Change is never easy. Thank you for being so patient as we have tried to figure out what's next. A special thank you goes out to many of you for reaching out with kind words and taking our survey.
We are deep into the whiteboarding and exploration phase of our project, and while we want to be time sensitive in our efforts, we also need this time to re-evaluate.
Now that we have gone live with our new site, we are prepared to share more about where we are in the process and what's next.
We are also excited to say that the site is a new vessel, and in the coming days and weeks, you will see lots more products hit our virtual shelves – some One Potato, some curated. Please check back and sign up for our newsletter.
First, let's start with why the abrupt pause:
It's not a secret; meal kits are a complex business, and with rising food costs and challenging labor pools, there is no room for error. We see all our competitors struggling; a few just shut their doors in March and April. Those doing well are streamlining products to make them more efficient, adding new equipment, and cutting labor or shifting from meal kits to ready-to-eat meals. It's simply labor-intense to do semi-prepared or meal kits.
We had two options: 1. Go out of business or 2. Completely overhaul. We chose the latter.
While we all love One Potato and the historical product, it still needs to make money for us to stay in business. We were also seeing a substantial uptick in customer concerns with each change we made to try to get into a better position, and we know we have met our threshold on pricing increases since January.
Most importantly, we felt like we had lost our North Star with all these changes. We had tried many items out and needed a precise evaluation. We are a family business, and with the constant week-over-week work, we couldn't see the clarity to continue.
So there were many reasons, and it felt like the only thing to do was to PAUSE. We know you love One Potato as it was, and so do we (meal planning is so much work), but we hope we will return with an even better product.
Next, let's talk about the plan.
What makes One Potato special is that we cater to families. Our North Star is clear – when we come back online with meals, we must ensure that we still fit that need. We also like some of our less complicated meals and know our flavors keep people coming back.
Step 1: We created a new platform for everything to live. Our unique web experience is live. You must sign up for the new site – our other site no longer exists.
Step 2: We have evaluated many meal kit companies around the country. We will send recommendations next week on who does what well with discounts for our customers to try. Please try them >>> We will seek feedback through our surveys.
Step 3: We are creating a new way to make our meals. We are also developing new recipes and overhauling the ones we plan to carry forward. We will create a seasonal menu and work towards a go-live with a sustainable set of suppliers and meals.
Step 4: There is a better way to package all of this. Sustainability needs to lead the way in our future road map and make it easier to package and ship.
Step 5: We are bringing it locally. It doesn't make sense to ship across the country. There are excellent partners in all of our major markets where we can easily set up our product to be locally produced and seasonal in your area.
Step 6: Turn on partnerships. We have a lot of fun projects planned, from kits (like our signature brunch kit) to building a program with Curious Cardinals and working collaboratively with Cooking Panda on a summer box.
Step 7: Work on dressings & sauces for grocery. We love our flavors and many of you love them too. We are already in talks with a food as medicine co-packer to bring these to market. Stay tuned...
Finally... it's time to grow forward.
We get the frustration of losing your meal service. And we also know that we will be back and better than ever as soon as possible. We hope you stick with us and be part of our community.
We still have so much work to do, and we know our future will be bright.
While we are closed for meal service, we are not closed for business. We will be selling products on our new website. If you want to support us, please buy products through this site.
