Amazon files patent for recipe box deliveries

Amazon has filed a US patent to create and deliver recipe boxes. Billed as ‘We do the prep. You be the chef.’ The idea is that you can have consignments delivered directly to your door with all the things you need to cook a meal. It’s all pre-prepared and aimed at cash rich, time poor individuals who love cooking (and don’t like takeaways every night) but don’t necessarily have the time to go and do the shopping.

The UK service that this most keenly emulates is Hello Fresh. There you get a choice of boxed deliveries, there are veggie and family options, that seem to start from £4 a day. Here’s an example. The idea is that everything you need for a tasty meal is sent to you and you just start sizzling. It would be interesting to know how much packaging is involved. And what about keeping meat and seafood cool in transit?

The Amazon scheme looks very similar and they have the benefits of their already developed logistics and delivery systems in place meaning they can get deliveries to shoppers with relative ease.

Amazon is very much interested in the grocery market and had already made forays into food shopping with Amazon Fresh and ~AmazonAmazon Pantry. Taking steps to get involved with recipe boxes is a natural and obvious development. In the UK Amazon has said it wants a 2% share of the sector.

UK supermarket Waitrose has recently said that recipe boxes are a trend that would ‘run and run’ and believe that ‘gourmet meal kits with pre-measured, prepped ingredients and a recipe are having a moment right now.”

This is just at the patent stage in the US so it won’t be appearing anytime soon in the UK or elsewhere. But it’s another example of Amazon’s ambitions. They are willing to break new ground, and utilise their logistics expertise, if there’s a buck in it.