The Bankruptcy That's Ruining Dinner

**Stephen McGinty** (0:00)
Hey, it's Ryan.

**Ryan Knutson** (0:02)
Our colleague Imani Moise is here to guest host today's episode.

**Stephen McGinty** (0:05)
Here it is.

**Imani Moise** (0:11)
For more than 10 years, Stephen McGinty managed to avoid making weekly trips to the grocery store.
That's because he's been a longtime subscriber of the meal kit service, Blue Apron. He signed up as soon as the service became available in Atlanta, where he lives.

**Stephen McGinty** (0:27)
At the very beginning, it was very culinary oriented. It was teaching you proper cooking techniques, how you slice and dice all the vegetables.
Over time, it slowly became less about that and more about the convenience factor of quick and easy meals at home.

**Imani Moise** (0:45)
Do you remember what's been some of your favorite meals from the service?

**Stephen McGinty** (0:48)
Yeah, we've really enjoyed exploring different types of international cuisine. So a lot of Moroccan food, Asian dishes that we would have never in a million years attempted to do on our own.

**Imani Moise** (1:01)
Steven says that for years, Blue Apron lived up to its promise of convenience and experimenting with new foods. A few weeks ago, though, there was an issue with his meal box.
First of all, everything was red.

**Stephen McGinty** (1:17)
With harissa sauce, it's splattered all over everything in the box.
And harissa sauce, if you're familiar, is very red. So when that's exploded onto everything in the box, from the meats to the ice bag inside, the sides of the bags, every vegetable, it's all pretty gross mess to have to clean up.

**Imani Moise** (1:39)
But perhaps more importantly, a lot of ingredients were missing.

**Stephen McGinty** (1:43)
We were missing a total of seven ingredients, two of them being proteins for the meal.
So not getting the meat is a big portion of the meal. There was one we actually did get the meat for, but it had a side of potatoes, and we got no potatoes.

**Imani Moise** (2:00)
Dinner was ruined. Eventually, Stephen got a hold of Blue Apron's customer service, and he said he was able to get a credit for the messy orders.
Are you still using Blue Apron?

**Stephen McGinty** (2:13)
After seeing what I'm seeing, I went ahead and canceled every single order, because I have no faith that they're gonna figure this out in a week, two weeks, even a month.

**Imani Moise** (2:25)
There are countless frustrated Blue Apron customers like Stephen, dealing with missing ingredients and unfulfilled orders. In a statement on social media, Blue Apron apologized, saying, We've broken your trust, and acknowledging that things have not been going smoothly. But behind the scenes, this is a mess that's been years in the making. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Imani Moise. It's Monday, August 24th.
Coming up on the show, what happened to Blue Apron?

**Ryan Knutson** (3:18)
We'll be right back. By Harvey, an AI platform designed for legal and professional services. Built and tested by lawyers, Harvey is trusted by more than 60% of the AmLaw 100 The platform dramatically reduces time spent on research, drafting and document review, without sacrificing quality. All while meeting the highest industry standards for security and compliance. Harvey, AI, tailored for law.
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**Imani Moise** (4:54)
Meal Kit companies like Blue Apron first came on to the scene in the 2010s. What is the main selling point of these meal kits? What was their appeal during their heyday?

**Sarah Nassauer** (5:04)
I think the main selling point is it would be really nice to have sort of someone else take care of this meal planning thing.