This is an in-depth analysis of two companies, Chef'd and HelloFresh, who sell meal kits and deliver them to the doors of consumers.

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Taylor Johnson
Professor Lamer
Intro to Web Publishing
15 January 2018
Chef’d Popularity & Traffic Analysis
WEB SITE OVERVIEW
 General Company Information: Chef’d is an online platform that prepares, packages,
and then delivers meal kits to the doors of its consumers. These kits include pre-portioned
ingredients that are ready to cook upon delivery. This company focuses on making cooking as
easy and convenient as possible for each individual. It tries to accomplish this by having
ingredients, step-by-step instructions, and helpful hints for the recipes included in each box.
According to Owler, Kyle Ransford, CEO of Chef’d, founded the company in 2014. His
inspiration for the company started when he came across a recipe in a magazine and desired to
have all the ingredients delivered to his door. A year later, Chef’d was created to try and make
gourmet cooking easy for anyone. This company is headquartered in El Segundo, California and
currently has 245 employees and an annual revenue of $4.9 Million, according to Owler. Over
the years, the company has partnered with successful chefs, popular brands, and well-known
food media outlets to establish the quality of its meal kits.
Chef’d is a company that prioritizes personalization and convenience, and it proves this
by offering a wide variety of kits to appeal to the personal preferences of its consumers.
According to Street Fight Magazine, CEO Kyle Ransford says that “Chef’d is all about
choice…We’re working with the consumer to find out what they’re interested in cooking”
(Zappa). Since Chef’d does not require a subscription, each individual can decide how many
meal kits they want and when they want it. However, if an individual wants to have meal kits

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delivered every week, multiple meal plan options are also available. The flexibility that Chef’d
allows its buyers to have is what, in my opinion, sets the company apart from its competitors. It
also proves that CEO Kyle Ransford was telling the truth when he stated that the company values
leaving choices in the hands of its audience.
Chef’d has partnered with 48 different brands that help in creating, completing, or
promoting the meal kits available on its website. Two of these brands, Atkins and Runner’s
World, partnered with Chef’d to help create healthy meal kits that represent their companies.
HERSHEY’s Kitchens and Quaker help complete meal kits by including their products as
ingredients in various meals. Two publications that help promote these meal kits by partnering
with Chef’d are Men’s Health and Good Housekeeping. According to Chef’d itself, the company
has partnered with “some of the best names in food” in order to provide numerous high quality
meal kits. I instantly recognized many of Chef’d’s partners and this helped me better understand
the positive reputation that Chef’d is trying to build.
As of now, Chef’d is known for its online presence. The consumers are able to purchase a
meal kit by going to chefd.com, browsing through the meal kits, and selecting the ones that are
of interest to them. However, if consumers are unsure where to start, they can take a quiz to find
out what meals are best suited to their lifestyle. The quiz asks about the individual’s cooking
style, the types of meals they are looking for, what cooking experiences they are interested in,
etc. This alone proves that Chef’d focuses on each potential buyer to fit his/her needs in a
personal way. Even though Chef’d has a dominant online presence, recent news reveals that
Chef’d is starting to make an appearance in retail stores.
Until late August of 2017, Chef’d was purely an e-commerce site, reaching its audience
through the web. However, according to Progressive Grocer, Chef’d has recently partnered with
Gelson’s markets, a Southern California grocery retailer, to begin placing its meal kits in stores

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(Hofbauer). By placing its kits both online and in store, I believe Chef’d is attempting to reach a
greater audience. Progressive Grocer also mentions that in a recent survey, 78 percent of
consumers said they would like meal kits to be offered in stores (Hofbauer). By Chef’d
responding to this statistic, it shows that the company is willing to adapt and change based on the
needs or desires of consumers. Another retailer that has recently partnered with Chef’d,
according to the Specialty Food Association, is New York based Tops Markets (Chef’d Partners
with Tops). The store is currently offering five different types of meal kits in 171 Tops Market
locations. With Chef’d gaining these partnerships, I assume that the company hopes to get
exposure, further establish its brand, and ultimately, increase sales. Even though limited varieties
are offered in each of these stores, I came to the conclusion that Chef’d did this strategically in
order to gain brand awareness and benefit the company as a whole. From my perspective, Chef’d
put limited options in stores in hopes that consumers will go to its website after purchase,
looking for what other kits are available online.
 Product & Content Analysis: As a company, Chef’d provides its consumers with a wide
variety of meal kit options. Chef’d specializes in personalized meal kits and makes this known
through its navigation and by splitting different types of meal kits into categories. Since
“Personalize” is the first tab within the navigation, it let me know that personalization is a topic
that Chef’d wants to emphasize. As mentioned earlier, consumers can quickly discover what
meal plans best fit what they are looking for by taking a short “personalization” quiz. However,
if customers already know what they would like to purchase, a search bar is available in the main
navigation as well. Having both of these options at the beginning of the header let me know that
Chef’d is trying to be accommodating for all customers, both old and new. For the rest of this
section, I will be going into detail about how Chef’d focuses on personalizing its products in

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different ways to appeal to each consumer. Specifically, I will be discussing the various meals,
collections, and meal plans that Chef’d offers.
To start, Chef’d has over 650 meal kits available on its website. When looking at all of
the meal kits, a person can quickly find what he/she is looking for by using the categories within
the sidebar to narrow the results. There are nine total categories that further break down into 61
subcategories. By offering all of these categories, I assume that Chef’d is trying to let customers
know that the company wants to fulfill the personal preferences of each person with a meal kit.
Some categories that people can choose from include the type of meal, cuisine, protein, cooking
time ,skill level, or dietary lifestyle. When I started selecting categories from this list, I instantly
noticed that the prices fluctuate based on the category chosen. I decided to look at the price
differences based on the meal types offered, since this was the first category that someone can
select from. Chef’d has four meal types, those being breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert.
Lunches for two people range from $9 - $48, while dinners for two are from $9 - $66. Breakfast
is from $10 - $29 and dessert’s range is $18 - $41. Dinners and lunches have the largest
differences in price and I realized that this is because of the number of meal kits offered in these
categories. Chef’d only has 46 breakfast kits and 90 dessert kits, leaving approximately 514 kits
to the lunch and dinner categories. This is about 79% of the total amount of meal kits that Chef’d
sells. Looking at this statistic proves that Chef’d prioritizes lunch and dinner. However, I think
the company is doing this on purpose, maybe because these meals can be more difficult to cook
compared to others. I am not sure of this, but based on personal experience, I would want to
learn how to effectively cook a gourmet meal for lunch or dinner as opposed to breakfast or
dessert. Besides the four meal types, there are 17 different types of cuisine, 9 proteins, 8 common
allergens and 5 known dietary lifestyles to choose from. There are also 5 different cooking times
and four skill levels. By offering all of these categories, I believe Chef’d is trying to

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communicate that it has taken its time in creating and dividing up these meal kits. The company
had all customers in mind when they put together these kits to try to appeal to as many people as
possible. Even though a person can browse through all of the individual meal kits offered at
Chef’d, collections are available to categorize meals based on a common theme.
Currently, there are 45 collections that Chef’d has put together. All the meals found in a
collection have something in common, such as they all are best sellers, or all have the same
cooking time. Buyers can use these collections to help them decide on what meal kits they want
to order. However, people must buy kits a-la-carte from this section; the whole collection cannot
be bought all at once unless the items are selected individually. When browsing through this
section, I noticed that the recipes in each collection are not only offered within that collection.
All of these meals can be found on the “All Meals” page as well. Although these meals are being
repeated between various sections of Chef’d’s website, I think Chef’d is very smart to take some
common recipes and pull them together in a collection. For example, Top Rated is a collection
that contains 21 recipes that have the highest rating/best reviews from consumers. Something
interesting about this collection is that Chef’d makes changes to it when needed. Reviews and
ratings are bound to change over time, whether those changes come from additional reviews,
new offerings, etc. By Chef’d updating this list often, it shows that the company not only takes
pride in its top rated meals, but cares about the feedback received from buyers. In addition, Top
Rated is not the only collection that changes over time. New collections are always being
developed, and Chef’d also features collections based on what is happening in the world or to the
company at that time. Since it is the beginning of the year, Chef’d has a collection labeled, “New
Year, New You” that includes 46 recipes for those who are hoping to have a healthier 2018.
Football playoff games and the SuperBowl are upcoming sports events that many gather together
for, so there is also a “Big Game” collection available with 24 recipes. One last featured

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collection is “California Prunes,” which only includes 3 meals because this is a new arrival to
Chef’d. According to Markets Insider, California Prunes and Chef’d started a partnership on
January 9 to create healthy kits that include California Prunes (Chef’d Partners with California
Prunes). Using these current or upcoming events to shape collections was something that stood
out to me. From my point of view, Chef’d is trying to relate to customers through its collections.
By doing this, Chef’d could gain more customers because people want to buy something that will
benefit them. If someone is trying to lose weight because of the new year, is hosting an
upcoming event, or wants to try something new, the collections I mentioned can help people find
meal kits that accomplish these things. For those who want to order on a more consistent basis
instead of a-la-carte, there are meal plans available that can be customized and delivered weekly.
Currently, Chef’d has five subscription-based meal plans that have been developed
alongside some of the company’s partners. The American Diabetes Association, Atkins, The
New York Times Cooking, Spoon University, and Weight Watchers are the five partners who
have these meal plans that relate to each of their individual brands. Each brand is trying to reach
its target audience through these kits, whether it be those who want to live a healthy style, those
who are looking for gourmet meals, or even those who are in college and need quick meals.
When a meal plan is chosen, there are four steps to complete so that one can customize the kit
based on his/her preferences. These steps ask consumers questions such as how many people are
being cooked for, how many meals are wanted a week, if there are any allergens to rid of, and
what proteins should be included in the kit. After filling out these questions, consumers will get a
list of suggested meals based on their choices. However, if consumers do not like one of the
meals chosen for them, they can hit “swap” and a list of meals that still fit their preferences will
pop up. They can then choose the replacement meal and add the whole meal plan to their cart. By
completing this process, each person is quickly provided with a meal plan that fits his/her needs.

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Since all of these meal plans are so flexible, it is likely that plans will look different across
buyers. People might be interested in having one of these meal plans because it is not only
customized by them, but for them. When answering Chef’d’s questions to make a meal plan for
myself, I noted that I was allergic to wheat and that I prefer chicken, pork, or beef for protein.
Even with these preferences, I could choose from multiple meals to create my meal plan. If
Chef’d’s meal plans were made without being able to customize them, they would never meet
my needs, or the needs/preferences of others. In my opinion, Chef’d has proven throughout all of
its product offerings that this business revolves around the consumer. Like I mentioned in the
General Company Information, Chef’d’s CEO said that the company is all about choice.
However, potential buyers can control how many choices they want to make. If they want to
choose meals individually, they can browse through the “all meals” section. If they want to have
a more targeted list of meals based on a theme, they can look through the collections. Lastly, if
buyers want to have meals suggested for them based on a questionnaire, that option is also
available. From my perspective, having too many choices to make can be overwhelming at
times. But because Chef’d offers the same products in different ways, consumers have control
over how many decisions they want to make.
 Competing Site: HelloFresh is a competing site of Chef’d because it too specializes in
making meal kits and delivering those kits to buyers. However, even with the same concept,
Chef’d and HelloFresh still have distinguishable differences. According to Owler, HelloFresh
was founded by Dominik Richter and Thomas Griesel in 2011 and is headquartered in Berlin,
Germany. (However, the company still has a dominant presence in the United States). Since
Chef’d was founded in 2014 and is only located in the United States, HelloFresh has been in the
market for a longer amount of time and targets a whole new audience since it delivers outside the
U.S. Currently, according to Owler, HelloFresh has 112 employees and an annual revenue of $10

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Million. Chef’d has almost twice as many employees, with 245, but half as much revenue, with
an annual revenue of $4.9 Million. I believe the difference in revenue could be due to location or
the period of time open; however, it could lay within the values of each company or how the
company is run.
HelloFresh focuses on providing wholesome meals that are delivered conveniently to the
doors in its nine markets. These markets are Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland,
Austria, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. In comparison, Chef’d’s
only market is the contiguous United States because as of now, they have not expanded to other
areas across the globe. Another main difference between HelloFresh and Chef’d is between the
products they offer. Both companies obviously sell meal plans, but HelloFresh also offers a
subscription-based wine club, as well as kitchenware. The wine club is set up just like a meal
plan, but customers instead choose between a red wine, white wine, or mixed wine plan. After
choosing a plan, the customers will have six bottles of wine delivered to their door each month.
As far as kitchenware, HelloFresh sells pans, knives, containers, cups, and various other tools
that can help when preparing, eating, or storing food. When it comes to the meal kits themselves,
Chef’d and HelloFresh do have some similarities. Both of these companies seem to make
healthy, fresh ingredients a priority in their kits. Within these kits, both Chef’d and HelloFresh
include step-by-step ingredients, nutritional information, and pre-portioned ingredients that are
ready to be cooked upon delivery. However, I noticed that the kits from HelloFresh and Chef’d
can be further compared based on how they are offered, priced, and personalized.
At HelloFresh, meal kits are only offered through subscription-based meal plans. Even
though HelloFresh offers over 2,500 meals, these meals are strictly placed into plans and cannot
be bought individually. The three different meal plans available to choose from are: The Veggie
Plan, Classic Plan, and Family Plan. The Veggie Plan includes all vegetarian recipes, the Classic

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Plan has meat, fish and produce, and the Family Plan focuses on meals that are family-friendly.
Since meal kits cannot be purchased a-la-carte at HelloFresh like they can at Chef’d, consumers
do not have near as many purchase options at HelloFresh. Like I mentioned earlier, if consumers
decide to get a meal plan through Chef’d, they get to choose whether they are cooking for two or
four people and how many meals they want in their kit, ranging from 1-7. At HelloFresh, each
plan differs in the fact that some are for two people and some are for four. In addition, only 2-4
meals can be delivered per week, based on the type of plan chosen. However, it was interesting
to compare pricing between these companies to see if the freedom of choice that Chef’d offers
comes at a cost.
Since HelloFresh does not sell its items individually, the three plans are set at a price
based on servings. So, the total cost of a meal plan depends on what plan it is, how many people
are being cooked for, and how many meals are delivered in a week. I chose to compare the prices
as if four people were having three meals delivered to their door each week, since this option is
available for each meal plan that HelloFresh offers. The three plans are at a discounted price
currently, so I calculated both the sale price and normal price for comparison purposes. Between
the three plans, the sale price for 12 servings ranged from $74.88 - $89.88 and the normal price
for 12 servings ranged from $104.88 - $119.88. I compared these numbers to Chef’d by creating
a meal plan on Chef’d’s website that was also for four people wanting three meals delivered per
week. I chose the three cheapest and three most expensive meals that Chef’d offers from each
meal plan to try and get the most accurate range possible. The range of prices from each plan are
as follows: American Diabetes Association: $88 – $151, Atkins: $107 – $220, New York Times
Cooking: $94 – $315, Spoon University: $78 - $78, and Weight Watchers: $67- $143. After
looking at these prices, I wanted to find the average of the cheapest meals offered from each plan
compared to the average of the most expensive meals from each plan. I found the average of all

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the meal plans at Chef’d to be $86.80 – $181.40. Calculating this average was a difficult task to
complete because there were so many numbers involved, but I felt it was worth it to find the
most accurate range for Chef’d as possible. So when comparing these numbers to Chef’d’s
competition, the pricing of HelloFresh is much more consistent because each meal within the
plan does not have a different price attached to it. Since Chef’d sells its meals individually as
well as in meal plans, the price of each meal plan drastically changes based on the consumer’s
meal choices.
When ordering a meal plan, both HelloFresh and Chef’d offer the option to personalize
each plan through a questionnaire. These companies both ask how many people are being cooked
for and how many meals they want delivered per week. However, Chef’d, as I mentioned earlier,
also asks about allergens and what types of protein a customer prefers. Also, if a meal is chosen
by Chef’d that customers want to change, they are given a list of alternative meals that still refer
to the answers given on the questionnaire. The meal plans at Chef’d have about 37 total meals
that can be chosen from each week. HelloFresh, on the other hand, does not ask about allergens
and lets the consumer choose between only eight total meals for that week. However, HelloFresh
tries to create 15 new recipes each week to add more variety between meals as time goes on. One
thing that separates these two companies, in my eyes, is how each company deals with those who
have allergies or specific dietary lifestyles. Chef’d has multiple options within its meal kits and
meal plans to accommodate these individuals. HelloFresh, on the other hand, does not change the
meals included in a meal plan, even if it does not meet a person’s dietary needs. I discovered this
by chatting with the Customer Support at HelloFresh. As seen in the screenshot below,

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customers with allergies/restrictions have no option
but to exclude individual ingredients from the package
upon delivery if they cannot have them. After
analyzing each site, I think Chef’d as a company has
more opportunities to meet the customer’s personal
requests when compared to HelloFresh.
POPULARITY ANALYSIS
 Link Analysis:
 Overview & Link Quantity Assessment: Above is a chart that lists the total backlinks
and number of referring domains, according to Similar Web, for Chef’d and competitor
HelloFresh. To fully understand this chart, it is important to know what a backlink and referring
domain is. A backlink is a link from another website to your website. So in this chart, the total
backlinks column lists the total number of links from other websites to Chef’d and HelloFresh in
the appropriate row. A referring domain is a site that links to yours and establishes those links.
This chart shows that HelloFresh has almost 26,000 more backlinks and five times more
referring domains than Chef’d. It also shows that, on average, HelloFresh has almost one more
backlink per domain. Just from the information in this chart, HelloFresh beats Chef’d when it
comes to link and domain quantity. This could be because HelloFresh as a company was founded
Total
Backlinks
No. of
Referring
Domains
Average No.
of Backlinks/
Domain
Chefd.com 5,900 556 10.6
HelloFresh.com 31,800 2,800 11.4

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three years before Chef’d, giving them a head start in the industry. When a brand first enters the
market, it begins to build its name within society and hopes to become recognizable over time.
Therefore, other websites may link to HelloFresh as opposed to Chef’d because they are more
aware of the brand. Another reason that HelloFresh might have more backlinks and referring
domains is because on its website, HelloFresh mentions the awards it has received as a company.
This fact may entice other companies to link to it because receiving awards proves that the
company is doing something to stand out against its competition.
When comparing link quantities, it is also important to see if each company has links or
referring domains from sources with restricted domains. For reference, a restricted domain is a
site that can only be created by certain approved entities. Restricted domains have endings such
as .gov, .edu, or .mil. By looking at the screengrabs below from Majestic, one can see that while
Chef’d has no backlinks or referring domains from restricted domains, HelloFresh has 18
Educational Backlinks and 5 Educational Referring Domains. Even though there are a small
number of restricted domains listed for HelloFresh, I know these links are of high quality and it
is beneficial to have any of them. These links have a layer of authenticity behind them because
not just anyone can open a site with a restricted domain.
Chef’d’s Backlinks & Domains HelloFresh’s Backlinks & Domains

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 Analysis of Link Quality for Chef’d – Top 10 Referring Domains:
1) Atkins (671 Links): This is a high quality link because Atkins partnered with Chef’d
to build low carb recipe meal kits. They worked together as two separate businesses,
but created something, a meal kit, that brought them together. This common ground
establishes a relationship between these two companies and further proves the
authenticity of Atkins as a link.
2) Runner’s World (625 Links): This is a high quality link because Runner’s World
also partnered with Chef’d to create meal kits for its intended audience: runner’s. The
fact that Chef’d and Runner’s World are partners means that they are still working
together and benefitting each other in some way. Working together establishes a
relationship between the two companies, which is why this link has high quality.
3) Post Stats (422 Links): This is not a high quality link because this site has not been
updated since 2011 and does not relate to Chef’d as a company. When looking
through the site, I found no connection to Chef’d. Since this website is not a
recognized news source, restricted domain, and does not have a personal connection
to Chef’d, it is not a high quality link.
4) Side Chef (413 Links): This is a high quality link because Side Chef is a recipe app
that has been featured in many National Publications such as USA Today and The
New York Times. These are recognized news sources, which helps establish Side
Chef as a quality source. This app also lists 239 of Chef’d’s meal kits and links to
each of them.
5) Wicked Stuffed (342 Links): This is not a high quality link because this website is a
personal blog that has no direct connection/relationship with Chef’d. Just by looking
at the name of the site, I did not recognize the brand. Searching through the site, I

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found one article that mentioned Chef’d, but since this site is personal and not
connected directly with Chef’d, the link is not high quality.
6) Yoohoo (252 Links): Yoohoo is not a high quality link because I could not find any
information related to Chef’d on this site. Yoohoo provides local and national
deals/discounts for certain brands. However, Chef’d, was not even recognized as a
brand on this site. I also did not recognize “Yoohoo” as a brand and after looking
through its site, I can tell it is not a news source or a source who is currently working
alongside Chef’d.
7) Vegetarian Times (241 Links): This is a high quality link because Vegetarian Times
is a magazine that partnered with Chef’d to create vegetarian meal kits. Like the other
partners, having a personal connection to and working alongside Chef’d establishes a
relationship between these two companies and proves the link to be high quality.
8) Soy Vay (103 Links): This is a high quality link because Soy Vay partnered with
Chef’d to incorporate its sauces and marinades into Chef’d’s meal kits. They have
incorporated these sauces into 12 meal kits, which proves that these companies
combined their strengths and made something new. Working alongside each other
and having this relationship establishes Soy Vay as a high quality link.
9) Urlscan (99 Links): Urlscan is not a high quality link because this site just inspects
browsers and looks at the resources of various sites. This company has analyzed
Chef’d as a website, which is why urlscan.io pops up as one of Chef’d’s top referring
domains. However, this link is not of high quality because there is not an established
relationship between the two brands and it is not a recognized news source or brand.
10) The New York Times (94 Links): This is a high quality link because The New York
Times is not only a recognized news source, but an indirect partner to Chef’d. New

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York Times Cooking is the branch of the New York Times that works alongside
Chef’d to create meal kits for its brand.
TRAFFIC ANALYSIS
 Visit Analysis
Chefd.com HelloFresh.com
Avg. Monthly Visits [SimilarWeb.com] 156,667 2,750,000
 Introduction & Definitions: The data above shows the average monthly visits,
according to Similar Web, from July 2017 – December 2017 for both chefd.com and
HelloFresh.com. To be clear, a “visit” is the number of times that users visited a website during a
specific timeframe. This is not to be confused with the term “unique visitor”. A unique visitor is
sometimes called a user, and it is not a person, but software trying to figure out the number of
people that come to a website. So, people can visit a site multiple times, but he/she should be
detected as one unique visitor. For this analysis, I will be referencing the average number of
monthly visits, not the average number of unique visitors. Looking at the chart, HelloFresh has
about 17.5 times more visits to its website than Chef’d does. I will speculate on the causes of
each company’s traffic trends throughout the next two sections.
 Chefd.com Traffic & Trends:

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Above is a graph that shows chefd.com’s traffic over the last six months, according to
Similar Web. By looking at the chart, one can tell that Chef’d’s traffic changes in some way
from month to month. Traffic is not constant and is likely to fluctuate over time, depending on
various factors. Some of these factors may be how much attention the company is getting in the
media, if discounts are being offered, if new products are released, etc. Looking at the chart
above, Chef’d’s traffic gradually decreased from July – September 2017. The site’s overall
traffic went from 150,000 visits in July to 110,000 in September, a decrease of about 27%
between the three months. One reason that may have caused this slight decrease was that,
according to Business Insider, AmazonFresh began selling meal kits to the public on Tuesday,
July 18 and five of the 19 meal options sold out by 9 a.m. Tuesday morning (Taylor). The fact
that some meals sold out so quickly proves that AmazonFresh was more successful than the
company had planned for. Since AmazonFresh is another meal kit service, they are a competitor
of Chef’d. I also noticed that in this article from Business Insider, people are able to buy these
meal kits from Amazon individually, just like Chef’d. So, AmazonFresh could have taken some
of Chef’d’s traffic for those few months, but I do not know this for sure. In addition to
AmazonFresh launching, I think that traffic may have decreased during these months because of
how people live throughout the summer months. Many people tend to go on vacation or spend
their nights outside at various events, since the weather is warm. Going on vacation means that
people would not need meal kits during that time away and attending events during the summer
could lead to more people eating out. These two factors could have made the visits to chefd.com
decrease.
Looking back up at the chart, I noticed that traffic doubled from September to October of
2017, going from 110,000 to 220,000 monthly visits. I think that traffic may have spiked
between these months because The Washington Post mentioned and linked to Chef’d’s website

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on October 9, 2017. In the article, the author mentioned that Chef’d as a company focuses on
choices and customization. The article also said that Chef’d has partnerships with The New York
Times and Campbell Soup (Judkis). Since The Washington Post is a recognized news source,
putting this one link in one of its articles could have had a big impact. In addition, the fact that
the newspaper gave information about the site and mentioned two of its well-known partnerships
may have enticed the reader to click on the link. Again, this is just a speculation on the cause of
the spike in traffic.
Lastly, the traffic decreased to 160,000 unique visitors during November, but increased to
180,000 unique visitors in December. Even though traffic decreased from October to November,
the number of visits in November was still above the company average, 156,667, as displayed in
the Visit Analysis chart. Overall, the total visits to chefd.com were greater in October –
November than they were in July – September. I believe that this is the case because as I
mentioned earlier, people tend to go out and do different activities outside during the summer. So
during the winter, many people, like myself, stay inside and cook because they do not want to
leave their households. This may have impacted the traffic to Chef’d’s site during this time.
 HelloFresh.com Traffic & Trends:

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Above is a graph that shows HelloFresh.com’s traffic over the last six months, according
to Similar Web. Looking at the chart, HelloFresh’s traffic may look steady and consistent.
However, since the number of visits are measured by the million, the company’s traffic
fluctuates more than it seems. To start, the company had a loss of about 250,000 monthly visits
from July to August. This decrease could have been caused because of the release of
AmazonFresh, as mentioned earlier, but there are other factors that could have caused the drop as
well. According to CBS New York, HelloFresh had salespeople in Brooklyn trying to sell meal
kits to people on the streets during this time. However, residents of the city began to complain in
August, saying the workers were too aggressive and did not know when to stop pursuing people
(CBSNewYork). Even though this only happened in one city, it still created a negative story that
became public news, which could have affected the company’s reputation. HelloFresh later
apologized, calling the situation unfortunate. It also shut down the program to try to bring back a
more positive name for its brand, according to CBS New York (CBSNewYork). Since the
company apologized and removed the program, this could be why its numbers jumped back up to
3,050,000 visits during the month of September.
After September, there was a gradual decrease of monthly visits to HelloFresh.com.
Between September and December, the company’s number of monthly visits decreased by
almost 26%. In September, there were approximately 3,050,000 visits to HelloFresh. By the time
December came, there were only about 2,250,000 visits during this month. This decrease might
have happened because as time goes on, only more competition arrives. According to CNBC,
Plated, a company who also sells meal kits, was sold to Albertson’s, a national grocery store
chain in late September 2017. Plated’s meals were placed in 2,300 stores and gained a lot of
publicity from news sources (Hirsch). Having meal kits in store and online could have
potentially drawn customers to Plated instead of HelloFresh. In addition to this, Blue Apron, a

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main competitor in the meal kit business, was getting negative news about its brand because,
according to CNN, it had to lay off hundreds of employees because it was struggling as a
business (Fiegerman). Having a national news source like CNN talk about a struggling meal kit
business may have drawn potential customers away from subscribing to any business that offers
meal plans, such as HelloFresh. All of these factors may or may not have caused the decrease in
HelloFresh’s monthly visitors between the months of September and December, but it is
important to speculate the potential causes of any trend.
 Comparisons: Between both Chef’d and HelloFresh, there were some similarities and
differences of traffic trends. In August and November, both companies had a decrease in the
number of monthly visits to their sites. The decreases in August, as mentioned in both sections
above, could have been due to Amazon coming out with their own meal kits. For November, one
thing I did not mention in the paragraphs above was that these decreases could be due to the
holidays. Thanksgiving is a holiday that many people celebrate and have traditions for. Since this
holiday revolves around food, many people already have traditions of cooking family recipes that
would not be available in a meal kit. As people prepare for the holidays, I do not think they
would be going to either of these sites as often, since many people prepare for Thanksgiving by
shopping in stores for the specific ingredients they need. Other than these two similarities, the
rest of the traffic trends differ between Chef’d and HelloFresh. HelloFresh had increasing
monthly visitors during September, while Chef’d had increases during the months of October
and December. Therefore, besides their two similarities, HelloFresh had decreasing monthly
visitors when Chef’d had increasing monthly visitors, and vice versa.
After looking at these charts and comparing them, it is obvious that HelloFresh gets more
traffic to its site than Chef’d. One reason that I think HelloFresh has more traffic than Chef’d is
because it offers more than just meal plans. As stated in the “Competing Site” section,

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HelloFresh offers both a wine-club subscription and kitchenware. By having these extra items
available to consumers, it allows for this company to have multiple target audiences. HelloFresh
could be gaining its extra traffic from these two additional groups. If people are looking to buy
tools that will help them in the kitchen or be a part of a wine club, they are likely to come across
HelloFresh’s website. Since Chef’d does not have any additional offerings besides meal
kits/meal plans, it only reaches one main audience. However, HelloFresh could also have more
traffic because it reaches to markets outside of the United States. Even if HelloFresh has a
dominant presence in the United States, this does not mean that the company is not benefitting
from expanding the availability of the products. According to Similar Web, about 9% of
HelloFresh.com’s traffic comes from other countries. Even though this percent appears to be
low, when multiplied by the average number of HelloFresh’s monthly visits, (2,750,000) there
appears to be approximately 247,500 visits that come from other countries. Since HelloFresh
delivers its products to other countries, these visits are valuable if the profit outweighs the cost.
Again, this is just a personal speculation of why HelloFresh has more traffic to its site than
Chef’d does. These answers are hard to know, but interesting to investigate.
ENGAGEMENT ANALYSIS
Chefd.com HelloFresh.com
Web
Averages
Bounce Rate (%) 27.63 33.13 40
Page ViewsPerVisit 4.13 6.17 4.6
Average VisitDuration (min) 3:15 3:26 3:10
 Introduction & Definitions: The table above organizes data relating to how engaged
users are on websites, in this case, chefd.com and HelloFresh.com. The information for each site
was acquired from Similar Web, and the web averages were discussed in class. To understand
this table, one must know what each metric represents. A bounce rate is what percent of people

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only visit one page before they exit the site, page views per visit is how many pages a user saw
during his/her time on the site, and the average visit duration is how long the user was on the site
before exiting. For this analysis, the visit duration was measured in minutes. These metrics, from
Similar Web, were noted for both Chef’d and HelloFresh in order to compare their values. It is
hard to know what metrics are good without having something to compare them to. This is why
there are web averages included in this chart as well. According to the information in class, the
reasonable web averages were as follows: 40% bounce rate, 4.6 page views per visit, and 3:10 as
the average visit duration.
 Chefd.com Engagement Data: As seen in the table above, chefd.com had a 27.63%
bounce rate, 4.13 pages were viewed per visit, and 3:15 was the average visit duration. Even
though I mentioned what each metric meant in the section above, it is also important to know
whether a metric is good or bad for the site. A high bounce rate is usually seen negatively,
especially for sites like Chef’d that are retail and content focused. This is because if someone
only went to one page and then exited, it means that person did not make it to the checkout,
which is the ultimate goal of retail sites. The metric “page views per visit” is a good metric, in
my opinion, when the number is above or close to the web average. If someone is looking at
multiple pages of a website, that means he/she is interested in and finding out more about what
the company is offering. Lastly, the average visit duration, in my opinion, can be seen both
positively and negatively. If visitors are on a site for too long, it may indicate that they are
having difficulty finding what they are looking for. However, many people, including myself, are
indecisive and may just be taking a long time to come to a decision. A long visit duration could
also be seen positively because it means that someone is really learning about the company and
exploring the options available. This metric can be a bit confusing on whether it is positive or
negative, based on the situation. I personally think it depends on whether or not a purchase was

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made in the end. If a purchase was made with a short or long duration, it means the consumer
found what they were looking for and I see that as a positive. But, if no purchase was made with
a short or long duration, it could mean that consumer was immediately overwhelmed and left the
site or became frustrated over time and could not find what they were looking for.
Chef’d’s website has both good and bad elements of engagement. I tried to find how
Chef’d’s numbers in the table were reflected throughout its site. Starting with bounce rate, I see
some potential reasons why some people would see Chef’d’s home page and then exit. First of
all, there is no section on the home page that explains what Chef’d is and how it works. If I was a
new customer and did not understand what meal kits were or where to even start, I would be
quick to leave. Since Chef’d has so many competitors, it would not be difficult for a customer to
go to a different site and find what he/she is looking for. In addition to this, it takes a while to
scroll to the bottom of the page. Having so much information on the front page can be
overwhelming for the user and could potentially cause them to leave. Other than these two
things, I cannot think of why someone would bounce from the site after only seeing the home
page. Overall, the home page has a good design and does not have any annoying pop ups or
music that plays automatically, which can make consumers quick to leave a site. Next, the page
views per visit is 4.13 for Chef’d. Some of the potential causes for this number could be because
there are multiple links that people can click on from the home page that will take them deeper
into the site. Clicking on links obviously allows people to view more pages of the website. Just
on the home page, there are links to shop for meals, meet the chefs, learn more about Chef’d’s
partners, personalize your kits, etc. I noticed that there is some, but not too much, overlap
between the information on the pages. So, I can see why it is common for a person to go to
multiple pages on this site. Something specific that I think Chef’d did to help push the users to
go to an additional page was including why consumers should choose Chef’d. They placed this

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element right below “the fold” of the website. In a quick way, Chef’d was able to let customers
know what sets them apart from the competition. As seen in the screengrab below, there are
images, text, and a button to try to convince the audience to shop for some of its products. I like
how they got a lot of information across by including relevant images and dividing the
information up into three short columns.
Lastly, the average visit duration for Chef’d was 3:15
(min). Some things that Chef’d is doing well for this
metric is by having a live chat available on all of its
pages. Just filling out this feature, as shown in the
screengrab to the right, takes time. The chat itself could
also continue to keep consumers on the site because once
a question is asked and answered, it may lead them to
another page of the site if they get the answer they are looking for. Something else that Chef’d
does that could increase time on the site is

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by having lots of detailed information about each meal offered. Providing things such as the
ingredients, allergens, nutrition information, and reviews can all keep the user engaged for a
longer amount of time. One last way that Chef’d keeps users on its site is by having customer
reviews for almost every recipe. When shopping online, reviews can sometimes sway the
decision of a buyer. Having this user created content on the site allows for customers to see what
others are saying about the product. Reading through these reviews could keep people engaged
in the content of the site and result in them staying on the site for a longer amount of time. As
seen in the screengrab below, Chef’d lists the overall rating, how many total reviews there are,
and the top review of that particular recipe. A viewer can choose to view all of the reviews if
desired, which I think is a great aspect of this section of the website. Some companies try to hide
their reviews in case negative ones appear, but by having the option to view all of them, I think
the consumer will trust the company more as a result.
 HelloFresh.com Engagement Data: To remind you of the engagement data,
HelloFresh.com had a 33.13% bounce rate, 6.17 pages were viewed per visit, and 3:26 was the
average visit duration. Starting with bounce rate, I found a few potential reasons why someone
would exit the site after only viewing one page. On its home page, HelloFresh lists the weekly

25. Johnson 25
menu for each plan that it offers. If a visitor looked through the meals and did not see anything
that looked appealing to them, they might exit the site. The majority of people only care about
themselves, so if they see any indication on the front page that this product/offering is not for
them, they likely will not waste their time looking through the rest of the site. However, the
home page does not have too much information on it, so I think that is something that HelloFresh
is doing well. If a page is overwhelming to look at, it is likely that some will immediately leave.
Because HelloFresh’s site is organized and pleasing to the eye, I think this also helps decrease
the chance that someone will bounce. Next, the pages viewed per visit was 6.17. One thing that I
noticed on the home page is that HelloFresh gives the consumer four opportunities to view its
meal plan options. However, it presents this information in four different ways in order to appeal
to various types of customers. HelloFresh uses the phrase “Hello to Easy Home Cooking” from
the start to try to draw the viewer in to look at the meal plans. But, the site also describes what is
in each box, the weekly menu, and lists the words “Get Cooking” at the bottom of the page to get
consumers to click on the link and see the meal plans offered. By going to these extreme efforts,
HelloFresh almost forces the viewer to view the meal plan page and dig deeper into its site. One
other thing that HelloFresh does that could be increasing its pages viewed per visit is by
explaining how its meal plan process works right under “the fold” of the home page. This is the
first item a person sees after scrolling down on the home page and I think it is a smart idea to do
so. If a customer already knows how it works prior to coming to the site, he/she is likely already
engaged in the site. However, by explaining these three steps in an organized fashion in the
screengrab below, it engages those customers who are new to the site by encouraging them to

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click the button and learn more about HelloFresh.
Lastly, I will be speculating on what HelloFresh does well and what it could improve on for its
average visit duration. HelloFresh is able to keep people on its site because of certain features
they make available to the customers. They have a chat that is available on every page in case
visitors have any questions as they navigate through the site. Taking the time to fill out this form
and waiting for a response adds to the person’s visit duration. Like mentioned earlier, getting a
response from customer support can lead anyone further into the site and increase the visit
duration. Something else that HelloFresh does well is showing its products in use on its website.
When a meal is clicked on, there is a list of ingredients, allergens, nutrition information, utensils
needed, and most importantly, instructions on how to make that recipe. Reading these
instructions could lessen the overall time on the site because it can give users the information
needed to make a potential purchase decision, which is a positive thing. In the screengrab below,
HelloFresh not only includes images containing ingredients, but those with hands, showing the
customer what it looks like to execute the recipes. After looking at these instructions, a person

27. Johnson 27
should know whether or not he/she could make this recipe. The visit duration could increase by a
lot if the consumer needs to browse through other recipes, or it could barely increase if he/she
decides to purchase a meal plan. Even with these good engagements for visit duration, I found
one thing that HelloFresh could improve on. Within its meals and site, there could have been a
lot more user-generated content. I noticed many meals did not have reviews attached to them and
even if they did, visitors cannot read the reviews. They can only see the overall rating of the
meal, which can be hard to trust without seeing the written words from an actual buyer. There
are only four reviews written by consumers that are visible on the site and they are all five stars.
If HelloFresh provided access to additional reviews from the buyers on its site, it would engage
its visitors even more.
 Comparisons: The engagement data between chefd.com and HelloFresh.com has some
similarities and some differences. The bounce rates of Chef’d and HelloFresh were 5.5%
different, with HelloFresh having the higher rate at 33.13% and Chef’d having the lower rate at
27.63%. As mentioned earlier, for retail and content sites, the lower the bounce rate, the better.
But when comparing chefd.com and HelloFresh.com to the web averages, they are both under
average. Since they are under average, it means each of these sites are engaging their consumers
from the start more effectively than the average retail or content sites, which is a positive. The

28. Johnson 28
page views per visit is 4.13 for Chef’d and 6.17 for HelloFresh, so HelloFresh averages just over
two more page views per visit. When compared to the web average, Chef’d falls short of it by
.47, while HelloFresh is 1.57 pages above it. Since HelloFresh is pretty far above average for this
section, it proves that the company is doing something different to gain more page views per
visit. I will speculate on this in the next section. The average visit durations for Chef’d and
HelloFresh were 3:15 and 3:26, so this data was very similar. The web average was 3:10, so both
Chef’d and HelloFresh were above the average. Like I mentioned earlier, both long and short
average visit durations can be positive or negative based on the situation. Since Chef’d and
HelloFresh are close to the average, I think both sites are engaging customers enough to the point
where after about three minutes, customers know what purchase decision to make.
For each of the three metrics, (bounce rate, page views per visit, and average visit
duration) there was one company that had better engagement than the other. There are some
reasons why I think each site did better or worse for each metric. Starting with bounce rate,
Chef’d had the better rate by 5.5%. One reason this could be is because Chef’d has a slideshow
right underneath the header that features some of its meals and collections. Since this is the first
thing that a visitor sees on the site, it immediately engages them with the content because
different information is being provided to them every couple seconds. HelloFresh just has a static
image as the first part of its home page, so the reader must scroll or click on a link to find out
additional information about its offerings. Another possible explanation for Chef’d having the
better rate is that it has a search bar available. Many consumers, including myself, do not want to
waste time looking for what we want to find on a website. If people notice that there is no search
bar available, they may not even give the website a shot, and exit it immediately. When looking
at page views per visit, HelloFresh has about two more than Chef’d. Like I just mentioned, not
having a search bar could increase the page views that a person has when visiting this site, but I

29. Johnson 29
believe there are other factors that affected this engagement metric as well. First off, HelloFresh
does not have one page that lists every meal offered like Chef’d does. HelloFresh has a recipe
archive, but when people land on this page, they are given categories of meals to choose from.
So, people must go to multiple different pages to potentially find the recipe they are looking for.
Chef’d, on the other hand, has a page that lists every meal that it offers, so that only requires one
page view. Another possibility why HelloFresh has more page views could be because the
company, as mentioned before, offers other items besides meal plans. Some users may want to
buy a meal plan, a wine plan, and kitchenware, which would require visiting three different
pages. Since Chef’d sticks to just meal kits/plans, this results in less page views. The last metric,
average visit duration, was very similar between the two companies. HelloFresh had a time (in
minutes) of 3:26, while Chef’d had a time of 3:15. Even with these numbers being close,
HelloFresh still had a longer visit duration. There are a couple of reasons as to why I think this is
the case. First, if a visitor is new to one of these sites, he/she will most likely try to figure out
how meal plans or meal kits work. HelloFresh goes into much more detail about the process and
what all is involved when it comes to ordering a meal plan. Chef’d quickly gives an overview
and does not even have a separate page, but just a pop up, for this section. So, the user would
spend a little more time on HelloFresh’s website reading about how the process works when
compared to Chef’d. One other possibility could be that since meals can be bought individually
at Chef’d, if consumers only want one meal kit and know what they want, it does not take much
time to add one meal to the cart and purchase it. If customers are buying a meal plan from
HelloFresh, they do not have the option to purchase an individual meal kit, so the process could
take a little bit more time. Again, since these numbers were so close, these are just small things
that could potentially affect the few second difference.

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Link to SlideShare:

31. Johnson 31
Works Cited
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1012741174. Accessed 20 Jan. 2018.
“Chef’d Partners with Tops Markets.” Specialtyfood, 27 Nov. 2017.
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Fiegerman, Seth. “Blue Apron lays off hundreds just months after IPO.” CNN, 18 Oct. 2017.
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Hofbauer, Randy. “Gelson’s to Sell Chef’d Meal Kits in Stores.” Progressivegrocer, 28 Aug.
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Judkis, Maura. “The meal-kit industry is at a crossroads.” TheWashingtonPost, 9 Oct. 2017.
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will-it-ever-figure-out-what-we-really-want/2017/10/06/74f239cc-842a-11e7-ab27-
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Taylor, Kate. “Amazon’s Blue Apron knock-off is live – and it’s already selling out.”
BusinessInsider, 18 Jul. 2017. http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-fresh-blue-apron-
knock-off-is-live-2017-7. Accessed 20 Jan. 2018.
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