Tnuva plans selling direct to consumers

Eaty Photo: Tnuva
Eaty Photo: Tnuva

Tnuva is launching an online sales venture for home cooking kits, including ingredients and recipes.

Tnuva, Israel's largest food company, wants to sell food products directly to consumers, thereby bypassing the supermarkets. At least for now, Tnuva is not enabling customers to buy dairy products directly for home delivery; its new platform, entitled "eaty," will enable consumers to order home kits for preparing recipes, together with ingredients produced by the group's dairy and food departments.

This is a premium service, in which consumers can order a kit online for preparing a meal. The kit contains the ingredients and recipe, and is priced accordingly. The price will be higher than ordering each item separately. The price of the kit is intended to reflect the convenience, saving in time, recipe, and the cost of the raw materials. According to Tnuva, the price of the kits will vary from NIS 120 to NIS 160, plus a NIS 10 charge for delivery.

In the coming months, a pilot version of the website will be put into operation offering delivery service in the central region only in cities such as Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Givatanyim, Kiryat Ono, Petah Tikva, Hod Hasharon, and others.

In the first stage, five kits will be sold: sweet baked goods, salted baked goods, brunch, tapas, and vegan desserts. Each kit can be used to make two dishes for eight diners, and contains a printed recipe and the products needed to prepare it, "except for basic products found in every home, such as eggs, sugar, salt, pepper, and oil." Consumers are liable to order a kit, only to discover that they lack enough eggs in the refrigerator to prepare the dishes.

Tnuva is using the Gett Delivery service for its venture, and set up a special logistics service in a Dan logistics center in Petah Tikva. Tnuva will accept orders until 5:00 PM on Sunday through Thursday, with the delivery arriving the same evening.

This is not the first time that a commercial food company has launched an e-commerce platform aimed directly at consumers. Tnuva's main competitor, Strauss Group, operates an e-commmerce website for direct purchases of coffee capsules by consumers. The Osem-Nestle group is considering such activity, either through an independent e-commerce website or via Amazon upon the latter's entry into Israel. At the same time, this is the first attempt by an Israeli food company to sell fresh food requiring refrigerated delivery directly to consumers, which will incur substantial logistics costs.

The market for food kits requiring independent preparation is already much more developed in the US and Europe. The market leader, which is still an independent company, is Blue Apron, which supplies kits, recipes, and ingredients for home preparation. Blue Apron held its IPO in June 2017. A variety of companies operate in this sector, including HelloFresh, Home Chef, and Plated. Two years ago, Amazon acquired the Whole Foods organic supermarket chain, and a month later launched its own home cooking kits, which are currently sold in the chain's branches.

Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 17, 2019

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2019

Eaty Photo: Tnuva
Eaty Photo: Tnuva
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