It's like dining at home
Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2016 1:41 pm
I've tried Blue Apron food delivery service for a couple of weeks. Here is a good article comparing various meal-to-prepare businesses and I pretty much agree with her assessment: http://observer.com/2016/01/we-tried-bl ... -the-best/
The model is you select from a menu of meals, and then all of the ingredients are shipped to your house in a cooled box. You follow the recipe card and voila, you are a hero who just cooked a tasty home cooked meal. The upsides are apparent: you don't have to go shopping; you get only the amount of food you need for the meal; the meal is pretty good; and the cost is fairly reasonable ($8-12 per person per meal for decent to good ingredients).
The downside is that you still have to do all of the food prep, including washing the vegetables, cutting them; you have several things going at once so you have no down time, so between the prep, cooking and serving, you are working in the kitchen non-stop for 75 minutes. Doesn't sound like an easy meal to me (at least not compared to my typical lineup of weeknight dishes that taste better and require about half the time and effort). While the delivery meal prices are reasonable, they are still higher than if you go to the market and buy higher quality ingredients, and I don't mind shopping most of the time since my neighborhood has a ton of great stores where I regularly bump into friends.
One of the big downsides is all the packaging you have to deal with. The big cardboard box is easy enough to recycle, or use as a cat trap or child toy (or vice versa), but it still will take up a big chunk of your recycle bin. There are big ice packs, that you have to cut open, drain, and then recycle with your other plastic bags. There is a big insulation bag that is not recyclable that just gets thrown out, and then all of the smaller plastic bags that do not have recycle symbols that get thrown out. Between the delivery effort, and all the packing materials, your carbon footprint just grew a size.
I wonder how these firms will do after the potential customers give their services a try. Given the time and effort to prepare a meal -- 75 minutes plus all the cleanup after -- this service does not meet the needs of those looking for a simple meal. Those who like to cook are going to quickly tire of all the boxing, bagging, recycling, etc., plus most who like to cook, also like to improvise and generally want to pick out their own ingredients at the store. That leaves the person who wants to cook a meal, but is inexperienced, and there just aren't that many of these folks out there (plus, at some point, they become competent and grow beyond the meal in a box). Any others have experience with these services?
The model is you select from a menu of meals, and then all of the ingredients are shipped to your house in a cooled box. You follow the recipe card and voila, you are a hero who just cooked a tasty home cooked meal. The upsides are apparent: you don't have to go shopping; you get only the amount of food you need for the meal; the meal is pretty good; and the cost is fairly reasonable ($8-12 per person per meal for decent to good ingredients).
The downside is that you still have to do all of the food prep, including washing the vegetables, cutting them; you have several things going at once so you have no down time, so between the prep, cooking and serving, you are working in the kitchen non-stop for 75 minutes. Doesn't sound like an easy meal to me (at least not compared to my typical lineup of weeknight dishes that taste better and require about half the time and effort). While the delivery meal prices are reasonable, they are still higher than if you go to the market and buy higher quality ingredients, and I don't mind shopping most of the time since my neighborhood has a ton of great stores where I regularly bump into friends.
One of the big downsides is all the packaging you have to deal with. The big cardboard box is easy enough to recycle, or use as a cat trap or child toy (or vice versa), but it still will take up a big chunk of your recycle bin. There are big ice packs, that you have to cut open, drain, and then recycle with your other plastic bags. There is a big insulation bag that is not recyclable that just gets thrown out, and then all of the smaller plastic bags that do not have recycle symbols that get thrown out. Between the delivery effort, and all the packing materials, your carbon footprint just grew a size.
I wonder how these firms will do after the potential customers give their services a try. Given the time and effort to prepare a meal -- 75 minutes plus all the cleanup after -- this service does not meet the needs of those looking for a simple meal. Those who like to cook are going to quickly tire of all the boxing, bagging, recycling, etc., plus most who like to cook, also like to improvise and generally want to pick out their own ingredients at the store. That leaves the person who wants to cook a meal, but is inexperienced, and there just aren't that many of these folks out there (plus, at some point, they become competent and grow beyond the meal in a box). Any others have experience with these services?
