There might be a future for meal-kits after all
Years after its pandemic heyday, the meal-kit market has matured—forcing some brands to adapt or get left behind.
In recent years, meal-kit companies have received less investment attention. At the same time, the high cost of these subscriptions have proved to be a barrier to Canadians as the average cost of living rises. Add to that thin margins and complicated logistics and it’s no surprise the industry has had to recalibrate.
Those pressures can be seen playing out at Montreal-based Goodfood, which recently received creditor protection as it looks to restructure.
The HelloFresh Group—the largest meal-kit brand in the world—reported a 7.8% decline in revenue in its second quarter, as its meal-kits segment revenue fell 8.9% year-over-year.
Meanwhile, revenue stemming from the company’s new ventures—including its online subscription premium meat and seafood service Good Shop and its dog food brand The Pet’s Table—increased 36.1%.
HelloFresh is also investing in its new ready-to-eat meals brand, Factor Meals. In June, the company opened a 50,000-sq.-ft kitchen and distribution centre in Calgary to support the brand’s expansion into Western Canada.
Sylvain Charlebois, senior director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University in Halifax, says the meal-kit market peaked in 2021.
“It has since retracted,” he says. “So, you have to right-size the industry, and unfortunately, Goodfood had to pay the price. I don’t know if Goodfood will survive, but I do think there is a market for meal-kits.”
Charlebois points to people’s need for menu inspiration and convenience, along with less food waste, as reasons for meal-kits’ staying power.
“It’s not going to disappear,” he says, adding that he sees potential in small-scale regional meal-kit brands.
“The key for them is to promote local and Canadian ingredients. That seems to be the flavour of the year—or maybe two years. That is certainly an advantage that meal-kit providers will have to consider.”
Matt MacDonald, national leader, food and beverage processing at MNP, shares a similar view.
“Early on, some of the meal-kit companies could do no wrong, and some of that was perpetuated by Covid,” says MacDonald. “It’s not that the meal-kit trend died, it’s that there was a significantly increased supply and it did not match demand.”
Food tech's next phase
In its new Sightline report, CFIN observed a broader shift toward investment in “behind-the-shelf” technologies rather than consumer-facing ones.
While delivery apps, meal-kits and restaurant tech defined food technology’s image for the better part of a decade in Canada, they have “all but disappeared” from the funding picture so far in 2026, CFIN’s report said.
“Whether or not those firms are maturing and increasingly moving out of the private equity space into more traditional financing could be part of it,” says Alexandra Barlow, vice president of programs at the Canadian Food Innovation Network.
In the first half of 2026, $58.6 million (or 93.4%) of all tracked food-tech investment went to manufacturing technology, food safety, traceability and next-generation food and ingredients. Consumer-facing categories accounted for just 1.8% of tracked investment.
Food manufacturing technologies drew the most capital, with $26 million across six deals. Two involved Montreal-based Relocalize, which builds autonomous micro-factories that make ice and cold packs directly at distribution and fulfillment centres, and Gastronomous, which designs AI-powered commercial kitchen automation.
A major opportunity MacDonald sees ahead is greater investment in automation. He notes that RBC, through its venture arm RBCx, recently announced a $1.4 billion investment to Canadian technology companies, and he believes food tech will get a slice of the pie. In addition, Farm Credit Canada made a commitment to invest $2 billion to advance Canadian ag-tech innovation by 2030.
“It’s good to see some of the larger organizations writing cheques,” says MacDonald, noting that some food-tech investments can require significant capital. “You might need $5 million to buy one piece of equipment,” he says.
CFIN’s Barlow notes that meal-kit companies have struggled with automation and production technology. “It’s really hard to bag ten small packets of broccoli, for example,” she says. “So, it’s about scaling operations to meet that.”
Barlow notes that Relocalize is looking at how it can help meal-kit companies with its on-site ice and cold pack solution. “You may think the ice pack that comes with your meal-kit is somewhat ubiquitous or not that interesting, but there’s quite a cost to managing those and keeping them cold at your site,” says Barlow.
For meal-kit companies, she adds that there’s an opportunity to examine their supply chains and find new solutions.
“They themselves were a disruption in how we purchase and consume food,” Barlow says. “But because their needs are quite niche and highly specialized, they’ve got a lot of opportunities to now build out some technology on their plant floor to drive up more margin gain and profitability capture.”
