- What's the best meal kit?
It's HelloFresh versus Home Chef versus Blue Apron
versus EveryPlate and so many other services you need
to know about, coming right up.
(light-hearted music)
Did I forget Sun Basket or Marley Spoon
or even the Amazon meal kit service?
Hey guys, I'm the deal guy Matt Granite.
I hunt down deals, I showcase savings.
From cutting your costs on every other department
of your life right now to avoiding grocery stores,
which I know a lot of people are trying to do.
We're staying inside,
we're trying to get good fresh food delivered to us.
I wanna show you not only what's inside one of the meal kits
and compare them side-by-side and also rank them.
But many meal kits right now
are not only inundated with orders,
they're not always taking new customers given
the current circumstances.
So I'm gonna show you who's taking, who's not
and then more importantly, where I would go
and what I would consider spending my money on.
Plus I'm gonna give you a full
side-by-side breakdown of cost.
Now, this is video is not something
where I'm gonna start cooking the recipes,
I've done that.
And if you click somewhere within this video window,
you're going to find a full unboxing
and comparison where I do cook a recipe.
But right now this is just about getting
the information into your hands.
And then also showing you some promotions tied
to these meal kit products.
So first things first, on mattsdailydeals.com right now,
you're welcome to join my email newsletter,
I give away everything that I test whenever I can
and that'll increase your eligibility.
You'll see the deals, the blogs, the coupons,
they're all there.
For all of these services,
I'm not using any affiliate links,
no company is paying me to talk about them.
I'm just merely trying to advocate for you guys.
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if you like the content.
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to help you save money.
So first things first, the Amazon meal kits right now
have suspended inventory at
the time I'm recording this video.
That is just due to increased demand.
But with that being said,
I've contacted many of the other services
and they're all taking on new customers right now
and there's even some promotions.
So let's start with the least expensive of all of
the services and then I'm gonna actually take you through
the unboxing of one of them.
This is Every Plate.
Every Plate will deliver really good affordable boxes
of food to you with the recipes
and all the ingredients uncooked.
Every Plate will deliver
to you for around $4.99 per plate to you
and you can cancel at any time.
They're one of the few plans
to list a shipping fee of $8.99 on their website.
Many of the other services will actually include
the shipping built into the prices that they list.
Home Chef is one of the most popular of all of
the meal kit services
and they're actually offering right now
$35 on your first delivery, $35 off,
and they start at 699 per serving
and their shipping fees are built in.
So let's take a look at their menu.
You're going to find that they are actually more comparable
to HelloFresh than any of the other ones.
I'll talk about HelloFresh and Blue Apron
have been different in the past,
but you get quick meals.
And one thing Home Chef does which HelloFresh doesn't
and many other servers don't do,
they include the easy prep pan with some of their meals.
So it's not that far off from just really
sticking something into the oven.
So you get your choice of both.
And they also list separate protein packs.
So if you guys have ordered from Omaha Steaks for example
in the past or things like that,
you're going to find prices very reasonable here
and the side product of this is you learn how to cook.
Now some people in the past have criticized the meal kits
and even my videos of them saying,
"Well, I'm not that lazy, I can do it on my own."
And yes, there is a convenience factor tied to this
but if it's between reaching for Uber Eats or DoorDash
or some type of food delivery service,
not only are you learning to cook
and you're using ingredients on your own
but these days, many people want
to avoid a grocery store completely
which takes on a whole completely different meaning.
So this will be the second most affordable of
the services and that is Home Chef.
Now, moving on to HelloFresh,
HelloFresh has portions of around $8.99 per package
and they offer a family plan, a pronto plan
and a veggie plan.
The differences between their plans is
the family plans are generally more wholesome meals,
they're not quite as spicy, not as adventurous.
The pronto plan is for the more adventurous eater,
the more discerning palate
and then the veggie plan obviously is self explanatory.
And they get the different portions built in.
Let's explore the Tuscan sausage linguine family pack
and this is a meal that takes no more than
25 minutes to make.
And you'll notice the, well, if you guys have been meal box
or meal kit subscriber for a while you'll notice
the caloric information is no longer printed on
the recipe cards, they print them on the bags
in a lot of cases.
So it's harder to see.
But, generally you're gonna look at 400
to eight or 900 calories a portion.
This is a more hardy one at about 880 calories.
And it's six steps.
So, with this recipe you get
mild Italian sausage which is lean,
you get chili flakes, you got a can of tomato paste,
you receive two red peppers,
double pack of HelloFresh branded linguine,
you get a nice little package of thyme,
and in most cases these are
environmentally friendly packaging,
the bags or the paper bags or compost-safe.
A lot of the meal kits have changed over time
and you'll notice that there's no additional plastic bags
on things when you're buying your your veggies,
although everything else is individually wrapped.
The Parmesan cheese is shredded for you.
And then one nice thing is
the red onions are already chopped and cut,
so that's saving you a little bit of time.
If you were to buy a bag of pre-chopped vegetables,
that will cost you an arm and a leg,
and then garlic, like actual pieces of garlic.
That is not pre-cut.
So, I think it's fair to say
that if you do the math on each of these ingredients,
you're probably not at 899 a portion.
Depends what value the sausage brings.
Especially because some of these ingredients are canned
and they're pasta.
This would be an example of why not
to use a meal kit for this specific recipe.
Aside from the fact I know it's gonna be delicious.
But when it comes to not going to a grocery store right now
and staying in and for all of the various reasons
that many of us don't wanna go out,
I tell you it's $8.99 cents well spent.
And HelloFresh works a $6.99 shipping fee
into their portion prices.
If you do not wanna do any cooking,
for the same price as HelloFresh,
Freshly is something you may wanna consider.
Freshly gives you a heat and eat option.
It comes right out of the package and you cook it.
It's preassembled, there is absolutely nothing to do
and they just show up.
Nice thing about this is
they are a service where right now,
my grandparents over the age of 90,
they can definitely cook, they're fully able bodied,
but sometimes they just wanna eat something out.
And they're actually very dependent upon restaurants,
they go out a lot.
It's part of their retirement plan and their celebrations.
They can't do that right now.
So this would be a great way for them to be able
to choose from many options.
And if you are taking care of anyone right now,
the elderly, the sick, the people that do not wanna cook
or can't cook or don't have time
or first responders right now,
people that are on the frontline of what's going on,
this would be a great service for them
and it's a lot healthier and a lot less expensive
than takeout and that's around $8.99 per portion.
For $9.99 per person but a free shipping tied into this,
the Blue Apron,
competitor to HelloFresh, has really the same plans
and I actually have done some side-by-side comparisons
which you can watch on YouTube
but to make a very long story short,
my only complaint initially
when I tested HelloFresh versus Blue Apron,
I thought that the Blue Apron portions
were a little bit smaller
and I didn't find the food items as exciting.
With that being said, they also have recipes
that have a longer cooking time than HelloFresh.
I just wanna show this to you.
HelloFresh has recipes that usually are 30 minutes or less,
but the 45 minute on the spinach and goat cheese pork roast,
well, I guess it's a pork roast,
but the oregano chicken thighs are 50 minutes.
They do have some 20 minute recipes, 35 minutes
and 40 minutes but this chicken and sour cherry pan sauce,
these are recipes that have a longer cooking time tied
to them which is a little bit unique.
At around 850 to 1025 per portion you're gonna find
Marley Spoon which is the Martha Stewart sponsored
and endorsed delivery service where it's branded for Martha.
Now I've been very attracted
to Martha Stewart for most of my life.
I enjoy her as a persona and a person.
She's a great chef.
I don't have a whole lot of experience with people
that have used this delivery service.
But many people say that it is the closest to HelloFresh.
She doesn't deliver to my area yet
as much as I would love that.
But you're going to find the easy to follow
recipe cards in the box.
And actually an addition to the meal kit game
that came after the Blue Apron's
and the HelloFresh by many years.
So that might be worth checking out.
They have an $8.99 shipping fee.
And of course with all of these services,
you can skip a week.
There's no contracts, there's no commitments
and she's definitely not overloaded
with new customers right now.
And finally, on the pricier side of the meal kit spectrum,
say hello to Sun Basket.
Now Sun Basket is a clean eating amalgamation
of great recipes, USDA Organic
and if you actually look at the cost per shopping organic,
if you went to Whole Foods
and did most of this you'd actually be spending
a lot less with Sun Basket
but again, this is the higher end of the meal spectrum.
They are offering a $40 gift card right now if you activate
and they have gluten-free and paleo, lean and clean,
all of these sub categories including the pescatarian,
the diabetes-friendly and recipes where you can really
go beyond the comfort zone of most shopping kits
and enjoy food that is highly tailored to you
and very well rated.
You're looking at 1025 or so per portion
plus $6.99 shipping fees,
which means this is definitely the most expensive,
but also something many households will enjoy
this time of year.
My first cousin lives with celiac disease
and this is a service where if she was gonna do a meal plan,
she absolutely 100% would have to go with this option.
So again, it's not just about lean and clean
and healthy eating.
For some people there is no other way around this
and very fortunate to a company like Sun Basket
that they do provide that especially at a time like this.
So that's the quick and dirty breakdown of the meal kits.
Over the course of the next couple of weeks
I can promise you I'm gonna be testing
as many meal kits as I can, putting them side-by-side,
you can see the portions and the recipes
and if you like what you saw today,
please feel free to subscribe to this channel.
I'm about saving you money, advocating for you
but also holding the companies accountable
to make sure you're getting the most bang for your buck.
So until we meet again, I'm going to go cook.
Happy savings.