Cooking inside the box Meal-delivery kits offer convenience and choice, but how good do they taste? By: Eva Wasney Posted: 6:00 AM CDT Wednesday, Jun. 26, 2024 Last Modified: 11:55 AM CDT Wednesday, Jun. 26, 2024 Updates

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/06/2024 (461 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Meal kits spiked in popularity during the pandemic — when grocery shopping and cooking both felt like tall tasks — and have maintained a fan base for their convenience.

I missed the height of the meal-kit craze, but was curious to find out how these subscription delivery services might fit into my own home cooking and if they were worth the hype.

I ordered meals from three of the biggest brands in Canada — HelloFresh, Chefs Plate and Goodfood — and one local approximation, Prairie Box.

Overall, the experience was surprisingly enjoyable. The food quality was, generally, pretty high and it was exciting to try new recipes every night. The convenience factor was the biggest draw. I was able to forgo meal planning and grocery shopping for the better part of a month. Dinner decisions were as easy as opening the fridge.

While scratch cooking is still my preference, I would consider purchasing meal kits in the future during particularly hectic times of the year.

The big three have a lot in common: huge menu databases with rotating weekly meal options, user-friendly recipes with photos and step-by-step instructions, doorstep delivery with insulated packaging. All have web- and app-based ordering platforms with the option to pause subscriptions. Cancelling outright is a simple process.

The ease and convenience, however, comes at a cost. The amount of packaging included in most of the kits was downright mind-boggling. I died a little inside when I had to open a vacuum-sealed bag containing five individual sprigs of cilantro. Our garbage overflowed with many, many plastic bags and our recycling bin with cardboard boxes. Scissors — to snip open the aforementioned bags — became our most-used utensil. Like anything, meal kits are a personal cost-benefit analysis.

Save for Prairie Box, all of the subscription prices listed below are for three meals per week for two people. Each company offers some form of introductory discount. The number of menu options are based on availability at the time of ordering.

 

HelloFresh

Weekly subscription: $77.94 (plus $10.99 shipping)
Price per meal: $12.99
Menu options: 44

HelloFresh is the biggest name in the meal kit game. It’s a global company with eight subsidiary meal-kit brands — one of which is Chefs Plate, below — and four Canadian distribution centres in Brampton and Mississauga, Ont., Abbotsford, B.C., and Edmonton. Orders are delivered

This was the first kit we received and while I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the fresh ingredients, I was unconvinced that each meal would be enough food for two people. Thankfully, I was wrong, but barely. We ended up sated, but there were definitely no leftovers to speak of.

Our order included grilled Turkish-inspired pork chops, vegan tofu taquitos and carb smart beef koftas. Everything was well-seasoned and the sides complemented the mains. The koftas were our favourite, the taquitos our least, thanks to the inclusion of gummy, plant-based mozzarella.

There were limited vegetarian dishes when we ordered and while you can swap proteins for most dishes, the modifications don’t get much more granular. Hence the faux cheese.

The recipes worked as described and the pre-portioned ingredients reduced the prep time significantly. However, the instructions can get a little convoluted since they include quantities for both the two- and four-person versions of the dish.

Selecting weekly meals is a bit of a headache since there isn’t an option to narrow down the field by preference or dietary requirement. The process takes a lot of checking and scrolling.

Main takeaways: HelloFresh offers a middle ground between cost and variety.

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Chefs Plate

Weekly subscription: $59.94 (plus $4.99 shipping)
Price per meal: $9.99
Menu options: 26

Chefs Plate is the budget brand of HelloFresh. While the latter boasts food waste reduction as its main selling point, the former promotes cost savings. Living under the HelloFresh umbrella also means Chefs Plate suffers from the same shortcomings.

The online experience is near identical, as is the packaging. Both boxes come with water ice packs, which you can empty in the drain; and recyclable or compostable insulation. While the components for each meal are packed in paper bags, most of the individual ingredients are packed in plastic.

The meatball mac and cheese was a home run, the black bean burrito bowls were fine and the “larb-inpsired” pork salad was a cloyingly sweet, Westernized fever dream of the Laotian staple. The ingredient ratios also seemed way off for the latter, with far too much salad dressing and too many carrots.

The Chefs Plate menu options seemed less exciting overall when compared with the other kits. At the same time, the meals were generally easier to prepare, with fewer steps and less equipment needed.

Main takeaways: Chefs Plate is the cheapest option, but the menu is the most basic and the recipes are the least inventive.

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Goodfood

Weekly subscription: $92.94 (plus $9.99 shipping)
Price per meal: $15.49
Menu options: 67

Goodfood is a Canadian meal kit company with distribution centres in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. While it’s the priciest of the national delivery services, the portions are larger and the food is the most interesting by leaps and bounds.

The company touts “restaurant-quality” recipes and regularly partners with prominent chefs and food influencers to create new menu items. When choosing a meal plan, there are more options to drill down on preferences, such as cooking style and spice tolerance.

Our order included a cheese-stuffed beef burger with buttery brioche bun, grilled tilapia with a creamy green goddess and a tofu farfalle pasta dish. The produce was high quality, aside from some middling green beans.

The mains tasted great but the sides often felt like an afterthought — the burger, for example, was served with a salad consisting of lettuce, carrots and apple slices dressed in oil, vinegar and the same spices in the patty. Très boring.

Restaurant-quality can also be code for complicated. That pasta dish was the most complex meal we made and the instructions don’t always follow a logical progression.

Goodfood loses points for its packaging. Everything is bagged in plastic with liquids and condiments packed in various-sized hard plastic screw-top containers. After only three meals we had accumulated nearly a dozen little receptacles.

The company also sends too many emails. While all of the large meal kit makers engage in intense email marketing, Goodfood’s efforts are next level. And not in a good way.

Main takeaways: Goodfood offers the most substantial portion sizes and the highest-calibre meal options, but the quality comes with a hefty price tag and a side of eco-anxiety.

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Prairie Box

Weekly subscription: $47.96 to $71.96 for four meals (plus $8 shipping)
Price per meal: $11.99 to $17.99
Menu options: 24

There’s no cooking with Prairie Box. The Winnipeg-owned meal delivery service and its sister company, 204 Meal Prep, offer pre-prepared dishes designed to be reheated in the microwave or oven. Orders can be picked up or delivered from the company’s King Edward Street hub.

While it was by far the most convenient option of the bunch with the least packaging waste, the food left something to be desired.

The menu has decent variety, but doesn’t appear to change as often as the larger meal kit providers. We ordered the vegetarian buddha bowl, Filipino-style barbecue pork, chicken shawarma and butter chicken. The flavours were fine, if a little bland, and the portion sizes were OK, if a little small.

My main gripe is with the one-size-fits-all reheating instructions, which don’t account for ingredient variations between dishes. Several meals came with side sauces or fresh vegetables that either had to be removed prior to microwaving or eaten hot — steamed cucumbers are no bueno.

Prairie Box doesn’t have a set weekly subscription price. Rather, subscribers are charged based on the price of their individual meal selections and receive a discount that grows relative to the number of dishes in their order. There’s also a one-time purchase option for occasional users and cheaper meals for seniors. The company’s marketing is far less spammy than the big three.

Main takeaways: Prairie Box is ideal for those with very limited time and/or cooking facilities. Meals are prepared and delivered locally with minimal packaging, making this the most eco-friendly choice.

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

X: @evawasney