Grubby meal kits

Source: Grubby

The kits include all the fresh and ambient ingredients needed to make a vegan meal in less than 30 minutes

Plant-based DTC recipe kit brand Grubby has made its retail debut via an exclusive tie-up with Tesco.

Three specially designed meal kits – Aubergine Thai Green Curry, Curried Coconut Dahl, Crispy Gnocchi Puttanesca (all rsps: £9.95) – have hit shelves in the retailer today (2 October), with more to come.

They include all the fresh and ambient ingredients needed to make a vegan meal for two in less than 30 minutes, packaged in 100% recyclable cardboard boxes.

The meal kits are being merchandised on a dedicated branded display as part of Tesco’s Dinner Tonight strategy, which aims to make it easier for shoppers to make quick and healthy meals.

“Grubby fitted really nicely into our Dinner Tonight strategy within produce,” said a Tesco spokeswoman.

“Plant-based is also a high-growth category for us, and it’s important we make it as accessible as possible for Tesco customers, which Grubby does perfectly.”

Grubby CEO Martin Holden-White said he was “incredibly excited to lead the recipe kit movement into UK retail with the launch into Tesco”.

“Eighty per cent of Grubby customers are not vegan: they’re meat reducers or simply people who want to build more plants into their diets for the benefit of their health and the planet, so the opportunity is massive.”

The Tesco launch was “a fantastic milestone to making cooking with plants accessible to everyone”, Holden-White added.

It comes after Grubby partnered with vegan chef duo Bosh earlier this year to offer its customers ready-to-prepare ingredient packs of the pair’s most popular recipes.

Grubby was founded by Holden-White as a B2B service in 2019, delivering to offices. However, when the first Covid-19 lockdown was enforced in 2020, Holden-White was forced to pivot to a DTC model.

To date, the brand claims to have served up one million meals to 56,000 customers.