Blue Apron, a web-only seller of make-at-home meals, recently launched an iOS app that serves as a cooking companion for customers while they prepare the meal they purchased.
In the six weeks the app has been live, a significant number of Blue Apron’s customers have downloaded and used the app, says a spokeswoman, who declined to give specifics. The Android app is coming soon, the retailer says.
“This high engagement shows us just how eager our customers are to use the Blue Apron app as a cooking companion,” she says. The app currently has a rating of four out of five stores in the Apple App Store.
Blue Apron delivers the makings for three meals each, for as many diners as the customer specifies, and charges $10 per person per meal. The app is designed as a helper when the customer cooks a meal, as the app provides how-to videos on the recipe pages, ingredient information and cooking tool information.
After they have cooked the meal, consumers can take a picture of their meal in the app, make enhancements to it, such as adding animated steam, and post the picture via social media. Consumers can also manage their weekly deliveries in the app, including saving menus, selecting meals and scheduling deliveries.
Blue Apron declined to provide a cost for building the app.
Blue Apron, which launched in 2012, is the fastest-growing retailer in the Internet Retailer 2015 Top 500 Guide. The company had Internet Retailer-estimated sales of approximately $65 million in 2014, up 550.2% from the previous year.
Blue Apron also recently raised $135 million in a funding round led by Fidelity Management and Research Co., with participation from existing investors. The new capital will help grow its network of “farms, suppliers and fulfillment capabilities throughout the country,” the retailer says.