Using the data below, determine Kroger’s weekly stockturn rate for meal kits during one of the market tests. Refer to Analytic Ratios in Appendix 2, Marketing by the Numbers to learn how to calculate stockturn rate.

Half of Americans’ food dollars are spent eating out and many meals eaten at home are not actually cooked there, trends that are eating into grocery store sales. More recently, firms such as Blue Apron, Plated, HelloFresh, and others have begun delivering meal kits that include premeasured ingredients to be cooked at home, further eroding grocery store sales. Although the meal kit industry has exploded to $2 billion in annual sales, it has had problems achieving scale and profitability. To combat this, HelloFresh and Blue Apron are distributing meals kits through supermarkets and wholesale clubs. Other meal kit firms are being acquired by grocery chains.

For example, Kroger, the largest U.S. supermarket chain, purchased Home Chef, the largest privately-owned meal kit company. In addition to increasing its online delivery, Kroger also intends to sell meal kits in its stores. However, the meal kit business could be difficult for Kroger. Online subscription meal kit operators have found that it’s not good to offer too many recipe options. But how many different recipes are optimal? Kroger thinks that its no-subscription requirement and price ($14 to $18 for a two-person meal kit compared to $50 or more for regular home-delivery meal kits) will attract more sales. But finding the right balance of kit offerings and stocking levels is challenging. Not stocking enough merchandise—in this case varied meal kits—results in lost sales. But carrying too much inventory increases costs and lowers margins, especially because of perishability. Both conditions reduce profits. One measure of a reseller’s inventory management effectiveness is its stockturn rate (also called inventory turnover rate for manufacturers). Retailers want to realize a large volume of sales on as little inventory as possible while maintaining enough stock to meet customer demand. To determine this, Kroger ran several market tests in selected stores to determine the optimum inventory levels.