Dive Brief:

• Meal kit supplier HelloFresh added more than 1 million active customers in the United States during the first quarter of 2021 compared with the final quarter of last year, the company announced on Tuesday. The German company's U.S. sales rose 37% in Q1 from the previous quarter, to 802.4 million euros ($965 million).
• Compared with the same period last year, HelloFresh's U.S. sales in Q1 were up roughly 84%, while its active customer count rose approximately 40% to 3.69 million. The number of U.S. orders totaled 15.1 million in Q1, up 69% on a year-over-year basis, while the number of meals HelloFresh delivered in the country rose 86% to 113.9 million.
• ​Although HelloFresh's U.S. revenue and customer counts continued to rise in Q1 on a year-over-year basis, the rate of growth for both metrics was lower than what the company reported for the fourth quarter of 2020.

Dive Insight:

Although HelloFresh's U.S. growth rate may have slowed slightly in Q1 when the period is compared to the first quarter of 2020, the company's results for its latest quarter are a clear sign the company remains on a fast upward trajectory.

The company has been taking advantage of increased production and distribution capacity stemming in part from its decision last year to open new production centers in Georgia and Texas — two regions where it has seen increased demand for its products.

HelloFresh said it is also benefiting from its acquisition last year of Factor75, an Illinois-based supplier of ready-to-eat meals oriented around health and wellness.

HelloFresh's overall operations are also steaming ahead at a robust clip. The company finished Q1 with 7.28 million customers across all its markets, including the United States, and it delivered 239 million meals during the period — more than double what it recorded in the first quarter of 2020. In Q1, revenue for the 15 countries where the company operates more than doubled the figure it posted a year ago, to 1.4 billion euros.

In April, HelloFresh raised its overall revenue growth forecast for 2021 to a range of between 35% and 45%, up from between 20% and 25%. The company also tightened its expected adjusted EBITDA range for the year from between 9% and 12% to between 10% and 12%.

HelloFresh attributes its rapid growth to changes in people's food-buying habits that have taken root during the pandemic. "As consumers around the world have been adapting to new habits, like buying groceries online, they've also discovered the many advantages of our full meal solutions over traditional grocery shopping," Dominik Richter, CEO and co-founder of HelloFresh, said in a statement. "I am confident that we will benefit disproportionately from the shift to increased online grocery penetration."