Blue Apron Celebrates 10 Years of Packaging Successes

Meal kit delivery is one of the most challenging applications for ecommerce packaging. The contents are perishable, often delicate, and diverse in size and weight. The shipment needs temperature control, a way of partitioning items, and cushioning. But don’t use too much packaging, or that will be seen as bad for the environment.

As direct-to-consumer deliveries continue to enjoy explosive growth, other product manufacturers can learn ecommerce packaging best practices from what Blue Apron has done over the years.

For the last six-plus of these years, Gaurav Kale has worked in packaging management at Blue Apron, first as Senior Manager of Packaging, and now as Director of Packaging & Operational Excellence. As Director, he leads the design, development, strategy, testing, and deployment of all packaging. Prior to Blue Apron, Kale gained brand experience with Chiquita Brands, Genentech, and Johnson & Johnson in various Engineering and Operations Management roles. He has authored several books and peer-reviewed articles on compostable packaging.

In this slideshow, Kale shows Packaging Digest how Blue Apron’s packaging has changed and improved during its first decade in servicing meal-kit customers. In a recent study by US Packaging and Wrapping to identify The Most (and Least) Wasteful Meal Kit Companies, Blue Apron was deemed the least wasteful, with 50% of its packaging recyclable.