What happened

It's fair to say that Blue Apron Holdings (APRN) hasn't been a popular stock for most of its five years on the market. This week has been a different story, though -- S&P Global Market Intelligence data reveals that the meal kit purveyor's share price has bubbled nearly 24% higher week to date as of late Thursday. A quarter that broadly met analyst expectations and a fresh, bullish take from an analyst were the key ingredients in that rise.

So what

Blue Apron has a history of posting notably deeper-than-expected misses, particularly on the bottom line. In light of that, the company's latest set of quarterly figures (released at the start of the week) were rather encouraging.

For the period, Blue Apron managed to eke out some marginal growth in revenue, to slightly over $124.2 million from second-quarter 2021's $124.0 million. Heading a bit in the opposite direction was the average revenue per customer metric; this fell, not drastically, to $328 from the year-ago $330.

A harder stumble came on the bottom line, where the habitually loss-making company booked a loss of more than $23 million ($0.68 per share) against the previous second quarter's shortfall of nearly $19 million.

Now what

Technically, those headline figures represented misses for Blue Apron, but the whiffs were slight for the typically wide swinger. On average, analysts tracking the specialty food stock were modeling just under $124.9 million for revenue and a per-share net loss of $0.64.

Following that earnings release, analyst Ryan Myers of Lake Street Capital Markets initiated coverage on Blue Apron stock. He unhesitatingly calls it a buy with a price target of $9 per share. That's more than double its current level.

In a research note, the prognosticator singled out the efforts of current CEO Linda Findley. In Myers' view, upon her 2019 ascension, Findley sharpened the company's marketing push and successfully expanded its menu, among other adjustments. These led to notable growth in average revenue per customer, which despite the recent year-over-year decline is trending well above pre-pandemic levels.