Dive Brief:

• Online grocer Peapod has partnered exclusively with Nurture Life, a ready-to-eat meal and snack subscription company for children, according to a press release. Peapod will be the first company to sell Nurture Life’s products individually without a subscription. 
• Nurture Life has a team of chefs and registered dietitians to develop the meals for babies, toddlers and kids. There will be more than 15 options through Peapod including finger foods for babies as well as meals like frittata with cinnamon French toast and chicken meatballs with pasta.
• The meals are made-to-order and meant to be stored in the fridge and reheated before consuming. Products through Peapod start at $4.25. 

Dive Insight:

For Peapod, adding this new, exclusive product option could attract new customers and help retain loyalty for existing ones. One of Peapod’s core customer segments are busy parents, who have widely embraced grocery delivery. According to a Digital Commerce 360 survey, parents buy their groceries online at more than twice the rate of consumers as a whole. 

Meal time is particularly challenging for parents, and Peapod's senior vice president of merchandising Spencer Baird said in a statement the partnership with Nurture Life allows the company to address meal-related friction for households with kids.

Selling individual meals addresses consumers turned off by the traditional meal kit subscription model. Through this partnership, parents who previously purchased Nurture Life, and parents who haven’t, can buy ready-to-eat meals in whatever quantities they want when they want them. 

Few meal companies aside from Nurture Life offer food for all three stages of children’s lives. Competitors Little Spoon and Yumi offer baby food, while Yumble sells meals for kids. None of these services let customers purchase individual meals.