Blue Apron is laying off hundreds of workers (APRN)

pulse

October 18, 2017 10:21 PM

On Wednesday, Blue Apron laid off 6% of its total workforce, the company announced in a filing.

The meal-kit company is attempting a "realignment," the CEO said in a letter to employees.
The company has struggled since its disappointing IPO in June.

Blue Apron has laid off 6% of its total workforce, the company announced in an SEC filing on Wednesday.

The meal-kit delivery company had more than 5,000 employees across corporate offices and fulfillment centers when it went public in June. Using these figures, Blue Apron would have laid off roughly 300 employees on Wednesday.

"A company-wide realignment, like the one we announced, is always painful, and especially so for a close-knit team like ours," CEO Matt Salzberg said in a letter to employees on Wednesday.

Salzberg continued, saying the layoffs are part of a "roadmapping and reprioritization exercise," in which Blue Apron identified the need to reduce certain roles and streamline decision making.

Blue Apron did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Blue Apron has struggled since its disappointing IPO in June.

When Amazon filed a trademark application for "prepared food kits" on July 6, Blue Apron's stock sank 11%. Since then, meal-kit competition has only gotten more intense, with grocery company Albertsons acquiring the meal kit company Plated in September.

In August, news broke that the food-kit company had laid off 14 members of its recruitment team. Blue Apron also temporarily halted hiring of salaried employees, though it said it was continuing to hire hourly fulfillment center workers and some corporate employees.

"We have accomplished so much together over the past five years, and no words can adequately describe my appreciation for the work you do every day," Salzberg wrote in Wednesday's letter.

"I'm confident that the changes we made today will make our organization stronger and help us continue to improve the lives of our customers across the country."

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