Because it’s rude to leave out children, HelloFresh co-founder Dan Treiman has teamed up with Joanna and David Parker to launch a healthy prepared meal service for the little ones. Treiman, who joined the company last December, helped Yumble officially launch this past summer.
Yumble is currently live in 26 states on the east coast and has plans to expand to the west coast sometime in the first half of 2018, but “hopefully first quarter,” Parker said.
Yumble offers pre-prepared meals for breakfast and dinner — as well as snacks — with 22 available options per week. Yumble, which is subscription based, charges $7.99 per meal for six meals a week, $7.49 per meal for 12 and $6.99 per meal for 24.
“It’s very similar to the experience of HelloFresh or Blue Apron, but without any cooking required,” Parker said.
Competitors in this space include Scrumpt, a prepared lunch service for kids that’s currently available the San Francisco Bay Area, and Chicago-based startups Nurture Life and Wise Apple.
“From a customer standpoint, we’ve spent a lot of time and effort to make this fun and something kids really engage with,” Parker said. “I think our brand is very kid-first and fun.”
Yumble, for example, has some of its customers calling the company “the healthy happy meal for kids lunch,” Parker said. That’s because, in addition to fully cooked meals, each Yumble box comes with activity sheets, collectible reward coins and trivia cards for kids.
Meal kit services have been in the public light lately thanks to Blue Apron’s sub par performance on the public market. In light of that, HelloFresh recently revealed it’s planning to raise up to $353 million in an initial public offering. Perhaps meal services for children are the next big market for food startups.
To date Yumble has raised a $1.5 million seed round from a handful of investors, including Andy Appelbaum, co-founder of Seamless and current managing partner at RiverPark Ventures.