Outstanding SWOT Analysis of HelloFresh – A Publicly-Traded German Meal-Kit Company

Quick Stats on HelloFresh

Founder	Dominick Richter, Thomas Geisel, and Jessica Nelson
Year Founded	2011
Origin	Berlin, Germany
No. of Employees	11,860+
Company Type	Public
Market Cap	$ 13.50 Billion (2021)
Annual Revenue	$ 992 Million (2020)
Net Income/ Profit	$ 256 Million (2020)

 

(HelloFresh Meal Kit & Recipe Book, Source: Groupon)

Services by HelloFresh

• Food Ingredients
• Delivery
• Recipes 
• Meals Delivery 

Competitors of HelloFresh

• Blue Apron
• Sun Basket
• Instacart
• Purple Carrot
• Green Chef
• Home Chef

Now that we understand the company’s key business, let’s look after the SWOT Analysis of HelloFresh.

SWOT Analysis of HelloFresh

SWOT Analysis of HelloFresh can show how a well-established company uses its opportunities to ensure its growth. It can show how the company takes advantage of its strengths to use the opportunities while working on its weaknesses. SWOT Analysis of HelloFresh will also reveal its expansion plans.

To better understand the SWOT analysis of HelloFresh, refer to the infographic below:

Now first let’s begin with the strengths of the company from the SWOT analysis of HelloFresh.

Strengths of HelloFresh

• Decreasing Carbon Footprint: HelloFresh uses a very efficient production technology for producing their meal kit and every product which they deliver produce less than 5% of carbon emissions. HelloFresh uses the best mode of transportation which ensures it produces fewer carbon emissions and is more environmentally friendly. 
• Innovative Packaging: HelloFresh tries to reduce the boxes of packaging while transporting their orders from the company to the customer or the raw materials from suppliers to the company they use very innovative packages so that the goods are delivered safely and the use of boxes is also reduced.
• Significant Network Channel: HelloFresh has a very wide distribution channel which allows them to deliver the goods in vast conditions such as when the pandemic hit in 2020 the demand for ingredients delivery was increased globally and to match the demand HelloFresh networking channel met all the customer’s requirement.
• Customers are Satisfied: To develop its services HelloFresh has invested a lot in delivery to ensure a top-notch value proposition to its customer. HelloFresh customers are also satisfied with its services which have resulted in double growth of revenue of HelloFresh.  
• Better Team Coordination: HelloFresh uses very great team coordination techniques which allows them to deliver meals to more than 600 million customers in more than 14 countries.
• Focuses on Sustaining Green Environment: HelloFresh focuses more on sustainable development which has now become a great concern. HelloFresh attracts more customers and avoids any type of conflict or controversy from the government and public which also creates a good brand image in the market.

(HelloFresh Paid Promotion With Davinamccall on Instagram, Source: IIDE)

• Influencer & Social Media Strategy: To market the brand, HelloFresh is using influencers like Mandy Moore, Taylor J Philippe, Audrina Patridge, etc to showcase its creations. With the help of social media influencers, it has been able to gain the attention of its audience.
• Reputation Management: It has its presence on almost all social media platforms, it constantly tries to reply to all the comments left by its customers and users on Twitter & Facebook so that customers can feel like their compliments, complaints, and concerns are addressed and directed to customer service if required.

Implementation of social media marketing, e-commerce, online reputation management is one of the reasons for HelloFresh standing on the pillar of success. Learning these digital marketing skills is more important than it seems because looking at the current scenarios of the world, brands and businesses just like HelloFresh are frequently switching towards digital marketing methods and to fulfil the roles of digital marketing professionals they are constantly looking for candidates like you.    

Weaknesses of HelloFresh

• Slight Delay on Customer Satisfaction: While some customers are satisfied with HelloFresh on the other hand few customers are not. The time which company promises to deliver good sometimes it takes more time than the promised one.
• Damage & Wastage: Due to delay deliveries the food gets damaged which led to food poisoning if consumed by a customer from the box. These scenarios damage the company application and the customers who had a bad experience with HelloFresh will never purchase anything from the company again.
• High Cost: HelloFresh delivers those products which have high costs so sometimes it becomes difficult for the customer to purchase the product from HelloFresh as they have a limited budget so they choose affordable options over HelloFresh.
• The similarity in Meals: HelloFresh meals looks similar to its competitor’s meal packages which do not give any competitive edge to HelloFresh. HelloFresh should invest more in differentiation strategy to grab the competitive advantage.

Opportunities for HelloFresh

• Post Condition After Unlock: Durin Covid people were not allowed to go outside and have food. This causes all the markets to shift from offline to online mode. This shift led to increasing in demand for food delivery services like HelloFresh. And predictions say that this significant rise and shift will be there for a long time. HelloFresh can seek this opportunity and capture more markets to become profitable.
• Changing Customer Behaviour: Customers nowadays are changing their preferences from junk food to healthy food options. HelloFresh should focus more on increasing the variety of healthy options and bringing innovation in the health sector. 
• Increasing Food Diversity: People are shifting from one city to another city from one country to another country which has led to people missing the food of their home ground. HomeFresh has a great opportunity to offer a variety on the food menu giving it a global appeal and look. 
• Innovation According to Changing Taste: With the developing tastes and preferences in the market, HelloFresh should continuously innovate and present its solutions to the market to last pertinent to their customers. 

Threats to HelloFresh

• Competition: HelloFresh is facing tough competition in the industry. The top competitors are Blue Apron, Home Chef, DineInFresh, PeachDish & Maria. Blue Apron is the top competitor of HelloFresh, founded in 2012 in New York. It also operates in the Food Distributors industry. HelloFresh offers a variety of food options but in the case of Blue Apron, there are slightly fewer options. Both have been around for years & have built up a loyal fan base.
• Low Obstacles to Enter: Whether it is a small or large business, the business in which HelloFresh operates contain low barriers to entry which can lead to entries capturing the market share of HomeFresh. 
• Customer Distrust as a Result of Food-Borne Illness: HelloFresh can get involved in several health-related incidents due to delayed deliveries and customers consuming the food. As a result, many HelloFresh customers quit ordering from there.

This ends our outstanding SWOT analysis of HelloFresh. Let us conclude our learning below.