Nestlé paid $950M for Freshly — then switched off the meal deliveries

Freshly, founded in 2012 by Michael Wystrach and Carter Comstock, delivered prepared, ready-to-heat meals — not kits to cook — across the contiguous United States. At its pandemic peak it shipped more than a million meals a week, and in October 2020 Nestlé bought the company for about $950 million, with up to $550 million more in earn-out payments on top.

The habit did not survive the pandemic. As restaurants reopened, customer retention fell, and inflation in 2022 pushed cash-strapped subscribers to cancel. Nestlé chief executive Mark Schneider conceded that a pure direct-to-consumer model was 'too narrow' unless it was truly premium or fully personalized. A November 2022 merger of Freshly with Nestlé's Kettle Cuisine venture failed to stop the slide, and kitchens began closing — including the Savage, Maryland centre, which shut in December 2022 with 454 jobs lost.

In late December 2022 Freshly announced it was ending meal deliveries altogether: last orders were accepted on 17 January 2023 and the final boxes shipped on 21 January. Nestlé kept the merged Kettle Cuisine entity, redirecting Freshly's kitchens toward fresh food for retail and food-service customers. In May 2023 former investors sued Nestlé over the unpaid earn-outs.