What are meal kit delivery services?

There seems to be no end of subscription companies offering to deliver stuff to you. Scroll down you Facebook newsfeed, and you’ll see what I mean. You can get monthly deliveries of everything from coffee to razors to underwear.

One of these subscription services that seems to be on the rise is meal kits, and that makes a lot of sense. There’s a growing consciousness of the need to know what we eat, that can only be achieved by home cooking, but there’s also not a lot of time to spend looking into these things.

Picture this: you’ve spent an hour commuting home in gridlocked traffic, or with you face on somebody’s armpit on public transport - is it easier to carefully browse ingredients at the supermarket, or order a pizza?

I’m not a big fan of supermarkets at the best of times, so anything that helps me to spend less time in one is a win for me. I’m happy enough cooking a meal from a recipe, but I’m never sure where to really start looking for something new and interesting, so I get lazy and rely on my usual carb-monsters like lasagna and spag bol.

Well, meal kit delivery services like Blue Apron and Home Chef kind of eliminate these aspects of cooking for yourself as an excuse to not eat healthily. Here, we’ll take a look at a company that I found particularly great, and that’s Sun Basket. 


The solution

Sun Basket obliterates the excuses I had for not preparing freshly cooked meals. They suggest a delicious recipe to try, and send the ingredients to your door. It’s embarrassingly simple, and I never have to look for recipes or bother the staff in the store for some type of squash they’ve never heard of, ever again.

What I also love about Sun Basket is that it send you just the right amount of ingredients. It’s always better value to buy things in bulk from the store, but in my household, it’s just my fiancée and I, so that approach with fresh food can mean a lot going to waste, and it’s a waste of good food and of money. I can’t remember the last time we finished a packet of celery!

Getting started

There’s nothing too difficult about setting up an account with Sun Basket. If you’ve bought anything on the internet before, you can do this. It’ll take about 10 minutes to get sorted.

With Sun Basket, you select the type of diet you’d like to follow, so for example, you can choose paleo or vegetarian, and they have some other options. When I was setting up, I didn’t come across any options in terms of specific ingredients that you might want to exclude though. It’s OK for me because I’m not a picky eater, but I did wonder if it was something people with specific dietary requirements would need. I’m sure if you contact Sun Basket directly, they’ll be accommodating, but it might be easier on prospective customers if they included it as part of the user journey.

Pricing

There are two main price points for Sun Basket: Classic Menu and Family Friendly.

The Classic Menu will get you three recipes per week, with servings for two or four people. This will set you back $11.99 per serving. The Family Friendly menu will give you slightly less fancy meals, and can you can choose to receive two, three, or four recipes per week, with four servings per recipe. That’ll cost you $9.99 per serving.

Each will cost you $5.99 for delivery.

It sounds a little pricey, and sure, there are cheaper meal kit delivery services around. However, you’re paying for the environmental commitment of the service. Apart from taking the hassle out of your shopping and cooking, all Sun Basket’s food is organic and sustainable. Those aren’t things that anybody has ever paid less for.

I feel like value would depend on where you live. For example, in New York City $11.99 for a meal is not unreasonable, but if you live in, well, anywhere else, it will seem pricey.

Conclusion

There are promo codes for Sun Basket, so I do recommend availing of them and at least trying it. They’re very good about not locking you into a contract, and flexibility is one of their key attractions. As somebody who’s not a picky eater, I couldn’t find a recipe that I wouldn’t eat!

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