INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
kit or seeking a nutritious restaurant
But on-demand prepared food delivery companies like Sprig that tried to eliminate that work have gone bankrupt from poor unit
economics.Thistle is a different type of food startup
It delivers thrice-weekly cooler bags customized with meat-optional, plant-based breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks, sides and juices
By batching deliveries in the less-congested early morning hours and optimizing routes to its subscribers, or by mailing weekly boxes beyond
You might get a sunrise chia parfait for breakfast, a chicken tropical mango salad for lunch, a microwaveable bulgogi noodle bowl for
dinner, with beet hummus and kale-cucumber juice for snacks
What Peloton did to shave time off getting a great workout, Thistle does for eating a nourishing meal
It makes the right choice the easiest choice.Thistle COO Shiri Avnery and CEO Ashwin Cheriyan with their daughterThe idea of a button you
can push to make you healthier has attracted a new $5.65 million Series A round for Thistle led by its first institutional investor,
Dan Gluck of PowerPlant, which has also funded food break-outs like Beyond Meat, Thrive Market and Rebbl, will join the board.Currently
Thistle delivers in-person to the Bay Area, LA metro, San Diego and Sacramento while shipping to most of Washington, Oregon, Utah, Idaho,
Thistle actually held off on raising more since launching in 2013 to make sure it hammered out unit economics to prevent an implosion
costs and solid customer retention / lifetime metrics
We currently deliver tens of thousands of meals on a weekly basis to customers on the West Coast and our annual average growth rate since
has helped me keep my work-from-home lunches to about 20 minutes so I have more time for writing
Thistle is one of the few startups I consistently recommend to people
The company started as an on-demand cold-pressed juice delivery service, sending hipster glass bottles of watermelon and charcoal extract to
doors around San Francisco
It was 2013, yoga was booming and people were paying crazily high prices for liquified lemongrass
Health made simple seemed like a sure bet to the founding team of Alap Shah, Naman Shah, Sheel Mohnot and Johnny Hwin, some of whom run
Studio Management, a family office and startup incubator
things out with a shift to subscriptions and batched delivery under the leadership of the newly added co-founders, Cheriyan and his wife and
policy change and the inaction of governments and corporations
interaction with the environment
They teamed up with the founders and launched Thistle v1.A lack of experience in logistics led to the initial detour into on-demand
But rather than trying to fix the problem with VC money, Thistle stayed lean and discovered the opportunity nestled between Uber Eats and
Food / labor waste and inefficient deliveries were likely the biggest reasons why the economics were unsustainable without venture life
We know this personally as Thistle started our delivery service as an on-demand company before quickly realizing that the unit economics
customers to boxes of ingredients piling up unused
Munchery and Nomiku went out of business while giants like Blue Apron have incinerated hundreds of millions of dollars and seen their share
but suffer most from an easy-to-copy business model
It may still be too expensive for some markets and demographics
Logistics experts like Amazon and Whole Foods could try to barge into the market
Cloud kitchens without dining rooms are making restaurant food more affordable for delivery
And another startup could always take the gamble on raising a ton of cash and subsidizing prices to steal market share, especially where
minutes at your favorite salad spot for a healthy option, or opt into catered restaurant meals that leave you feeling sluggish and
path of another megatrend: the shift to environmentally conscious diets
Almost 60% of Americans are trying to eat less meat and 50% are eating meat-alternatives like Impossible Burgers
That stems both from interest in the humane treatment of animals and how 15% of green house emissions come from livestock
But 45% of Americans say they hate to cook
