If you look towards the tech industry, you’d think that everyone was using food delivery services like Plated, Blue Apron, Home Chef, Peach Dish, and Hello Fresh. They’ve been all over the news and written up in almost every major publication around the world. But the question still remains: are services that deliver fresh ingredients and instructions to your home in a neat little box worth the cost? Do they actually encourage people to cook at home or are they wasting resources by using unnecessary packaging and requiring miles and miles of transportation to get to customers?
In today’s Rants and Raves, we’ll take a look at the latest in food industry trends – fresh food delivery – and find out if this food industry trend is worth the cost.
A Brief History
Food subscription services began popping up en masse a few years ago, but they’ve actually been around – even in Europe – for longer than that. The basic premise is that you pay for a weekly or monthly subscription and boxes of ingredients along with step-by-step recipes are sent each week (or day), and you cook the meals at home.
The idea is that it’s easier than shopping for groceries and cheaper and healthier than ordering takeout. But is it really?
The Cons
One of the most common criticisms that food delivery services get is the amount of packaging it takes to put these box orders together. Each ingredient is wrapped separately from the vegetables and the meat, to each teaspoon of cumin. That creates a lot of waste – especially if you’re ordering three or more meals each week.
Another big downside is the cost. The per meal cost ranges from $9.99 all the way up to $15 and $20 per person per meal. That can quickly add up, and even cost slightly more than takeout normally would. Given that the average subscription costs somewhere in the balllpark of $60 a week (and that only covers around half of your week’s meals), these services aren’t really geared towards the average Joe.
The Pros
There does seem to be a niche audience for whom these kinds of services would work well for. People who work extremely long hours and find it difficult to make time for grocery shopping could benefit from having a meal delivery service. Although with companies like Fresh Direct and other online grocery shopping services popping up, that’s beginning to be a harder argument to make.
Alternately, people who are concerned about eating healthy, fresh foods, but are intimidated by cooking on their own might be enticed by the relative ease of creating new dishes. In a way, it’s almost educating people on how to cook for themselves and could be used as a temporary resource for teaching people how to cook their own meals. After which, they might be more inclined to strike out on their own and shop for ingredients at their local grocer for their next meal. They may even be more inclined to have a broader range of of ingredients in their cabinets so they can cook more at a moments notice.
A Compromise?
Currently, in some grocery stores in Europe, you can already purchase a basic meal that consists of a recipe and all of the ingredients necessary to cook it in one easy-to-find spot. This helps solve the “what’s for dinner” conundrum, while cutting down some on additional packaging and shipping costs, which seems like a better compromise. It still requires a trip to the grocer, but it cuts out a LOT of the waste associated with this new food industry trend.
Final Thoughts
Overall, to us it seems like the environmental impact of meal shipping companies outweighs the pros of using a service like this. Maybe if these companies utilized the grocery store as a distribution location plan, it would cut out a lot of the inefficiencies. Or maybe we just need to make the food shopping experience more about learning and innovating in the kitchen. Even small changes, like grouping entire meal ingredients together could possibly go a long way in helping people cook more at home, and ultimately create less waste and eat healthier.
But we want to hear from you! What do you think about services like Plated and Blue Apron? Have you tried them? Were they more convenient than having dinner out or making dinner at home with ingredients from the local store? Let us know in the comments!
