Credit Cards

Blue Apron Announces Co-Branded Credit Card with Aspiration

A popular meal kit service and a FinTech banking platform are coming together for a new credit card offering. Blue Apron has announced that it will be launching a co-branded credit card with Aspiration next year. The Blue Apron Aspiration Zero Card will allow customers to earn rewards on purchases from the meal kit service’s site or app. Additionally, for every qualifying purchase made on the card, Aspiration will plant a tree. Cardholders can unlock an additional tree planted by also rounding their purchases to the nearest dollar and donating the change.

According to a press release, beyond the Blue Apron specific benefits, the card will also offer everything the recently-launched Aspiration Zero card does. Among those benefits is the ability to earn 1% cashback on purchases if customers make 60 purchases on the card per month (which Aspiration says should help them to be carbon neutral based on the number of planted trees their purchases will yield). However, the normal Zero card carried a $60 annual fee and it’s unclear whether the Blue Apron edition will follow suit.

This actually isn’t the first time that Blue Apron and Aspiration have partnered up. The meal kit service has been a main member of the Conscience Coalition, which includes other socially and environmentally conscious companies, such as Warby Parker and TOMS among others. Aspiration debit card customers can earn up to 10% cashback on purchases from Conscience Coalition businesses including Blue Apron.

As Blue Apron’s Chief Marketing Officer Dani Simpson explains, news of co-branded card comes ahead of a major milestone for the company. Simpson stated, “As we kick off our tenth anniversary in 2022, we want to recognize our best and most loyal customers—some who have been with us since we shipped our first box.”

Aspiration CEO Andrei Cherny commented on the unique offering, stating, “This first-of-its-kind partnership in the meal-kit industry showcases the alignment of the Aspiration and Blue Apron visions. We couldn’t be happier to partner with Blue Apron around not only rewarding their customers financially but also helping those customers have a positive and effortless impact on the environment.”

The idea of Blue Apron and Aspiration teaming up for a co-branded card is definitely interesting — especially seeing as the product is basically a different “flavor” of Aspiration’s Zero card. However, there are some details yet to be released, including what level of rewards customers can earn on Blue Apron purchases. It also stands to reason that this version of the Zero card will also carry an annual fee, which could be a deal-breaker for some. Nevertheless, this niche offering could prove to be part of a new trend also embraced by companies like Cardless. In the case of this cooking kit credit card, we’ll have to wait until 2022 to see how things pan out.