Blue Apron is slipping after laying off hundreds of workers

Blue Apron

Shares of Blue Apron are down 3.21% at $5.13 a piece after the company announced it would be laying off 6% of its workforce, or about 300 employees.

Blue Apron announced a "company-wide realignment of personnel to support its strategic priorities" in an 8-K submitted to the SEC on Wednesday. The company plans spend $3.5 million on severance packages.

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The layoffs included both positions in the company's corporate offices and fulfillment centers, according to the filing.

"Our leadership and Board did not take this decision lightly, and I want to assure you that we believe it was necessary as we focus the company on future growth and achieving profitability," CEO Matt Salzberg said in the letter.

Blue Apron went public on June 29 on this year and priced its first shares at $10. The company has been struggling since its initial public offering, with shares down 49% since.

The meal-kit company went public in the shadow of Amazon's $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods, which many analysts speculated was a move by Amazon to take market share from Blue Apron's business. Amazon has since launched its own meal-kit tests since buying Whole Foods.

Blue Apron reports its third-quarter earnings on November 2 and said the majority of the severance costs will fall in the fourth quarter.

Read more about the recent layoffs here...

Markets Insider