10 Apr Is Meal Delivery Worth the Premium?
You already know that having your personal care products delivered right to your doorstep is fantastic, but have you tried any meal preparation and meal delivery services?
They are becoming widely available and popular. Services such as Hello Fresh® and Blue Apron® deliver ingredients and recipes to your home to make meal planning and prep easy. Others deliver ready-made meals for the week right to your door!
We’ll take a deeper look into nationwide options, but ask around in your area for local shops. Here in St. Louis we have a couple of independent shops where meals can be ordered, prepared, and ready for pick-up at a scheduled time.
Bring Me Ingredients and a Plan!
If you don’t mind the cooking, but hate the planning and shopping that is required, a service such as Hello Fresh or Blue Apron might be perfect for you. If you have specific dietary needs, check out BistroMD, which offers diet-specific options.
First, Hello Fresh. You may have seen their ads on television. This service is nationwide and delivers ingredients and instructions. You get the fun of making dinner! Hello Fresh tries to meet the needs of those who don’t want to do the shopping or don’t have time to shop, but still want a good, healthy dinner on the table.
For this service, you choose the number of servings (minimum is 2) per meal and the number of meals you’d like provided each week. YOU choose the meals online and submit the order and the following week you receive a box that contains all of the ingredients to make your meals. Boxes include fresh produce and meats and all meals can be prepared in 30 minutes or less. Prices for this service start at about $10 per serving when choosing two servings.
Blue Apron’s service is similar to Hello Fresh. Blue Apron also specializes in shipping high-quality ingredients and recipes to your home for you to prepare. You choose the number of meals and servings and the recipes you prefer and – Voila! – you are ready to cook!
Bring Me Meals!
Several services we found recognize that not everyone has an inner chef waiting to get out and that many of us just want a healthy meal to put on the table. To answer that need, many services have popped up who will do the preparation for you and deliver portioned, ready-to heat meals right to your door.
The first that we’ll cover is called Freshly®. You choose the quantity of meals per week and the number of servings for each and they will be prepared and sent to you to heat and eat as needed. Something nice to note about Freshly is that ALL of their meals are gluten- and peanut-free if you have those health restrictions. The cost for this service is about $10/meal when ordering 6-9 meals per week.
Next, there is a service called BistroMD®. This one focuses on weight-loss entrees and meals for those on specific diets – such as diabetic, weight loss, and gluten-free. This service is per person (rather than by family or by number of servings) in either 5-day or 7-day increments. This is a recurring program, meaning that once registered, you will receive a shipment of meals every week.
BistroMD’s goal is to help you achieve your weight loss or other health goals by making food preparation and planning easy. The introductory cost for this program is about $9/meal when ordering a 5-day plan.
Veestro® specializes in 100% organic, plant-based foods. All meals are fresh and preservative-free. These meals are $8-$10 each and you can choose to order from an a la carte menu, meal packs, or a menu of meals designed for weight loss.
Unique to Veestro (of services highlighted in this article) is a “juice cleanse” option. You can choose from a variety of juices as part of a 3-day or 5-day plan to reboot your system. As always, consult your family doctor before embarking on a big change to your diet!
We’ve highlighted just a few meal delivery and prep services. You might find similar neighborhood shops that will prepare your meals and have them ready to pick-up. A few of our co-workers tried meal preparation services and love them!
They provide ease, home-cooked quality, and nutrition! These meals can be great to use for yourself, for loved ones, or as gifts for someone who’s home after having surgery or having a baby.
Further reading: Feeding better sleep