HelloFresh: The world's most ruthless food startup

HelloFresh set out to disrupt the global food business with pre-packaged dinner ingredients. Then the German company got to the U.S., and its ruthless strategy collided with reality.

HelloFresh meal kit.
(Image credit: Courtesy HelloFresh)

Dominik Richter is not a chef, a gourmand, or a food snob. It's a Tuesday in March, and the 32-year-old in a hoodie has chosen to lunch at a kale-and-juice joint that could easily make you think you're in Los Angeles, except it's in Berlin. But rather than opine over the lactose-free yogurt dressing on the Super Green Detox salad, Richter is stabbing his pumpkin seeds and lettuce as if to establish dominance over the leafy prey.

It's tough to discern whether Richter, the co-founder and CEO of HelloFresh — known for delivering the ingredients for Instagram-perfect home-cooked meals like Argentinian-Style Cod With Almond Herb Chimichurri and Chicken Thighs in Kimchi Sauce With Asian Pear Slaw, and now the No. 1 meal-kit company on the planet — actually derives any gustatory pleasure from food. "We're in the business of creating meal solutions for different meal occasions," he explains, perhaps thinking I'd never before heard of the concept called dinner.

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