Dive Brief:

• HelloFresh recorded 5 million active customers in the third quarter, nearly double the figure it posted a year ago and the first time in its history that the German meal-kit seller has hit that milestone, the company announced Tuesday. Half of HelloFresh’s customers during the period, which ended Sept. 30, were in the company’s U.S. segment.
• The company’s overall Q3 revenue came in at 970.2 million euros ($1.13 billion), a 120.2% year-over-year increase. Hello Fresh took in 19.49 million orders during the quarter, up 114%.
• HelloFresh’s strong Q3 performance sets it apart from rival Blue Apron, which saw its customer count drop by 7.5% and orders slip to beneath 2 million even as revenue rose during the same time frame.

Dive Insight:

The lockdowns that have confined people to their homes during the pandemic have HelloFresh cooking on all cylinders. Not only is Hello Fresh feasting on peoples’ desires to give themselves more options when eating at home but the company also expects the favorable conditions for its business to continue, CEO and co-founder Dominik Richter said during an earnings call.

“Due to our customers continuing to spend more time at home, working from home and consequently, eating and cooking more times at home, we've observed strong data signals that point to sustainable habit formation,” Richter said.

In the United States, HelloFresh had 2.49 million customers in Q3, up just under 70% from the 1.48 million it claimed during the same period in 2019. The company reported that it had just shy of 10 million orders in its U.S. segment during the quarter, double the level it saw a year ago. U.S. customers placed four orders in Q3 on average, compared with an average of 3.4 orders during the same period last year. according to HelloFresh.

While Richter said average order value has declined from the peak it saw during Q2, customer spending on meal kits remains at an elevated level that the company believes it will continue to see going forward. Order value is “still very, very strongly up compared to last year and now normalizing at a level that we think we can sustain for the next quarters as well,” said Richter.

The strong results also helped HelloFresh’s profitability skyrocket. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were up 640% overall, to 114.7 million euros. The company’s U.S. operations saw that figure jump 800%, to 57.6 million euros.

In addition, HelloFresh’s customer acquisition costs continued to drop during the quarter, continuing a trend that began in 2019, Chief Financial Officer Christian Gaertner said during the call, without giving details.