blue apron was founded in 2012 premised on a simple desire—our founders wanted to cook at home with their families, but they found grocery shopping and menu planning burdensome, time-consuming, and expensive. our founders hand-packed the first blue apron boxes themselves, delivered them to family and friends, and received immediate positive feedback. since those initial deliveries, we have scaled rapidly, developing our expertise and an ever-more ambitious vision. we are reimagining the way that food is produced, distributed, and consumed, and as a result, building a better food system that benefits consumers, food producers, and the planet. the nature of our business carries with it unique and exciting challenges, and our employees working across our fives offices, take on these complexities to ensure each customer receives the highest quality product every week. our core product is the cooking experience we help our customers create. central to these experiences are the original reci