Markets Insider

Blue Apron shares fell below $1 for the first time on Tuesday.

The company's initial public offering priced at $10 in June 2017.

Amazon bought Whole Foods just days before Blue Apron's IPO and then soon after announced it was entering the meal-kit space.

Watch Blue Apron trade live.

Blue Apron became a penny stock Tuesday, falling below the $1 mark for the first time as a publicly traded company. Shares touched a low of $0.88 — down more than 90% from their $10 initial-public-offering price in June 2017.

The meal-kit maker has had a rough go of things since announcing its plans for a public listing. First Amazon announced plans to buy Whole Foods, causing Blue Apron to slash its IPO range to $10 to $11 a share, down from $15 to $17, as investors fretted over the competition such a deal would bring. Then, less than a month later, Amazon rolled out its meal-kit business.

But that was only the beginning of Blue Apron's problems. In May of this year, with the stock already trading near $2.75, the banks that took the company public said shares were worth only $3 apiece.

And a few months later, Blue Apron announced it was having trouble keeping its customers. It said that its total number of customers plunged by 24% in the second quarter versus last year and that revenue per customer dipped by $1 to $250.

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