Meal kit company HelloFresh has posted revenue of €6 billion in its financial year 2021, an increase of 61.5% on last year's performance.
The group served almost one billion meals to customers in 17 markets across four continents during the year.
Dominik Richter, co-founder and CEO of HelloFresh, said, “2021 has been another year of successful growth and expansion for HelloFresh. We delivered very meaningful growth across both segments, despite a tough benchmark, given that 2020 was an unprecedented year of lockdowns.”
HelloFresh 2021 Performance
According to HelloFresh, the increase in revenue was driven by ongoing customer growth in its US and international segments, as well as continued high order rates and meals per order.
Growth in its customer base saw the group engage with a total of 7.2 million active customers.
Adjusted EBITDA for the year reached €527.6 million, while group revenue for the fourth quarter amounted to €1.58 billion – the group's highest revenue quarter to-date.
“Over the course of 2021 we have made significant progress in ramping up our production capacity and infrastructure globally, while launching Norway, Italy, and Japan as new markets, bringing Green Chef as an additional brand to the UK market, extending our HelloFresh Market offering of high quality curated add-ons to the US and acquiring Youfoodz in Australia," Richter added.
"We are laying the foundations for reaching our mid-term targets and charging towards becoming the world’s leading integrated food solutions group."
Acquisitions In 2021
During the year, HelloFresh made a number of acquisitions to strengthen its position and expand the business.
Youfoodz, a company offering ready-to-eat meal services, was acquired during the summer.
The acquisition aligns with the group's ambition to expand its ready-to-eat meal services, having previously purchased US-based Factor in 2020.
The acquisitions have resulted in triple digit growth, with Factor becoming the largest ready-to-eat meal company in the US, in terms of market share.
2022 Outlook
For 2022, HelloFresh plans to invest across its operations, focusing on the ongoing build out of its fulfilment infrastructure and strengthening of its tech and data platform.
The company also aims to expand into new geographies, and explore potential acquisition opportunities to drive its long-term growth strategy.
Against this background, the company expects revenue growth in the range of 20% and 26% on a constant currency basis.
Adjusted EBITDA for the group for the full year 2022 is expected to be between €500 million and €580 million.
Analyst Viewpoint
Commenting on HelloFresh's performance, Analyst Ross Hindle of Third Bridge said, "COVID allowed HelloFresh to leap beyond a busy parent category into new profiles such as co-habit households and bachelors. The big question is now how much momentum HelloFresh can sustain as people re-channel their incomes to experiences outside the home.
“HelloFresh argue that the pandemic altered our perceptions of meal-kit boxes forever, with consumers appreciating the value and quality of meal-kits. With such an increase in consumer adoption, our experts say COVID took the meal-kit industry to somewhere they thought impossible before 2025 and that meal kit adoption is sticky.
“HelloFresh has concentrated on driving growth via Total Addressable Market (TAM) expansion, by adding additional products to capture different consumer cohorts and meal-times. This strategy now needs to switch into TAM penetration, something HelloFresh has not proven successful at achieving organically. Despite the initial success of its additional brands and offerings, HelloFresh runs the risk of a ‘soggy-mattress’ effect, where consumers migrate to more middle-of-the-range products, shying away from the premium, margin-rich offerings."
© 2022 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest Technology news. Article by Conor Farrelly. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
