Home Meal Delivery Service Reviews

A few months ago, on June 16^th, Amazon announced the acquisition of Whole Foods for $13.8bn. For many, this wasn’t seen as a huge surprise considering that Amazon has been aggressively expanding their “Prime Pantry” section of their business. If you aren’t privy to what ‘Prime Pantry’ is, then all you need to know is that it’s the grocery section of Amazon where you can purchase ingredients for delivery.

While it may seem foreign to some, the act of ordering ingredients or even prepared food online has been picking up steam over the last few years. For example, the leading company in the home food delivery industry is Blue Apron. When it comes to Blue Apron, as well as many other companies in this industry, you simply make an account, select your meal plan, and then wait for your delivery. When your order arrives, you’ll find a package with raw ingredients for your selected meal. With each meal order, you receive a recipe sheet which helps you prepare the meal from scratch.

You can even take it a step further by ordering healthy and lean meals from companies such as Sun Basket or Home Chef. Both companies provide an extensive vegetarian, vegan, paleo, soy-free or gluten-free meals. In addition, these two companies stand behind providing strictly organic and non-GMO produce.

Let’s take a look at how much a meal at a food delivery company costs. If you decide to order from Sun Basket, then you’ll be paying around $11.49 per serving. On the other hand, Home Chef charges $9.95 per serving – so a bit of a savings over Sun Basket.

Meal Selection:

A few meals that are available with Sun Basket:

A few meals that are available with Home Chef:

Before selecting your meals with either company, you will have the opportunity to view all the nutritional facts behind that meal, as well as the preparation steps.

For example, here is the nutrition facts for the “Ranch Steak and Jalapeno Popper Fritters” meal:

For this meal, if you’re watching your calories, you may just want to skip this meal. In that case, you would be most interested in the “Lean & Clean” meal plan by Sun Basket which offers the following per serving:

• No more than 550 calories per serving
• Minimum of 20g of protein per serving
• Minimum of 5g of fiber per serving
• No added sugar, gluten, diary or refined flour
• Less than 5g of saturated fat per serving
• Less than 800g of sodium per serving

Delivery

It’s common practice with home meal delivery companies to provide free shipping as long as you order 6 servings. Keep in mind, when you are selecting a meal, it will arrive with enough ingredients for two full servings – so you will have to order 3 meals if you want free shipping. When it comes to the actual delivery, you will typically select a specific day of the week to receive your meals. If you elect Tuesday’s to be that day, then you will consistently receive your meals on that day.

In the event that you are not home when the meals arrive, don’t fret! Nearly any reputable company, especially Sun Basket or Home Chef will carefully package dry ice with your meals so that they can stay cool for a longer period.

Promotional Codes

Even if you don’t intend to stay on as a customer of Home Chef or Sun Basket, I still recommend placing your first order with a coupon code. Both companies offer $30-$35 off your first order, so that means that each serving would only come out to around $5.00!

Sun Basket Review and $35 off Promo Code

Home Chef Review and $30 off Promo Code

Keep in mind that with either company, it’s very simple to cancel any future shipments. You simply log into your account with them, and cancel your ‘subscription’.

At a cost of $10-$12 a serving, using a home meal delivery service is costly if you intend to cook a meal every day of the week, but if you reserve such meals for 2-3 nights a week, it definitely makes more sense than going out for dinner. Cooking with your significant other is a fantastic bonding experience, especially when you don’t have to deal with the heartaches of shopping for groceries or figuring out the perfect recipe.