Blue Apron Holdings Inc APRN IPO in late June couldn't have come at a worse time.
The company sells to consumers a food delivery kit, but it's far from alone in the space and faces competition from several other startups. An even bigger threat is the possibility of Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN leveraging its proposed acquisition of Whole Foods Market, Inc. WFM to conquer the space given its much bigger scale and resources.
The mere possibility of Amazon entering the meal kit delivery space has kept Blue Apron's stock notably below its $10 offering price. The stock was down another 10 percent Monday morning and dipped below $7.00 per share for the first time ever as investor concerns may have been confirmed.
Amazon Files For Trademark
A subsidiary of Amazon, Amazon Technologies Inc., signaled in a trademark application on July 6 that it may soon sell "prepared food kits composed of meat, poultry, fish, seafood, fruit and/or and [sic] vegetables...ready for cooking and assembly as a meal," TheStreet reported.
If that isn't sufficient evidence that Amazon is preparing to enter the space, the product's tagline reads: "We do the prep. You be the chef."
Shortly after the opening bell, Blue Apron was trading at $6.52, down 11.3 percent.
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