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Morning Report: Blue Apron Gets Taken Down Another Notch (Again) Thanks To Amazon (Again)

Morning Report: Amazon continues to berate the freshly-minted public company’s stock price with news of Amazon Meal Kits.

It appears that Blue Apron can’t catch a break. Upon time of writing, the food delivery company has seen another 2.96 percent decline in its stock price.

The drop comes in light of news that Amazon has now begun delivering meals to Amazon Fresh customers, which comes off the heels of Amazon’s $13 billion purchase of national grocer Whole Foods.

The model that Amazon is employing is strikingly similar to Blue Apron’s core business: portion-packed meals with easy to follow recipes, delivered straight to your door (the latter of which is Amazon’s speciality).

But unlike Blue Apron, Amazon’s meal kit delivery program is limited to the select few customers who are part of the company’s Fresh program. That program is not part of Amazon’s popular Prime subscription; instead, a Fresh subscription (if you are even an area where it’s possible to obtain one) costs customers an additional $14.99 a month. Meal kits are an additional cost on top of that, starting at $14.99.

Whether or not Amazon will ramp up the expansion of Meal Kit program and seriously contend with Blue Apron is unclear. It’s important to note the ecommerce giant has a history of launching similarly competing products, such as Amazon Handmade, that end up being nothing more than a blip on Etsy’s radar.

But, for now, Blue Apron is at the whims of investors. And investors aren’t thrilled with the tenuous position Amazon has put the wilting meal delivery company in.

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