Chef'd & HelloFresh analysis

Erin Sorensen
WebPublishing
Popularity and Traffic
Chef’d Popularity & Traffic Analysis
Website Overview
General Company Information
Chef’d is a meal kit website that provides customers with the convenience of decadent
meal shipped right to their door. They offer many different options for meals including meal
size, vegan or gluten free, price, number of people eating the meal and even snack options. They
also offer customers the option to customize with the promise of no subscription plan if
customers want to order one meal one time they can do that without agreeing to any kind of
contract. Chef’d promises to offer fresh ingredients that will be shipped to your door in 1-2 days
that the order was placed. They also do a very good job of catering their meals to events that are
going on around that time for example they have a large football style of food choices right now
with the super bowl approaching. Chef’d was created in 2014 so it is still a new company in the
meal kit marketplace. Kyle Ransford is the founder and CEO of the company and he said that
the inspiration came when he saw a “mouth-watering meal” in a magazine and wanted to be able
to have that meal brought right to his door. In November of 2017, Chef’d saw a lot of valuable
publicity that came from established news sources and magazines including GLAM and
Epicurious. The article GLAM wrote on their website was called, “The Top 5 Meal Delivery
Services That Made Me Finally Enjoy Cooking.” This type of publicity from an established
source with a large following is exactly what Chef’d needs to go from a new company to the best
company.
Product & Content Analysis
Chef’d has over 650 meal kits available to customers currently. Of those meal kits they
allow options such as breakfast, lunch, dinner, and desert kits. From there you can also break it

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down further. If you choose to search for dinner meals, you can also choose from different
cooking styles such as lighter, quick and easy, family friendly, and gourmet. This really allows
people to maximize their money and get exactly they are looking for in a perfect meal, because a
mother of two young children probably isn’t looking for the same type of meal that a retired
woman is who is throwing a get together with her friends from college. Something cool that I did
not notice until several times I had searched around the website is there is an option to select a
“meal collection.” This is incredible for someone who does not exactly know what he or she
want to eat, or might be new to Chef’d and want to give it a try for the first time. A meal
collection consists of a category such as “date night.” This allows people to find meals that fit
right inside the realm of the occasion that they are trying to create. Inside of that collection is
several meals that fit that collections title and helps to turn that number of 650 meals to a much
smaller and more manageable number. Some of the other collections include things like, around
the world, kids in the kitchen, Asian favorites, budget friendly meals, etc.
Chef’d also has an ingredient tab when doing meal selection to help you base your meal around
your main portion. This allows customers that know they want a chicken dinner, but do not
know exactly what they want to be able to see all those meals that are available. All of these
tools and tricks add a sense of user friendliness to the customers which will help customers to

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continue to come back and learn more and more about the meals chef’d has, which in turn should
create returning customers for them.
Chef’d also bring customer interest to their company by the chefs that they have to create
their meals and the original ingredients. They have more than 50 chefs that create meals for the
business, which allows for a great deal of culture and variance between the meals that are
available to the customers. Some of the famous chefs include Angelo Sosa who is a Top Chef
All-Star, Aaron McCargo Jr. who was the winner of Next Food Network Star, Adam Richman
who is a Travel Chanel star, and many more. Having so many diverse chefs with different talents
and backgrounds allows Chef has to keep a very culturally sound group of meals. When you
choose the meal kits, the tab on the left hand side allows you to pick from certain cuisines.
Those cuisines include American, Asian, Chinese, French, Greek, Italian, Indian, Korean, Latin,
Mediterranean, Mexican, Middle Eastern, Spanish, Thai, Vietnamese, Southern, and Japanese.
This allows Chef’d to cater to many people from many different background and cultures. It also
allows customers to reach out of their normal comfort zone and try something new. These meals
range from $10-$189 allowing a widespread opportunity for people from many different
socioeconomic statuses. Chef’d currently ships all orders over $40 for free, and will ship to any
zip code in the United States,
At the bottom of the page with the collections of meals, there is a tab that says Chef’d
wine; when you click on that tab, you are taken into another window, which seems to be Chefd’s
website for its wine. You are prompted to enter the state you live in, and from there they will
show wines that are available to you in red and white selections. Some states have more
selections for wine than others due to wineries in proximity of those states. Once you select a
wine, it will tell you which food pairs well with it so you will always know you are getting a

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good combo for you meals. This is a fantastic business strategy for Chef’d to include wine it
gives it an adult or professional feel to the company and can bring in more sophisticated
customers that are willing to pay more money for delicious meals. The only issue with the wine
is it seems hard to get to if you are not looking for it. It really is not being promoted as a staple
in the business plan.
Chef’d gives customers the ability to “personalize” a meal they would like. It takes the
user through a few simple questions like how many people are eating, what is your cooking style,
etc. Once you complete the question Chef’d ask you to sign up, but you do not have to pay
anything to sign up. Once you sign up the website will have a few more questions to really get
the perfect meal for each person as well as asking for any food allergies that they may have.
This is a great way to design the site, because often times if you ask people to sign in right away
they will leave the website and will not even look. By the time someone fills out the few short
questions for personalization their interest for the food has already peaked so they will sign up to
see what meals are recommended to them.
A lot of support and publication comes from the 40 plus partners that Chef’d has. These
partners include companies like Quaker, Sun-Maid, Coca-Cola, Weight Watchers, Women’s
Health, P.F. Changes, Runner’s World, Men’s Health, Hersey’s, Glad, Good Housekeeping,
Atkins, American Diabetes Association, and many more. These large established companies
allow Chef’d to gain a new following from these products that already have loyal customers, and
they notice that Chef’d is a partner. Many of the partners have their “own line” of meals so to
say. For example, Glad press and seal caters more to busy young people or athletes that need to
meal prep but still pack protein into their diets. One of the meal examples is the “Grab and Go
Breakfast Bundle” it uses Glad press and seal to help keep the food fresh all week so you have

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breakfast for every day of the week, and it will taste just as good on the first day as the last.
Quaker is another good example of a partner that has meals that specifically promote their
product. Quaker has mostly breakfast and snack lines of food that include Oats and Strawberry
Banana Smoothie Bowl, Egg White and Oat Brunch Bake, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Energy
Bites, and Quaker Overnight Oats. Having all these partners allows Chef’d to venture out and
create more meals with more ingredients and spread those meals to a wider audience of people.
These partners also allow Chef’d to get more publication in bigger places for example; Women’s
Health, Men’s Health, and Good Housekeeping are all partners of Chef’d. They all also have
magazines of their own with a well-established audience as well as websites that receive a lot of
traffic. When you collaborate with news outlets, you already create publicity for yourself.
Fortune did a news story about Campbell’s Soup investing 10 million in the Meal Kit Start-up
Chef’d. This creates publicity by people seeing the magazine and wanting to know more about
Chef’d, it also shows that a well-established company believes in Chef’d enough to donate 10
million so it must be a good site, and it also gets the word out in a very popular news source of
wealthy people.
Chef’d also has a portion of their business called the “Loyalty Program.” This allows
customers to gain points that in turn can be used to purchase meals on their website. There are
many ways to gain loyalty points and the split them up into categories such as share, shop, social,
and set-up. The shopping portion has to deal with you actually purchasing meal such as first
purchase, second purchase, etc. The social section refers to posting reviews and rating the meals
when customer rate or review a meal they have purchased they will receive loyalty points. The
Set-up portion comes from setting up an account, signing up for the newsletter, and sharing on

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your social media sights that you are using Chef’d. This is a brilliant idea to help both business
and customer with rewards for customer and creating a growing audience for the business.
Competing Site
HelloFresh is a company that sells meal kits in the hope to help people all across the
world enjoy delicious wholesome meals without needing to go to the store. Dominik Richter,
Thomas Griesel, and Jessica Nilsson founded HelloFresh in 2011. Dominick Richter is the
current CEO of HelloFresh. This company leads the market in meal kit business, and does so
very well they include a wine club, they have their own blog, they sell their favorite kitchenware,
and they have student discounts to attract customers of all ages and socioeconomic statuses.
HelloFresh has been around three years longer than Chef’d and it is noticeable that they
have created a bigger market and demand for their product. They have over 2,500 creations, but
they run their meal selection a little bit differently than Chef’d. With HelloFresh you must sign
up for a meal plan you cannot just order one meal to see what you think as you can with Chef’d.
Some of their plans include Veggie Plan, Classic Plan, and Family plan. The Veggie Plan starts
at $9.99 and can serve two or four people with three recipes a week. The Classic plan also starts
at $9.99 and can serve two or four people and it has an option to receive either three or four
recipes each week. The family plan starts at $8.74, serves four people, and has the option to
select either two or three recipes per week.
The homepage shows the beautiful ingredients that are used in the food and also gets
right to the point and explains how the company works. HelloFresh allows you to customize
your meals weekly, you can skip or cancel a week at any time, and the food is delivered right to
your door. They do a good job of enticing people to commit to the purchase by having a section

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at the top of the homepage as soon as you get into the sight that allows you to receive $15 off if
you subscribe to their website by entering your email address. HelloFresh states that in each
box you will receive easy-to-follow recipes with clear nutritional info, high-quality ingredients
sourced straight from the farm, convenient meal kits that fit perfectly in the fridge, a fun cooking
experience that makes you feel unstoppable. These are very similar to what Chef’d promises to
find in each of their meal kits.
Like, Chef’d, HelloFresh also sells wine. Though they both sell wine their products are
very different, and the way the sell the wine to customers is very different. With Chef’d you can
order just one bottle of wine one time if you want, and you can only get certain bottles in certain
parts of the United States. With HelloFresh, they stick with the theme of selling their products in
Plans, and they have three plans for their Wine Club. Those include the Mixed Wine Plan,
which is six wine bottles a month, and it cost $89.00 per month. Then you have the option of the
Red Wine Plan, which is six bottles of red wine at $89.00 per month. The final plan option is the
White Wine Plan, which is six white wine bottles at $89.00 per month. The price does not
change through the plans only the wine that you are receiving. The cost per bottle comes out to
be $14.83. Chef’d has bottles that not all very in price and at this time offers options to purchase
a monthly plan for their wine.
HelloFresh really sets the standard for allowing customers to have many different
purchasing options. They not only do food and wine plans, but they also sell kitchenware from
things like hand towels, knives, spatulas, oil infusers, chef hat, hosting kit, starter kit, etc. This is
very much unlike anything that Chef’d is currently doing. This allows HelloFresh to have truly
loyal customer that get their meals, wine, and utensils all from the same company. This also
makes you think about the demographic that predominantly makes purchases from HelloFresh. It

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seems that HelloFresh caters to an older target audience who have established careers, and who
are looking for delicious meals that they can cook without taking too much time away from their
lives or work. Although HelloFresh does guarantee 15% off all meals to students, it still does
not seem like a huge market for them to make money from.
HelloFresh and Chef’d have many similarities but there are also many differences that
put a gap between the two companies. HelloFresh has a three year head start on Chef’d so the
fact that you can compare so many factors that both websites have proven that Chef’d is doing a
good job establishing themselves in the meal kit market. Some of the differences between the
two companies might be seen as negatives to some people and positives to others. For example,
the difference between the two companies with meal plans that are, monthly set ups and single
meals to purchase. Some people might rather pay a monthly fee and pick out their meals and
how many they get a week and be done with it. Where others might like Chef’d more because
they can just get meals here and there whenever they feel like it. This comes in handy for things
like the upcoming super bowl. If someone does not want to cook and they want to order food for
a Super Bowl party, but they do not want to make any commitments to that website then Chef’d
will receive their business for the one time purchase. HelloFresh has over 2,500 meal options
whereas Chef’d currently has over 650. HelloFresh has the ability to financially grow their
business to sell things like Kitchenware, either Chef’d is not at that stage financially or they want
to stick to the basics of meal kits and wine. HelloFresh also doesn’t show who their chefs are like
Chef’d does on their website. They are both good companies that attract a lot of business and are
continuing to grow and compete.

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WebPublishing
Link Analysis
Total Backlinks No. of Referring
Domains
Average No. of
Backlinks/Domain
Chefd.com 6,200 566 11.92
HelloFresh.com 31,800 2,800 11.35
Overview & Link Quantity Assessment
As I mentioned earlier in the paper HelloFresh has been around for three more years than
Chef’d. It appeared to be visibly noticeable by just looking at their website and what all they
provide to customers, but once you get into the data of the actual traffic each website receives it
becomes clear that HelloFresh is leading the pack. HelloFresh has nearly five times the referring
domains that Chef’d does. Chef’d also does not have any links from .edu, .mil, .gov websites as
HelloFresh has five educational (.edu) reference domains. The three-year head start helps
HelloFresh to already have and established brand, which will genuinely bring in more traffic and
more reference links. I also think their business model to always give students 15% off can help
to bring more traffic from younger kids ages 19-23. I do not see this to really be happening as
much with Chef’d. HelloFresh is also pulling in an extra demographic by selling kitchenware,
because some customer might strictly buy kitchenware and they might not buy any food. When
those people continually go to the site and see the food, they are likely to end up buying it or
even to tell their friends where they get their kitchenware. By selling kitchenware, you also
receive links from other resources that might not even be discussing your food, links and traffic
that you would not get without that line. At this point HelloFresh is getting a lot more traffic

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than Chef’d, but if you look at the average number of backlinks per domain Chef’d actually has
more with 11.92 and HelloFresh has 11.35. This shows you that even though Chef’d has a
smaller audience and traffic at this point in their young business that they are doing well with
what they are doing.
.
I believe is Chef’d continues to create new meals and put money into their marketing
strategy they will continue to grow and receive more traffic to their website. At this point, it
seems that HelloFresh is the standard for meal kits, so to be in comparison with them is a good
step in the right direction. Chef’d has 520 referring domains, but of those referring domains,
some of them were very well established web sites that already have a large following. If Atkins
customers see that they are linking and partnering to Chef’d they are going to trust that it is a
good company, and more than likely will give Chef’d some of their business.
Analysis of Link Quality for Chef’d- Top 10 Referring Domains
1. Atkins.com (866): This is a high quality link because not only are they partnered with
Chef’d they are also a well-established company that focuses itself on providing

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healthy living styles and food to their customers. They also have credible backlinks.
2. Runnersworld.com (636): This is a high quality link because they have an extremely
large audience with over 700,000 backlinks. It was founded in 1996 so the website
has had a lot of time to grow and create reliability for its followers. These people will
be looking for good healthy meals to fuel their exercise and if Runners World says
that Chef’d is a good source to get that healthy food they are looking for they will
purchase from Chef’d.
3. Vegetariantimes.com (410): This is a great source for a referring domain for Chef’d.
Any website that strictly promotes some type of eating to its audience is something
you want to be linked to. Vegetarian Times front page of their website says,
“Powered by clean eating.” Much like Runner’s World, if people see that Chef’d is
linked then it must be a good site to get the food they are looking for.
4. SideChef (433): This is a fantastic site for Chef’d to be linked to. There are many
pages on their site that shows a delicious picture of a meal and then links to Chef’d.
It will prompt customers saying, “this meal kit is available with Chef’d.com.” If
people are looking for meals to make and they find a recipe that looks good, they are
going to follow the link and have it shipped to their door. It is an established and
professional website, which is the kind that you want to be referring to your own.

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5. Fortune.com (216): This is a great website to have Chef’d be linked to. Even if some
of the articles were undervaluing the use of meal, kits it still gets people going to their
site to check it out. The saying “any publicity is good publicity” well any traffic is
good traffic with growing companies. People may go to the website just to check it
out after reading Fortune’s article, and they may decide it looks delicious and they
want to purchase a meal. Also often time people who are reading Fortune are wealthy
people who would not have a problem with the pricing that may be a concern for
some others.
6. Foodandwine.com (184): The title of one of the articles posted by Food and Wine
about Chef’d is titled “Now There is a Home Delivery Meal Kit for Breakfast.” This
is perfect for Chef’d because the title makes it seem as if they are the only company
doing this, anytime a company is doing something that no one else is customers
become interested. Having Food and Wine link to your page is fantastic because the
general target audience is older women or mothers who are looking for healthy,
quick, and good meals for their family and if they find all that and it can be shipped to
their doorstep new customers will be found.
7. Menshealth.com (??): I think this is not only a great site to be linked to because it is
established with its own magazine, but also because it brings a new demographic to
Chef’d. The majority of the time people who are going to be purchasing from Chef’d
are families, couples, people hosting parties, etc. Who will be the person to actually
pick out and purchase the food? More than likely the female of the household or the
mother. By having this partner it creates a new opportunity for men, especially single
men to check out Chef’d and find meals that they could make as bachelors, for a date

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night, for people night etc. It also has a large audience so many people will probably
check out the link to Chef’d.
8. LAtimes.com (116): This is a good source of a referring domain for Chef’d because it
is a largely trusted news source for many people. They have written many articles that
include Chef’d, but one of the most recent compares six meal kit websites together
and LA times talks up Chef’d quite a bit calling it “one of the most expensive, but one
of the coolest meal kit sites available.” This will create interest and cause for people
to go to the site and check out these delicious meals and celebrity chefs that LA times
mentions in their article. The stigma of LA is that they appreciate the finer things and
delicious hand constructed recipes shipped right to your door fits that category.
9. Groupon.com (??): This is a good link for Chef’d to be connected to because it is
greatly used by many moms across the country. Often time’s moms use Groupon to
find coupons and savings on every day products. If Groupon is selling discounted
gift cards or coupons for Chef’d it might be enough for them to decide to try a meal.
Which is why it is so awesome that Chef’d does not make you pick a meal plan for
the weak and has no contract so they can try it risk free, and see how they like it. The
only problem with Groupon linking to Chef'’d is most of the time unless you are
looking for it Chef’d coupons will not just come up on the home page.
10. WickedStuff.com (414): Wicked Stuff is a great website to be linked to Chef’d
because it is a Keto diet website. The reason why this is so important is because right
now in the United States Keto is one of the most popular diets among all ages and
demographics, because it can be found anywhere and the meals are usually simple
healthy meals that mostly cut out carbs and sugars. This website will allow for

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customers who want to do the keto diet, but don’t want to make the food to find an
alternative in Chef’d who will provide those meals for them straight to their door.
Traffic Analysis
Visit Analysis
Chef’d.com HelloFresh.com
Avg. Monthly Visits 155,833 2,733,366
Introduction and Definitions
Visits is the number of times users visited the during the selected timeframe. HelloFresh
is winning the race with an average of nearly $3 million page visits each month whereas Chef’d
is only seeing a fraction of that at 155,833 average monthly visits. This data makes sense if you
refer back to my link analysis that explained HelloFresh has about 31,800 sites linking to theirs
and Chef’d only has 6,200. However, when I say only that is, still a good number of linked sites,
but it does not account for a fraction of HelloFresh. The less sites that are linking to yours means
less traffic. The more sites people are on and see links to other sites the more traffic you will get
from people just investigating what the link is. There is a direct correlation between the amount
of backlinks each site has and its average monthly visits.
Chef’d.com Traffic and Trends
Chef’d has stayed relevant throughout its existence creating traffic and popularity for
itself by adding new chefs, new meals, and new ideas quite often. There was quite a spike
between September and October from about 125,000 visits to over 200,000 visits. That could

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possibly be attributed to many things, but Chef’d did do a Halloween line for people who were
hosting Halloween parties that catered to delicious food with all the glory of a “spooky” meal.
Also in early October, Chef’d and its long-time partner Atkins teamed up and created a new line
of low carb meals, even though they had already had Atkins approved meals this was a new line
designed to have delicious meals and cut out the carbs. Those numbers dropped slighting in
November, but still did not go down to that 125,000 mark that Chef’d had been at for 3 months
prior. I believe that the numbers fell in November because of Thanksgiving, even though people
could order Thanksgiving meals from Chef’d most people have a long-standing tradition with
their families. Those that did order from Chef’d on Thanksgiving might have been drawn to the
site by the effective advertising strategies used including discounts, and using the celebrity chef,
Wolfgang Puck, as the main Chef to cook the meal. Puck is a very popular and famous Chef that
most people would buy the food just because he made the recipe. Often times families are so big
that you would have to order so much food the price would cost more than the time it does to
make the food, and often time people who don’t usually cook for Thanksgiving aren’t going to
purchase a meal kit. The numbers then rose again in December, slowly creeping back to that
200,000 visitors mark. Now my argument about Thanksgiving and not ordering food might
make people question why it rose around Christmas time then. I think the ads for the company
were so strong during the holidays that people might see a holiday add about getting your perfect
holiday meal at a discounted price “this week only” etc. so many are curious enough to go to the
site and check out what they have to offer.

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HelloFresh.com Traffic & Trends
HelloFresh has stayed steadier with its traffic trends in the last six months. I think a lot
of that has to do with already being established and having a solid base of returning customers.
There numbers are also a lot higher so a drop in several thousand a month from one month to the
next does not draw anyone’s eye unless it is someone whose job is to analyze and monitor the
website’s traffic. One thing that is interesting is that from September until December HelloFresh
has been at a slight decline over the entire three-month period. During that, three-month period
Chef’d was hitting it highest point in the last six months. I think Chef’d created a better
marketing strategy during the holidays to bring more people to look at their website. I also think
that if some people would decide to order from Chef’d during the holidays they would prefer it
over HelloFresh since you don’t have to sign up for a weekly plan so they could just order for the
holiday and not have to order again if they didn’t want to. Our country is in the state where most
consumers do not like contracts, even phone companies are trying to put consumers at ease when
it comes to those long contracts that seem to bind consumers to a product. As I mentioned above
Chef’d also used the celebrity Chef Wolfgang Puck to promote to public about the recipes he had

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created for Chef’d.com for the holidays. HelloFresh seems to keep their visitors on the sit longer
than Chef’d and the visitors often go through an average of two more pages than visitors on
Chef’d.
Comparisons
Both sides are having success with bringing visitors to their sites and getting them to
actually stay on the site to look around. It is an obvious statistic to me that HelloFresh has more
traffic than Chef’d as we have reviewed throughout the whole review that HelloFresh offers
more services, more meals, they have been around longer, and they have five times the back
links that Chef’d does. Although you must take into consideration that HelloFresh came before
Chef’d and has been in the meal kit market for three more years than Chef’d so some of the rates
could be attributed to simply experience. I also think that having so many more dimensions like
selling cookware, and having such a large line of wine has created more sponsors, partners, and
backlinks to HelloFresh, which allows them more traffic, and in turn more customers. Although
Chef’d is doing very well for only being seven years old and has pulled a large customer base. I
think adding wine to the lineup has really helped them stay current with HelloFresh. I also think

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that not requiring a meal plan has brought more customers to them than HelloFresh. People
become nervous and uncomfortable with any time of monthly or weekly plan. Even if you can
cancel at any time, it still creates a sense of uneasiness in customers. It also creates questions for
the first time buyers who want to buy something, but do not know if it will be something that
will work for them so they do not want to be held down by a meal plan. The more original that
Chef’d can get in the future with what it offers to customers will really allow them an
opportunity to catch up and even surpass HelloFresh.
Engagement Analysis
Chef’d.com HelloFresh.com Web Averages
Bounce Rate % 27% 33% 40%
Page View Per Visit 4.13 6.17 4.6
Average Visit Duration 3:15 minutes 3:26 minutes 3:10 minutes
Introduction & Definitions
The data shows that both Chef’d and HelloFresh are above the web averages for page
views for visit and average visit duration, which is a good sign for both sites. It also shows that
they both have a lower bounce rate than the web average, which is another good statistic for both
businesses. Bounce rate is when only one page is visited before exiting the site. Chef’d has a
lower bounce rate than HelloFresh which tells me that Chef’d is doing a better job at engaging
customers and getting them to continue to the next page to see what all they have to offer. I
think page views per visit gets a little tricky to use as a statistic because each site has a tool
Chef’d is personalization and HelloFresh uses customize they both require a different amount of

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pages to find what kind of food you want and to get to the checkout with it. It might just be that
it takes less pages to get to the check out for Chef’d than it does for HelloFresh or it could be that
people are more interested in buying from HelloFresh. To better understand the pages per visit
stat brining in the average time on each site will help decipher what is really happening. It
appears that people spend on average of 11 more seconds on HelloFresh than they do on Chef’d
which isn’t a very big margin to analyze.
Chef’d.com Engagement Data
Chef’d has a good statistic lineup of traffic, backlinks, referring domains, etc. The
company is drawing a lot of attention by adding new partners, celebrity chefs, and creating new
meals. However, when it is in a hand in hand comparison with HelloFresh the numbers do not
show a lot of “excitement.” As I mentioned previously in the link analysis that Chef’d has 11.92
average number of backlinks per referring domain while HelloFresh has 11.35. Even though
Chef’d has fewer total backlinks than HelloFresh they are receiving quite a few relevant domains
that are linking to their site and those main partner sites etc. are linking to Chef’d just as often as
HelloFresh’s domains are linking to them in each site. The numbers are smaller for Chef’d, but
they are good numbers for a younger company that has been growing since October and
expanding. For the stage that Chef’d is currently in they are putting up good metrics to draw
customers to their site and keep them there. The bigger the company gets the more sponsorships,
partners, and news press they will receive like HelloFresh. I think there metrics are lower than
HelloFresh for reason that include age of the company, products available, and number of
services available. As I mentioned earlier Chef’d just is not providing as much for their
customers as HelloFresh is right now. As HelloFresh has student deals, kitchenware, a bigger
wine selection, and a bigger selection of meals available to purchase.

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As far as the website goes I think Chef’d is doing a fantastic job in making the experience
user friendly to customers and “entertaining.” It allows them to right away really see what they
are all about, what products they have, and how the site works. There is a search bar at the top
with tabs that allow you to find exactly what you are looking for, look around for a little big and
just wander, or even personalize meals for you.
Another cool feature is at the bottom right hand side of the page there is a help button that
customers can click on and type in any kind of question or concern they have and hopefully have
it answered right away. This helps create an environment that seems user friendly and
comfortable for the customer, because if they cannot understand a website they are not going to
order anything from that site.
.
One thing that I mentioned in my Engagement analysis was I thought Chef’d did a better job of
marketing certain events or certain times of the year, and I used Thanksgiving as my example as
Chef’d had numbers rise during the holidays and HelloFresh had their numbers drop during that
time. This time we are close to the Super Bowl and Chef’d is winning the marketing scene for
the opportunity to entice sports fans for Super Bowl meal kits. Currently on the front page of
Chef’d the first thing you see is options for “football food.”

Erin Sorensen
WebPublishing
This not only keeps returning customers interested in Chef’d but it also brings new customers to
the website. Sports fans will pay a lot of money when it comes to big games, especially if they
are throwing the party they want to throw the best super bowl party out of all of their friends.
The line-up of food for the super bowl is huge and caters to vegetarians, vegans, etc. as Chef’d
normally does. It even includes specialties foods like the football cake that sells for $59.00.
HelloFresh.com Engagement Data
Throughout this analysis it has been shown that HelloFresh is very dominate in the meal
kit market, but it also must be said that it was one of the very first meal kit companies available
to the consumer market. HelloFresh has done many things well to build a market of returning
customers and to create marketing and partners that will allow new customers to start using
HelloFresh. One of the biggest consumer pluses that come from HelloFresh is the broad
spectrum of goods that they sell. I have mentioned many times that HelloFresh not only sells
many meal kit options, but they also have a very big selection of wine to pair with meals, as well
as selling kitchenware for their consumers to cook their meal kits with. This shows HelloFresh in
a truly growing state, any business that is struggling is not going to continue to expand and sell

Erin Sorensen
WebPublishing
more options for consumers. The better they continue to make their company and their products
the more return customers they are going to have. HelloFresh is also an international business
and caters to customers outside of the United States. Another bonus that HelloFresh provides is
meal price it seems to be affordable for many people, but you must buy the meal plan you cannot
just buy a meal separately and decide if you want to buy more meals later. They also provide a
discount on every meal kit to all students. This really helps to bring in a wide variety and big
age group of customers. The number of backlinks from valid and established sites that
HelloFresh has is also an amazing standard to promote their business. They also have multiple
links from education and government websites, which is unlike other meal kit sites.
With this fantastic business plan and very good statistics as far as traffic and link
connections, I felt that their website was not as user friendly as it could be. With that being said
one of the best aspects of this website is there is a chat now interactive button on each page that
allows you to talk with someone live for help navigating the website, help picking meals, help
understanding the meal plans, and just about anything in between. This really helps customers
feel like the website is professional and that they care about their customers finding exactly what
they are looking for.
Another effort that HelloFresh makes to increase engagement might not seem like an
engagement tactic to some, but if you look closely, you will see the enticing factor that it
provides. HelloFresh provides celebrity tweets on the home page that have tweeted on
HelloFresh’s behalf on how much the enjoy HelloFresh. Right below those celebrity tweets is a

Erin Sorensen
WebPublishing
section of the page that states, “Get Cooking, and view our plans.” Often time’s people will buy
products just because of the celebrity endorsements so if the customer was not sure before if they
see their favorite celebrity buys HelloFresh they are more than likely going to go ahead and
purchase a meal plan.
Overall HelloFresh has done a fantastic job in creating a market for the meal kit and
taking control of that market. With sponsors, partners, services offered, and so much more, they
control a lot of the revenue in the meal kit department as they have gone to international
business. The Traffic analysis, Link Analysis, and credibility of those thinks has proven that
HelloFresh has an extremely large audience to cater.
Comparisons
Both Chef’d and HelloFresh are great meal kit companies that have created a market that
is in demand by many. Overall HelloFresh is the bigger company with the most revenue, meal
options, services offered, and biggest audience compared to Chef’d. The traffic that HelloFresh
receives is in the millions while Chef’d has traffic levels in the hundred thousand. HelloFresh

Erin Sorensen
WebPublishing
has also built up a much bigger group of backlinks, though some of those backlinks are not
credible sites as most companies do usually have some. Chef’d has been growing in its overall
traffic since September, and has been adding new Chefs and partners as they grow. Chef’d does
a very good job of letting customers get to know the chefs that create the food in the meal kits,
where HelloFresh doesn’t have a page that is dedicated strictly to their chefs and what they cook
and who they are. Sometimes it is nicer to know who is creating your food and where their
inspiration is coming from. They both offer wine service, but I was very disappointed with the
way Chef’d promotes their wine service. It seems very difficult to find out that they even sell
wine unless you are looking for it. Also with Chef’d what wine selections are available to you
depends on where you live, so places like Iowa only had a few options of wine to choose from.
HelloFresh really promotes there wine selection and allows everyone to order form the same
batches of wine either red wine white wine, or a mix of both. The big difference that really
needs to be discussed with these websites is the plan vs no plan option. With HelloFresh, you
must purchase a meal plan or a wine plan. With Chef’d you can choose the option to just
purchase one meal or one bottle of wine, and then decide if you would like to order more lately.
The meal plan option deters many people when they are first trying a new product so I think by
not having that meal plan Chef’d will get more business during special promotional times and
events like holidays and the super bowl. All though the food at Chef’d is a little more expensive
people will often pay more when they know they are not tied down to continuing to order the
food. Both of these sites are very good meal kit sites that draw a large percentage of the business
for the meal kit demand. I relate most of HelloFresh’s success over Chef’d simply to the time
difference between when the companies started. Often times the first business to open and begin
in a market will be the most successful and currently that is the story with HelloFresh. Although

Erin Sorensen
WebPublishing
Chef’d is continuing to grow very popular, and is going to be a good meal kit business for many
years if they continue to market and use authentic methods to reach new customers.

Chef'd & HelloFresh analysis

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