue Apron and Hello Fresh). Over the past seven months, Amazon filed two other shorter trademarks for similar meal kit-esque concepts.

The specifics of this month’s filing, which are longer and more detailed than the previous trademarks, read:

“Prepared food kits composed of meat, poultry, fish, seafood, fruit and/or and vegetables and also including sauces or seasonings, ready for cooking and assembly as a meal; Frozen, prepared, and packaged meals consisting of meat, poultry, fish, seafood, fruit and/or vegetables; fruit salads and vegetable salads; soups and preparations for making soups.”

The company may also be exploring other food ventures. TechCrunch found 10 trademarks for the phrase “single cow burger.” The company offers Wagyu beef burgers, which are “high-quality patties [made] from one source and are available exclusively on AmazonFresh.” It also filed a trademark for the tagline for its snack foods line Wickedly Prime: “Some eat to live. We live to eat.”

Amazon is no stranger to the food and delivery market. In addition to its recent acquisition of Whole Foods, the company has two other food-related ventures under its belt: It launched AmazonFresh for groceries in 2013 and Amazon Restaurants in 2014 for restaurant delivery.

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