Jenny Craig Makes D2C Comeback With at-Home Delivery

Jenny Craig has officially been reborn as a direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand.

The company’s owner, Wellful, announced the relaunch Monday (Sept. 25), saying consumers can visit the Jenny Craig website and buy the company’s home-delivery plan.

“Our strong weight loss industry expertise, coupled with our proven success as an eCommerce company, made us extremely excited to acquire and launch the new Jenny Craig brand,” Steve Mikulak, president of Wellful’s Nutrisystem brand, said in a news release. “We preserved all the things that made Jenny Craig successful and that customers love most — the food, the structure, the program, the coaching — and integrated a sustainable business model. Today’s consumers simply expect products delivered quickly and easily to their door.”

Jenny Craig announced in May it had closed down in North America following weeks of news reports about its struggles.

“You may have heard the unfortunate news that Jenny Craig USA and Canada have closed and now filed for bankruptcy,” the company said on its Facebook page.

As PYMNTS wrote at the time, the announcement came ahead of a news release from Nutrisystem saying Jenny Craig’s closure “had brought the conversation of brick-and-mortar versus online operations to the forefront yet again.”

In July, Wellful announced it bought Jenny Craig’s assets and would revive it as an eCommerce company.

“People that have known the Jenny brand — the core aspects around the great food, the coaching, the overall program and the success they previously had — they can expect again,” Wellful CEO Brandon Adcock said at the time.

Meanwhile, there is growing demand for D2C meal delivery. PYMNTS Intelligence from the study “Connected Dining: Ready-to-Eat Meals Are Eating Restaurants’ Lunch,” showed that about 10% of consumers have ready-to-eat meals delivered to their house each month.

In addition, data from PYMNTS’ study “12 Months of the ConnectedEconomy™: 33,000 Consumers on Digital’s Role in Their Everyday Lives,” showed that nearly 1 in 3 consumers purchased meal kit subscriptions online, as of last November.

“Additionally, diet foods allow the D2C channel to do exactly what it is best for — find devoted followers for niche products that may not fare as well through traditional retail channels,” PYMNTS wrote in July. “After all, not all consumers are on a diet, and even among those who are, the dietary space is now so fragmented that it is difficult for any one player to reach a wide enough audience to perform well via traditional retail channels.”

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