No, Blue Apron is not currently available in Australia. They only serve the contiguous United States. In Australia, the main meal kit services are HelloFresh, Marley Spoon, Dinnerly and EveryPlate.
Some people might be confused due to Australian websites like PCMag and Business Insider publishing stories about Blue Apron. To clarify, these are simply syndicated content pieces from their American site.
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What is Blue Apron?
Blue Apron is a meal kit service founded in 2012, making it one of the first meal kit services to exist anywhere in the world. They have grown into one of the largest providers in the USA, delivering millions of meals since then.
Blue Apron also offers a wine subscription service and meal kit bags sold in Costco. Those services aren’t available from any meal kit in Australia, although if you’re looking for a good wine subscription service, I highly recommend Good Pair Days.
What are the alternatives to Blue Apron in Australia?
If you liked the sound of Blue Apron, or you’ve recently moved to Australia and want to find the most similar service, then let me point you in the right direction.
Blue Apron is known to be quite expensive, with meals costing up to USD $9.99 per portion. They pride themselves on offering sustainable ingredients and high-quality meals, justifying the high price. That puts them in the same market as the full-service meal kit providers in Australia: HelloFresh and Marley Spoon.
HelloFresh
My favourite Australian meal kit, HelloFresh offers fresh, high-quality ingredients that most closely match the Blue Apron offering.
HelloFresh is also available in the USA. However, they position themselves as a lower-cost provider. There’s definitely a massive quality improvement with HelloFresh in Australia that makes them more comparable with Blue Apron.
Cost: 2 People / 3 Meals at $59.96 + Shipping. 4 People / 5 Meals at $179.89 + Shipping
Delivers To: Most Metro & Regional areas across Australia.
Best For: Date nights, delicious meals, quality experience
Marley Spoon
Marley Spoon are very similar to HelloFresh (and therefore Blue Apron) in Australia. They offer fresh, sustainable ingredients with incredible variety each week. I’m a big fan of Marley Spoon and the different options you get to choose from each week.
If you’re looking to get a meal kit similar to Blue Apron, it’s worth trying both Marley Spoon and HelloFresh before deciding on the right service for you. Take advantage of the welcome offers to get super cheap meals for a couple of months!
Cost: 2 People / 3 Meals at $67.50 + Shipping. 4 People / 5 Meals at $170.00 + Shipping
Delivers To: Most Eastern Metro locations with limited service to regional areas
Best For: Special diets, calorie control, picky eaters.
Will Blue Apron launch in Australia?
The short answer is: probably not. I’ve actually been asked this a few times, mainly under the guise of asking whether there is enough space in the Australian market for another meal kit service.
Australia is a much smaller market than the USA, so the opportunity is quite limited for a company that is so embedded in America. It would be critical for any American meal kit service to focus on growing/retaining its market share in that market before thinking about expanding to Australia. That’s a tough ask considering how competitive the market is.
Like many industries in Australia, meal kits are a duopoly (Marley Spoon, HelloFresh) and I don’t expect that to change any time soon.
If Blue Apron did launch in Australia, that could only be a good thing for consumers as it would push prices of meal kits even further down.