When HelloFresh was founded in November 2011 by Dominik Richter, Thomas Griesel & Jessica Schultz (née Nilsson) it was just one of many small companies in the up and coming startup scene of Berlin. Ten years later, HelloFresh is a global player in the food industry with close to 7 million active customers (in Q3 2021) and the world’s biggest meal kit provider.

“When we started out, our product was simple. We put ingredients for three meals in a paper bag. It was just us founders and the three HelloFresh employees we had at the time,” says Thomas Griesel, co-founder and CEO. The group would deliver the bag of ingredients to their families and friends, taking the underground to their first customers in Berlin.

“Since then, HelloFresh has gone through such a significant development. We now offer a very different and far more sophisticated product. Customers have much more flexibility and a great variety of recipes each and every week. In 2021 alone we will deliver more than 100 million orders, containing close to 1 billion million meals to our customers globally”, he continues.

HelloFresh is on track to fulfil more than 100 million orders in 2021.

From meal kit company to fully integrated food solutions group

With a small team, limited resources and only the core meal kit brand in 2011, HelloFresh has managed to scale into a globally active fully integrated food solutions group. Today, HelloFresh Group operates six different brands from the meal kit and ready-to-eat sectors in 16 countries on three continents. These include: EveryPlate, a value-brand founded and launched in the US and recently also launched in Australia; premium brand Green Chef which was acquired in the US and was since brought to the UK; and Chefs Plate, a Canadian meal kit company. Both acquisitions and the founding of EveryPlate took place in 2018, and HelloFresh hasn’t stopped at meal kits. We see a significant growth opportunity in adjacent verticals such as the ready-to-eat sector, which is why we recently acquired Factor in the US and Youfoodz in Australia.

Market launches in new geographies, the expansion of our brand portfolio within existing markets and the scale up and further internationalization of our ready-to-eat offering are all essential parts of the HelloFresh growth strategy.

HelloFresh is active in 16 markets with six different brands.

After HelloFresh was launched in 2011, a refurbished flatshare kitchen that served as a make-shift distribution center quickly became too small. Nowadays HelloFresh operates 24 fulfilment centers worldwide from Moss in Norway to Auckland in New Zealand and from Edmonton in Canada to Verden in Germany.

HelloFresh is active in North America, Europe and Australia and Ozeania.

Successful growth path expected to continue

With every new geography that HelloFresh enters, we further expand our total addressable market (TAM) in line with our Group growth strategy. Under this strategy  TAM penetration is the second central pillar. We are further increasing the number of active customers in our markets by constantly improving our product and service levels. The third pillar is increasing our share of customers' food budget, by tapping into different meal occasions such as breakfast or lunch. Combined with increased e-commerce adoption rates in recent years, HelloFresh has consistently grown to reach more customers than ever before, consistently outperforming industry peers. For 2021 HelloFresh group expects revenue growth of 57-62%, with a mid-term goal to achieve revenue of €10 billion.

At the end of the year 2020 HelloFresh counted 5.29m active customers. Nine months later there were already 1.65m more.

HelloFresh has been growing steadily since 2011 and has been profitable since 2019.

HelloFresh has enjoyed outstanding economic success in the last ten years, while managing to overcome a number of challenges. None of this would have been possible without the dedication and the can-do mindset of our employees across the world. In 2021 more than 17,000 people were employed by HelloFresh, from our offices in Berlin, New York, Boulder, Toronto, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Copenhagen, Milan, Sydney and Auckland to our steadily rising number of fulfilment centers. HelloFresh offers a unique opportunity to be a part of an evolving food industry, to make a difference as part of a collaborative community, and to have a positive impact on customers and our communities. As HelloFresh continues to grow we will also continue to be an attractive employer of choice that will create jobs in an increasing number of countries all over the world. That includes our tech team in Berlin, in the US, Canada and Australia, the heart of our operational excellence. Just recently HelloFresh announced its intention to double the size of our global technology team by creating 1,000 new jobs globally.

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