HelloFresh’s Future Plans Include More Customization, Global Expansion
HelloFresh’s focus this year will be on further enhancing its customer proposition and providing customers with more customization options, as well as prioritizing rollouts to more countries, according to a midterm strategy update revealed during the company’s Capital Markets Day. The event, held at HelloFresh’s Berlin headquarters, was attended by more than 100 investors and analysts, either in person or virtually.
The meal kit company also provided a detailed update on the projected growth trajectory of its currently underpenetrated markets and fast-growing ready-to-eat (RTE) segment in the United States and Australia, both of which will be significant growth drivers in the midterm and are expected to materially improve their profitability going forward as they achieve more economies of scale.
[Read more: "HelloFresh Commits to Ambitious Carbon Reduction Goals"]
Further, after reinvesting much of the cash flow generated in its profitable operations worldwide, HelloFresh will come to the end of a multiyear cap ex investment cycle by mid-2023. Upon completion of this cycle, the company is expected to have sufficient capacity to reach its midterm revenue targets, while providing a strong moat to the business.
“I am confident we are well set up for future growth given our diversified portfolio of geographies and brands,” said Dominik Richter, HelloFresh CEO and co-founder. “Over the next three years we will make material progress towards our vision of becoming the world’s leading fully integrated food solutions group. We will achieve this by relentlessly focusing on expanding our customer proposition and providing our customers with an ever greater choice of meals and additional products in our meal kits business units. At the same time, growth in our RTE vertical has been nothing short of phenomenal, even though we are in the very early stages of this exciting new category. We believe RTE can become as big as meal kits in the long-run and will be one of the major growth drivers for the group in 2023 and beyond.”
The company is also trialing the launch of new brands and verticals in the direct-to-consumer space, including Good Chop, a premium meat and seafood offering, and Pets Table, human-grade pet food, both in the United States. The performance of these new verticals will be monitored closely to determine to what extent they will be pursued.
Berlin-based HelloFresh operates in 18 international markets. With U.S. offices in New York, Chicago, and Boulder, Colo., the company is No. 50 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2022 list of the top retailers of food and consumables in North America. PG also gave the company a 2022 Impact Award for its ESG efforts.
