Chef’d shuts shop

Setting off alarm bells in the already-troubled industry, meal kit maker Chef’d announced late on the night of July 16 it was suspending all operations and shutting down. The meal kit company set itself apart by not having a subscription model, instead relying on white label partnerships with companies such as Coca Cola, The New York Times and Campbells, while also offering meal kits for sale in Costco.

The news of the shutdown came as a shock because the company had recently announced that it would place meal kits inside Byte Foods’ office fridges, allowing hungry workers to grab them on their way home from work. The organization had also partnered with Innit meal kits and had plans to retail its meal kits in Duane Reade and Walgreens.

Chef’d laid off more than 350 workers, who learned of the company’s situation on July 16 in a conference call. Media reports said that the company could not raise enough capital to continue operations.

In an email to the employees, founder and CEO Kyle Ranford, said, “We have had some unexpected circumstances with the funding for the business. Due to setbacks with financing, unfortunately, we are ceasing operations for all employees, effective today, July 16, 2018. If we had been successful with these funding efforts, this difficult decision would have been avoided.”