Dive Brief:
- HelloFresh and Cigna Healthcare announced Wednesday a collaboration offering discounted access to the meal kit company’s offerings.
- Cigna Healthcare employer clients can choose from numerous HelloFresh offerings with no minimum purchase amount required, including e-gift cards, discounted meal kit subscriptions and one-time box deliveries with no subscription required.
- Partnerships with healthcare providers are becoming more common across the industry as grocers and food retailers continue to more closely tie their businesses to consumer health initiatives.
Dive Insight:
As many as 12 million Cigna Healthcare customers through their employers are eligible to receive HelloFresh’s meal-kit options at an exclusive discounted rate, according to the announcement.
The tie-up with Cigna Healthcare, the health benefits division of The Cigna Group, aims to make HelloFresh meal kits available as “a healthcare benefit,” Adam Kalikow, senior vice president and managing director of meal kits at HelloFresh U.S., said in a statement.
In December 2023, Cigna Healthcare and its health equity team collaborated with select employer clients based in underserved communities to provide nearly 3,500 HelloFresh meals to employees around the holidays. Now, in this latest tie-up and in addition to the discounted meal kit offerings, Cigna Healthcare and HelloFresh will support Meals with Meaning, a social impact program that provides free meal kits for individuals experiencing food insecurity.
Collaborations with healthcare providers are growing among food retailers as consumers continue to rely on them for health and wellness support.
Instacart announced last October that select post-operative and post-partum patients within the Mount Sinai Solution network are eligible to receive $110 in Fresh Funds to cover grocery delivery for “the episode of their care.”
Instacart Health has also recently announced programs aimed at supporting seniors, including a tie-up with payments provider InComm Payments that allows participating members of Medicare Advantage, Medicaid and other eligible programs to use plan-sponsored funds to buy qualifying groceries, wellness essentials and over-the-counter medications for delivery via Instacart.
