Everyone has heard of the meal subscription services. There are different companies popping up all of the time. I love the idea of having anything delivered to me. My trips to the grocery store with a 4 year old and one year old are just intermittent spats of insanity, let’s just be honest. A twenty minute trip to the grocery store turns into an hour between potty breaks, returning whatever they have thrown in the basket, and frequent sidebars of threats focused on taking away any bribe that was promised to them if they would behave. Anyone else with me? So the idea of food being delivered to my front door, yes please! By the way, there are now wine subscription services. I did mention the 4 year old and one year old, right?
The first two food boxes I am pitting head to head is Hello Fresh and The Green Chef. Both meal subscription services offer different meal plans. Meal plans differ in meal size and meal type. HelloFresh offers three different meal plans at different price points. Their options are veggie box, classic box, and family box. Each of these options come in varying meal sizes, and the prices range from $39 to $109. The Green Chef have more options available. They offer omnivore, carnivore, gluten-free, and paleo menus. Within the menu options at Green Chef, subscribers can purchase 2, 4, or 6 person meals.
I ordered comparable meal plans from both companies. From HelloFresh, I ordered the classic box with 3 meals for 2 people. I did have a promotional code, and I paid $39 for the box instead of the regular $69 for this plan. From The Green Chef, I ordered the carnivore box with 3 meals for 2 people. Again I encountered a promotional code, I received my first box absolutely free! The promotional codes are not hard to find on the internet.
Round 1 – Goes to The Green Chef with the bests options and best promotional codes.
HellloFresh
So let’s talk about the deliveries. Delivery time was the same with both companies. Each company’s deliveries arrived with proper packaging and at an adequate temperature. In my Hello Fresh delivery, each meal was in a separately labeled box. The Green Chef’s meals arrived with every ingredient in a separate plastic package, labeled, and color coordinating with one of three recipes. At first glance, I thought I would not like the Green Chef method of packaging, but I actually prefer it. First, it is easier to find room in your refrigerator for the small plastic bags instead of the boxes. Secondly, the packaging takes up less room in the garbage. In addition, the Green Chef uses a jute packing material that is all natural and can be repurposed for other uses, such as compost. Read more on the jute packing on the Green Chef blog.
The Green Chef
Round 2 – Green Chef wins again.
What does everyone really want to know? Is the food good? Each delivery had three meals that fed two people. A recipe card was supplied for each meal with both companies. I preferred the recipe cards that were enclosed with the Hello Fresh meals. Even though the ingredients are proportioned with each service, the recipe cards included with the Hello Fresh meals printed the full recipe on the card. Additionally, the Hello Fresh cards broke the recipe down specifically for 2 people and 4 people. The benefit being you could save your favorite recipe cards for use another day. The Green Chef recipe cards did not list the entire recipe but did provide a link where you could find the recipe. I prefer to the have the card handy.
The ingredients are organic and fresh, mostly. Some of the vegetables in the Hello Fresh box were not as fresh and other vegetables did not stay fresh throughout the week. The Green Chef did not have any ingredients that did not seem fresh and all the ingredients sustained the duration of the week. Although both services advertise 3 meals for two people, more food comes with the Green Chef meals. There were larger portions of food, and the meals were heartier. We were happy with the larger portion of food included with the Green Chef because we loved their food! We wanted seconds! The meal presentations were more pleasing. There was only one of the Hello Fresh meals that we enjoyed. One meal was even quite bland.
Round 3 – No big surprise, the Green Chef.
Obviously, we loved the Green Chef. I would definitely purchase from this company again. The Green Chef hit it out of the park with price, packaging, and taste. On a side note, I purchased several boxes of Hello Fresh about a yntear ago, and we enjoyed those meals. It seems like something has change in the service, and the service quality has declined.
Meal delivery is not something that fits into my lifestyle all the time. However, I do think it is kind of nice to have everything planned out and waiting on me from time to time. Anyone have any suggestions on the next two meal subscriptions to place head to head? Anyone have a favorite meal delivery service?
1 Comment
Maria Smith
October 21, 2017 at 3:30 pmThank you very much for your blog.
I enjoyed reading this article.