Cooking from Meal Kits (Hello Fresh, Purple Carrot, Gousto, and so on)

[SJMitch]

1 hour ago, rotuts said:

clearly one tough business to be in.

 

When I think about the costs of the business, I'm surprised they even make 5% before fixed costs!

 

I keep telling my husband that I think Purple Carrot can't be long for this world with their really interesting dishes.  Just not enough of an audience for them vs lower cost more mainstream veggie items.  So we enjoy them while they are still offering their wonderful variety and inventiveness.  

 

We wish we had taken advantage of Din more in their final months with their last round of business changes.  Their last gasp was to go non-subscription where you ordered just a day before delivery (or very early that morning if you lived in SF).  Since we were using other services that require about a week lead time, we frequently faced a situation where we really, really wanted the Din meals that week, but already had too many dishes coming.  There also was no guarantee in that final business model that you could even get their best meals from them: often the dishes would sell out in minutes/hours before I could get online to even see what was on offer.

[rotuts]

 

it also says a lot that the3 CEO is cashing out, rather than staying in.

 

I think there is a chance for this type of business in large urban center :

 

SF , NYC , etc  where they had few distribution points and an easier distribution system.

 

plus wealthy people w less time on their hands than most.

 

as Ive mentioned in other threads , Roche Brothers , a local family owned supermarket chain

 

now offers meal packs that they make up fresh daily w the same ingredients you might buy in their stores

 

take them home and cook them for yourself and family while you enjoy a Liter of M.R.

 

I also doubt Amazon is going to get into the meal or kit delivery soon.

 

there are many articles that point out even w WF  Amazon has very few food distribution warehouses  

 

which are substantially different than Books and all the etc Amazon sells.

 

not to say at some point they move in that direction.

Edited June 30, 2017 by rotuts (log)

[ElsieD]

5 minutes ago, rotuts said:

 

it also says a lot that the3 CEO is cashing out, rather than staying in.

 

I think there is a chance for this type of business in large urban center :

 

SF , NYC , etc  where they had few distribution points and an easier distribution system.

 

plus wealthy people w less time on their hands than most.

 

as Ive mentioned in other threads , Roche Brothers , a local family owned supermarket chain

 

now offers meal packs that they make up fresh daily w the same ingredients you might buy in their stores

 

take them home and cook them for yourself and family while you enjoy a Liter of M.R.

 

I also doubt Amazon is going to get into the meal or kit delivery soon.

 

there are many articles that point out even w WF  Amazon has very few food distribution warehouses  

 

which are substantially different than Books and all the etc Amazon sells.

 

not to say at some point they move in that direction.

 

 

By the time I've had a litre of M.R. I doubt very much I'd still be cooking. 

[rotuts]

Exactly !

[SJMitch]

4 minutes ago, rotuts said:

I think there is a chance for this type of business in large urban center :

 

SF , NYC , etc  where they had few distribution points and an easier distribution system.

 

Yes, I do see more meal kit type packaging in our supermarket.  Nothing of the caliber of Sun Basket or Purple Carrot or even Gobble, yet, though.  More like Hello Fresh, Blue Apron style -- very mainstream items.  No 'weird' spices, black garlic, celeriac, chayote, shiso leaves, etc, etc.

 

Besides a meal kit bundled in one package in supermarkets, it might also be possible to have small-portion item section plus the set of recipe cards specifying what to pick up.  That way, if you already have an item on hand, you could skip it (I might not have raspberry vinegar on hand so give me the mini container of that, but I do keep balsamic.  Likewise I always have almonds, but rarely pistachios, so give me two Tbsp of them.  Yes, I actually do have wild rice, but gimme 1/4 cup of black rice for that dish. BTW, I've tried to buy recipe portions of items from the Whole Foods bulk section -- do you know how hard it is to get just 1/4 cup of some grain out of those gravity dispensers?  How about 1 tsp of some spice -- it weighs less than the packaging and the scale can't always pick it up (so sometimes they just give it to you free).  Exercise in in frustration.  Special, lower popularity, items like mini portions of black garlic or shiso leaves could rotate in.  This would cut down on packaging needed and keep ingredients fresher. It would also allow substitution (although already Gobble is 'expanding' the number of meals they offer by having two versions of many dishes available -- one with chicken, say, and the other with steak, or one vegetarian, and one meat.  Same sides, sauces, and spicing).

 

We live close to a Whole Foods (on the way home from work, even), so I'm interested to see what Amazon makes of it.

[rotuts]

Im sure its going to be interesting re Amazon

 

but it will take some time.

 

I would have thought that Bezos , who Wally Buffet thought was the smartest business man of today

 

might have paired w something more interesting that MarthaFellon.

 

JB might has asked me !

 

but no

 

and its quite true   R,B, cook at home kits are very main stream  

 

but at least they are there.

 

it look them a long time to have a fairly complete like of bottled hot sauces

 

this is N.E. after all.

 

and lets remember :

 

the

 

bête noire

 

of the meal kits

 

esp. after a Liter of M.R.

 

is Take Out.

 

Quality T.O.

 

Edited June 30, 2017 by rotuts (log)

[SJMitch]

18 minutes ago, rotuts said:

the

 

bête noire

 

of the meal kits

 

esp. after a Liter of M.R.

 

is Take Out.

 

Quality T.O.

 

 

 

AND the local chef created delivered foods.  For example: 

 

Taro Peican Weekly Meal Delivery

 

I see more and more services like these popping up in the bay area (from all kinds of cuisines: Taro's full selection )

Edited June 30, 2017 by SJMitch (log)

[rotuts]

@SJMitch  

 

thanks for those links

 

Not being a BigBucks myself

 

I do see this as a niche item

 

and your ref. suggests it.

[SJMitch]

Purple Carrot for lunch today: Hummus with raw veggies and crispy amaranth

 

OK.  I nearly didn't order Purple Carrot this week since the only recipe I really wanted was the tortilla pie/quesadilla thing. This recipe? Hummus and raw veggies?  Where you have to make the hummus yourself?  The only thing that interested me was the amaranth part.

 

So, anywho.  The good parts: it came with very pretty little carrots and a (too tiny) amount of berbere spice. And, of course, the amaranth. Weak parts: why such a plain hummus?  If we're making our own, how about some greens?  Make it worth it to pull out the blender or food processor!  Olive "vinaigrette" (can it be a vinaigrette with no vinegar or acid liquid?) should have more herbs.

 

So, I added leftover purple cauliflower to their yellow/orange cauliflower.  Tossed the veggies with olive oil and shichimi and roasted them.  

 

Amaranth part was pretty cool!  I tossed mine in the rice cooker in the AM with stock and it sat there keeping warm for me until I was ready for it a few hours later.  They had you then crisp it up and add berbere.  I rather liked the large crispy sections it made, so I did not break it up or try to mix in the berbere (in the future I'd do that at the beginning or mix in right before going in the skillet).  So I sprinkled the tasty berbere over the top -- wished there was more!

 

 

Oh, it was also served with gluten-free tortillas and lemon wedges.

[kayb]

5 hours ago, SJMitch said:

 

Yes, I do see more meal kit type packaging in our supermarket.  Nothing of the caliber of Sun Basket or Purple Carrot or even Gobble, yet, though.  More like Hello Fresh, Blue Apron style -- very mainstream items.  No 'weird' spices, black garlic, celeriac, chayote, shiso leaves, etc, etc.

 

Besides a meal kit bundled in one package in supermarkets, it might also be possible to have small-portion item section plus the set of recipe cards specifying what to pick up.  That way, if you already have an item on hand, you could skip it (I might not have raspberry vinegar on hand so give me the mini container of that, but I do keep balsamic.  Likewise I always have almonds, but rarely pistachios, so give me two Tbsp of them.  Yes, I actually do have wild rice, but gimme 1/4 cup of black rice for that dish. BTW, I've tried to buy recipe portions of items from the Whole Foods bulk section -- do you know how hard it is to get just 1/4 cup of some grain out of those gravity dispensers?  How about 1 tsp of some spice -- it weighs less than the packaging and the scale can't always pick it up (so sometimes they just give it to you free).  Exercise in in frustration.  Special, lower popularity, items like mini portions of black garlic or shiso leaves could rotate in.  This would cut down on packaging needed and keep ingredients fresher. It would also allow substitution (although already Gobble is 'expanding' the number of meals they offer by having two versions of many dishes available -- one with chicken, say, and the other with steak, or one vegetarian, and one meat.  Same sides, sauces, and spicing).

 

We live close to a Whole Foods (on the way home from work, even), so I'm interested to see what Amazon makes of it.

Publix supermarkets has announced the debut of meal-kit pre-proportioned ingredients with recipe cards, in a cute little shopping bag. We don't have Publix on this side of the river, but my Tennessee daughter shops Publix often and swears she will buy them out.

 

Which will be a good thing for her family. Kid can't cook.

 

[SJMitch]

Yes!  Blue Apron hit it out of the park with this dish!

 

Soy and 5-spice chicken thigh with sesame-jalapeno rice and squash-cucumber salad

 

Supposedly based on a Samin Nosrat recipe.

 

I made very minor changes to the instructions: I used half stock in the rice cooking liquid, charred the jalapeños before adding to the rice, and toasted up some sesame seeds for extra topping (I love sesame -- I thought I'd have to add extra sesame oil to the rice, but they gave plenty!).  And it made so much squash salad I couldn't fit it all in the bowl!  Extra for tomorrow.

 

 

After the under-spiced cod and hash dish it was a delight to get this one bursting with flavor!  I liked the tip to tear the mint leaves in the garnish right before serving -- adds extra aroma as you sit down to eat.

 

A great quote from a commenter on the Blue Apron website on this dish: "This is a delicious recipe, the kind of recipe I joined blue apron for. After a few weeks of really boring boxes full of meat and potatoes, I'm really thrilled to see that blue apron is back with interesting spices and flavors and surprising combinations that I would never be able to think up on my own. Go Blue Apron!"

[SJMitch]

Sunbasket dinner: Salmon and zucchini in parchment with mediterranean farro salad

 

I thought this was a repeat it for us, but looks like we previously had sole in parchment with a different salad.  Came out perfect, better than the sole I remember.  This is even a bigger portion than this looks, our white bowls are huge!  Small mistake by Sun Basket: the lemon was missing.  Luckily I had one (small and starting to dehydrate, but I had one!)  I did not change a thing or add anything.  (well, OK, I did my standard grain-thing: throw the grain in the rice cooker with half stock, half water way in advance so it is ready for me when I start cooking).

 

Salad has spinach, radish, cucumber, scallions, mint, farro and feta.

 

 

They gave you parchment to make the packets:

 

 

 

I've served these in the packets to be opened when we eat, but prefer not now that we've had parchment fish several times.  Very reliable dish variation from Sun Basket.

Edited July 2, 2017 by SJMitch (log)

[SJMitch]

Down to our last two dishes this week, both vegetarian.  I've prepped the ingredients for the Banh Mi Stuffed Avocados that liamsaunt was much more inventive with.  We'll be making it standard later when we get hungry.  It shipped with two packets of sugar but they were wrapped up with the fresh ingredients and the moisture got into them.  Still useable, just annoying.

 

Here's the partial prep:

 

 

That's

  Black beans with tamari and scallions

  Quick pickled carrot, daikon, and jalapeno

  Vegan srirachi aioli

  Bamboo rice

  Fresh mint and cilantro

  Some small pieces of scallion, mint, and cilantro for the top

  Nori spice mix

  Avocado

 

We have a mango we need to use and some leftover pre-chopped red onion in the fridge.  Thinking of adding them to the beans.

 

[SJMitch]

Well I thought we were eating later, but husband saw the food and said he's hungry now.  So, we ate.  This was way better than I expected!  The flavors worked really well together.  

 

 

Lots of extra pickled veggies -- but we ate all those, too!  Might make the last dish late this evening or it'll be lunch tomorrow. 

[SJMitch]

Lunch it is: Spicy vegetable tostadas

 

And now Blue Apron makes a mistake with the box: we only got 3 tortillas instead of 4.  So the prior week 1 out of 2 boxes had errors, this last week: 2 out of 3.  Much higher error rate than normal; I'd say that usually about 1 out of 8 boxes have problems. All gave me credits.  I do have to be careful though -- one time I was ready to email a company about a missing ingredient (a spice), but found the little packet stuck to the side of a plastic bag when I took out recycling.  Now I check very well!  

 

This was a disappointing veggie dish after being used to what Sun Basket and Purple Carrot do for vegetarian.  Rice and veggies on a tostada.  Er.  OK:

 

 

After enjoying the sriracha flavored sauce from Purple Carrot, I spiced up Blue Apron's mayo with a Tabanero sauce we like:

 

 

This dish needed something more.  Pepitas, say.

 

On to the next week: 6 dishes from Sun Basket and Gobble. Only 5 different dishes since we doubled up on one from Gobble.

 

Purple Carrot didn't interest me enough, except for this carrot fritter recipe.  I might make it myself.  I wish they'd let you mix and match from their regular and TB12 menu.  And they really make it a hassle to change back and forth from one to the other since it changes all future deliveries: you can't pre-set multiple weeks in advance. 

[SJMitch]

So, 9 meals is usually the most we get from the mealkit companies.  This is our week of meals:

 

 

Our favorites were: zucchini fritters from Sun Basket, the Soy Chicken from Blue Apron, and the Stuffed Avocado from Purple Carrot (which I thought wouldn't be interesting but which I liked even better than the quesadilla thing). 

 

I think we eat pretty darn good!  Given our food preferences, there really aren't any restaurants that offer this caliber of food with this many diverse veggies anywhere near this price. About the closest is some of the mediterranean places, but our typical meal at falafel bite: chicken kebab, low carb option (which we choose because you get more veggies (bigger salad and added veggie kebab) and less starch (no pita)) costs us $37 plus tax for two of us.  Some of the upscale restaurants (say Parcel 104 in Santa Clara CA) do veggies even better than this, but, of course they are really pricey.  So, no, take out can't even do this for us.  Oh wait, except for the Whole Foods pre-prepared buffet.  But there you are limited to steam table type foods (which can be decent, but is limiting: no stuffed avocado, crispy tortilla pie type dishes, etc) and which generally runs us about as much as these meals.

 

Yeah, you can get plain rice with fish and some anemic veggies at a diner, but not nicely spiced like the rices here (bamboo rice!) and the slaw would be boring white cabbage and mayo.

[Anna N]

@SJMitch

 I am having difficulty understanding the mathematics of your meal plans. Can you tell me why nine meals?  I am sure I am I missing something here.  Some are dinners and some lunches? 

[SJMitch]

45 minutes ago, Anna N said:

@SJMitch

 I am having difficulty understanding the mathematics of your meal plans. Can you tell me why nine meals?  I am sure I am I missing something here.  Some are dinners and some lunches? 

 

Not missing anything.  We eat some as "lunch" and some as "dinner".  They are not specially marked for any meal (except the Sunbasket breakfast two-fers).

 

We usually eat two sit-down meals a day.  A "lunch" or "brunch"  (11am-ish, within 1.5-3 hours of waking) and a later meal (anywhere from 5pm to 9pm depending on our schedules -- I work evenings somedays).  We fill in with snacks and leftovers as we get hungry and some fruit at night.  So, we have about 14 meals a week we can fill with a mealkit meal if we want.

[Anna N]

2 minutes ago, SJMitch said:

 

Not missing anything.  We eat some as "lunch" and some as "dinner".  They are not specially marked for any meal (except the Sunbasket breakfast two-fers).

 

We usually eat two sit-down meals a day.  A "lunch" or "brunch"  (11am-ish, within 1.5-3 hours of waking) and a later meal (anywhere from 5pm to 9pm depending on our schedules -- I work evenings somedays).  We fill in with snacks and leftovers as we get hungry and some fruit at night.  So, we have about 14 meals a week we can fill with a mealkit meal if we want.

Gotcha!  I wasn't sure if you were counting a meal kit as one serving or two servings and and I was curious if you were treating them as lunch or dinner.  I, too, will frequently eat my main meal anywhere between noon and 3 PM  and I can rarely ever deal with three meals a day.   So I was just curious as to your take.  I must say if I could get meals that look yours delivered I'd be right on it. We have a much smaller market here so we often miss out on the kind of variety that our neighbours to the south enjoy. 

[Anna N]

     Now this is interesting. The grocery delivery service that I use has teamed up with Weight Watchers to provide a meal delivery service.

[SJMitch]

This week fewer of the meals seemed interesting to me.  I skipped both Blue Apron and Purple Carrot since each had only one recipe I wanted.  But even Sun Basket and Gobble were light on meals that called to me.  For Gobble, I got 3 meals but doubled up on one, so only 2 different ones.  For Sun Basket, there were really only 2 I wanted but I decided to get 3 -- going for this one: Roasted chicken breast and cauliflower with green romesco  

 

I think I mentioned I don't like chicken breast much compared to thigh.  Not as much flavor the texture doesn't appeal.  I should have probably done the chicken sous vide.  Maybe next time.  I do like chicken skin, but here are the breast we got:

 

 

Well, at least one has usable amounts of skin.  At last they arrived icy and seem quite fresh. 

 

I picked the dish because we love cauliflower and Sun Basket makes an awesome green romesco from cilantro, chile, pumpkin seeds, garlic, sherry vinegar and olive oil.  Because the sauce comes pre-made this is a low effort dish.

[SJMitch]

Here is the finished dish.  I mostly picked at my chicken -- leftovers for my husband.  As expected, the cauliflower and sauce were really good, tho.

 

 

[lindag]

I've never been able to understand why so many people prefer white chicken meat over dark.

Most folk around here seem to be that way.  I, on the other hand, will eat all of the dark (from a half or whole roast chicken), then don't feel guilty when I give a lot of the white portions to my dogs to supplement their meals.

[liamsaunt]

I finally got around to making the hummus that came in last week's Purple Carrot box.  Because I am staying at a vacation house without a food processor, I had to make it in the blender, which necessitated adding more olive oil than the recipe called for.  I did not make the amaranth crisps, and they forgot to include the flatbread, so I just served it as a dip with the included vegetables as an appetizer before dinner last night.  Everyone enjoyed it.

 

[SJMitch]

6 hours ago, lindag said:

I've never been able to understand why so many people prefer white chicken meat over dark.

Most folk around here seem to be that way.  I, on the other hand, will eat all of the dark (from a half or whole roast chicken), then don't feel guilty when I give a lot of the white portions to my dogs to supplement their meals.

 

I'm just happy that the dark meat is cheaper than the white (since I rarely buy whole chicken).  However, in a few years we may move to Shanghai and then it'll be the reverse: white meat there is 30% to 70% cheaper than legs/wings!  But don't cry for me: Shanghai food is incredible, I sure won't miss the meal kits!