My girlfriend and I have the problem of being too busy throughout the week to sit down and
plan out our grocery trips.
Then when we run out of food, we feel like we’re scrambling to come up with things
to make for the week.
This turns our weekly grocery trip into a stressful event, and means we typically eat
the same couple of meals every week.
We’ve agreed that a meal delivery kit service could eliminate the stress around planning
meals, it could reduce the time we spend planning and going to the grocery store and it may
even be an economical alternative to our usual meal planning.
Plus, it allows us to continue cooking fresh and healthy meals which is definitely a priority.
So in this video, I’m officially setting out to identify the most affordable approach
to meal kit delivery.
I’m already sold on the idea based on the things I just mentioned, so I’m going to
focus on analyzing all my options and the most affordable ways to navigate them.
First, to give you some context, I’m going to estimate our current cost per meal so we
have a benchmark to compare our meal kit options to.
Then, I’m going to run through eight meal kit services, breaking down the cost per meal,
any current promotional offers a few other strategies to lower the costs even further.
Finally, I’ll outline my four month long plan for securing deliverable meal kits at
an average of $5 per serving.
Hopefully this will give you numerous ideas for lowering your grocery bill and enjoying
the convenience of delivery services, as it definitely has for me.
Let’s take a look.
To identify my current cost per meal, I’m taking a look back at the grocery orders I’ve
made at Publix over the last few months.
For those who don’t know, Publix is a grocery chain prevalent in the southeast, especially
in Florida.
It’s a little pricier than things like Walmart or Target, but cheaper than stores like Trader
Joe’s and Whole Foods.
During the thick of the pandemic, I exclusively ordered free curbside pickup through the Publix
Delivery app, which saved all of my order history.
So I went through this and calculated the cost per serving from our most commonly made
meals, arriving at an average cost per serving of $6.40.
With this as our benchmark price, I think we can find some good options with delivery
services, especially considering we’ll get the convenience of doorstep delivery and pre-portioned
ingredients, which is something I’m willing to pay a small premium for.
Given that there are dozens of meal kit delivery services at this point, I’m going to narrow
down our options a little bit before we dig in.
For starters, I only want meal kits, not meal deliveries.
I mostly enjoy cooking and I want our meals to be fresh, so pre-made microwavable meals
aren’t going to cut it.
Additionally, I just want standard healthy meals - I don’t need vegan, vegetarian,
keto or meals for any other specialty diets.
I’ve found that a lot of services specialize in these types of meals, so I’ll be skipping
those.
Also, since most meals we make produce 3 or 4 servings, resulting in leftovers for lunch
later in the week, I’ll be looking for meal kits that serve 4.
This way, I can cook more meals at once.
We generally cook about 4 meals per week, so I think 16 servings will be right in the
sweet spot of what I need.
For this reason, I’ll be comparing the cost for all of the meal delivery services in this
video at 4 meals per week, each serving 4 people.
I may be willing to slightly adjust if it will give me a significantly better price
per meal, but we’ll have to consider that as it comes.
With all this in mind, I’ve identified 8 potential meal kit delivery services, so we’ll
proceed in no particular order.
But, do keep in mind these brands are always offering new promotions so some of the promotional
pricing may have changed by the time you’re watching this video.
First up, we’ve got Home Chef.
For this one, meals start at $7.99 per serving.
As long as you order more than 4 servings per week, shipping is also $7.99 each week.
However, it does say that meal prices may be higher depending on the specific recipe
you choose.
While it estimates the average price at $8.99 per meal, I don’t know how accurate this
is because I had to officially place an order before I could see exact meal prices.
But, Home Chef offers a promo that lasts throughout the first month.
You get $30 off your first and second week, and $15 off your third and fourth week.
With this promo, 4 servings of 4 different recipes per week comes out to $121.83 for
the first two weeks, and $136.83 for the next two weeks when you include shipping.
That’s $7.61 per meal for the first two weeks and $8.55 per meal for the last two
weeks - or an average of $8.08 per meal for the month.
Keep in mind this is the base rate per meal, as some meals will push cost per serving higher.
Unfortunately, this is a little pricier than I wanted to see.
I may be willing to test it for the one month promotion, but I would not continue this after
that promotion expires.
Next on the list is HelloFresh.
Meals here, as long as you order for 4 people and more than 2 recipes per week, cost $7.49
per serving and come with an $8.99 shipping cost.
HelloFresh also has a pretty strong promotion to cut this cost even further.
HelloFresh’s promotion lasts five weeks, includes free shipping and substantial discounts
on each delivery depending on the number of meals ordered.
For four meals with four servings each, this includes $69 in week 1, $50 in week 2 and
$30 in the final three weeks.
This results in a cost per meal of just $3.74 for the first week, $4.92 for the second week
and $6.18 for the final three weeks.
This results in an overall average cost per serving of $5.44 over five weeks.
This is cheaper than my own price per meal, which makes HelloFresh a winner.
Without promotions, cost per serving goes up to $8.05, so this is another one where
I would use up the promotion and then call it quits.
Up next we’re looking at Blue Apron.
Just like HelloFresh, our meals will start at $7.49 for four recipes with four servings
each, and come with a $9.99 shipping cost.
Interestingly, the price changes quite a bit more with Blue Apron depending on how many
servings and how many recipes you want.
More of either makes things more affordable.
The promo here is pretty straightforward - $27.50 off of your first 4 deliveries.
But, this doesn’t include free shipping.
So including the $9.99 shipping cost, four recipes with four servings each comes out
to a cost per serving of $6.40.
This will be constant throughout the month due to the structure of their promotion.
Interestingly, this is exactly what I estimated my own costs to be for grocery shopping.
So this will definitely be worth a try for me, but without promos the price goes up $8.11
per serving, so this is another example of a service I would only use with the promotion.
Next we have Gobble, which I really wanted to like because it offers additional food
prep on top of shipping you ingredients.
It says they’ll chop and measure ingredients beforehand, which is an extra step that will
expedite the cooking process and may be worth paying a little extra for.
Unfortunately, the price per serving is a flat $11.99, regardless of how many recipes
or people you order for.
Every meal plan also comes with a flat $6.99 shipping rate.
None of this is made any more competitive with promotional offers.
Currently, Gobble offers a $35.94 discount on your first box, which is the equivalent
of 3 free meals.
This means you’ll get an average cost per serving of $6 for the first week before shipping,
but nothing after that.
This also only applies to a three recipe per week meal plan for two people.
You could sign up and cancel after the first week, which I might try if I get bored, but
this might be a bit of trouble for one week of very particular meal kit discounts.
Overall, the price is just too steep here for me to be interested.
Next we’re looking at Green Chef, which offers the best rates for my desired four
recipe/four servings meal plan at $10.49 per serving plus $9.99 for shipping.
Their current offer is $100 off across the first four boxes, broken down to $35.01 the
first week, $20 the second and third week and $15 the fourth week.
It looks like the offer also provides free shipping to help lower costs a little further.
After all this, you can get meals at $8.30 per serving for the first week, $9.24 the
second week and $9.55 the last two weeks - for a total average of $9.16 per serving that
first month.
Ultimately, this is another case where the discount just isn’t enough to get me to
try it, since it’s well above my $6.40 benchmark price.
Without promotions, it’s certainly a no-go for me.
Next we have Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon.
With four meals a week for four people, the cost per serving is $9.55.
However, we also have an $8.99 shipping fee, which bumps that up to $10.11 per serving.
Just like the others, we have a promotion here for $100 off the first four orders.
This is given as $40 off the first week, then $20 off for the following three weeks.
After including shipping, this results in a cost per serving of $7.61 for the first
week and $8.86 for the final three weeks.
That’s an average cost per serving of $8.55 for the entire month.
Again, we’re quite a bit over my desired price per meal, and this will definitely be
pricey to continue beyond the promotional period.
Our next option is Dinnerly, which has some of the lowest costs we’ve seen yet, starting
as low as $4.69 per serving.
As usual, the price per serving will vary depending on the meal plan, and each one comes
with a flat $8.99 shipping fee.
However, Dinnerly offers $60 off your first month in the form of $15 discounts each week.
My meal plan would cost $92.03 per week before discounts, or $77.03 a week with the promotional
offer.
This results in an average cost per serving of $4.81 for the entire first month.
This is definitely the cheapest so far, beating out all of the other services even without
the discounts involved!
The last service to look at is EveryPlate, which seems to be another budget friendly
option.
Here, meal plans start at $5.49 per serving, but go as low as $4.59 per serving.
All plans come with an $8.99 shipping fee.
EveryPlate has a great promo here, with reduced costs per serving for the first three weeks.
The first week you’ll enjoy $1.99 per serving, with $3.99 per serving in the later weeks.
Obviously, this will produce more significant savings if you’re ordering fewer meals,
when prices would typically be higher.
For my four meals and four servings plan, after including shipping, I’d pay just $2.55
per serving for the first week, and $4.55 for the next two weeks.
This results in an average cost per serving of $3.88 for the entire three week promotional
period.
Once promotions end, my rates would go back to $4.69 per serving plus shipping for a total
of $5.25 per serving, which is surprisingly even more affordable than Dinnerly.
So let’s bring all the numbers together and rank these meal kit delivery services
by price.
Starting with promotional prices, Green Chef is our most expensive at an average cost per
serving of $9.16 for the first month.
Then we have Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon at an average of $8.55 for the first month,
followed by Home Chef at $8.08 per serving - but keep in mind, this one may increase
if you choose premium meals.
Next is Blue Apron at $6.40 for the first month, then Gobble at $6, but that promotion
only lasts one week.
In third we have HelloFresh at $5.44 per serving over five weeks, followed by Dinnerly at $4.81.
This leaves EveryPlate as the most affordable meal delivery kit at $3.88 per serving for
the three-week promotional period.
After these promotions expire, here’s how the standard costs stack up.
Gobble is the most expensive at $12.43 per serving, followed by Green Chef at $11.11
and Martha Stewart and Marley Spoon at $10.11.
Then we’ve got Home Chef at $8.49, Blue Apron at $8.11 and HelloFresh at $8.05.
Our cheapest long-term options will be Dinnerly at $5.75 per serving at EveryPlate at $5.25
per serving.
Now that I’ve assessed all the costs from all of the meal kit services, I have a rock
solid plan for moving forward and getting cheap recipes delivered to my door.
I’m going to try every single one of these meal delivery kits that are priced better
than my estimated $6.40 per serving I get when we buy groceries.
This means I’ll try Blue Apron for four weeks, Gobble for one week, HelloFresh for
five weeks, Dinnerly for four weeks and EveryPlate for 3 weeks.
That will get me a total of 17 weeks of meal kit delivery for less than what I pay at Publix.
If you add up all of the promotional offers and average out the price per serving, this
comes out to $5.28 per serving for four months of meals.
Four meals with four servings each is a total of $84.40 per week in meals, compared to $102.40
per week from publix with my estimated $6.40 per serving.
Over 17 weeks, that’s $306 in savings, while I also get to enjoy not stressing about meal
planning and getting all of the ingredients I need shipped to my door.
After we exhaust the first four months of promotional prices, I’m hoping we can run
through most of it again by creating new accounts with my girlfriend’s info and starting all
over.
But if not, whether or not I continue will depend on the quality of the recipes and ingredients
that we get from each service.
Since price was my main point of research here, I don’t know how much variability
to expect in the quality of the food from each delivery service.
While it will be a fun project to go through all these services and take advantage of the
promotions, the recipe and ingredient quality is going to determine whether or not I continue
with any of them after the promotions expire.
Given that some of the options I’m going with are clearly budget options, I do have
some concerns that the food will be falling short compared to what I make myself.
On the other hand, maybe I’ll love the delivery kits way more than I expected, and I’d be
willing to pay a premium for it once I complete my test run.
But we’ll find out soon enough.
I guess I’ll see you right back here in four months with my results, but feel free
to leave me a comment if you have any questions in the meantime.
Thanks for watching and I’ll see you next time!