Are Food Kits Really Cheaper Than Grocery Stores?
Blue Apron claims the grocery store is “70 percent more expensive” than its services. Home Chef cites a television news investigation that found little savings over food. But then I looked into my food set and saw that I was spending $ 20 on every meal that could barely feed two people. What gives?
While I love Blue Apron and Hello Fresh, I definitely pay well under $ 20 for the no-set dinners I make for myself and my husband. So how can these companies claim to be cheaper? Partly because they decide what we will compare. They ship a box of three completely different dishes, and for a fair comparison, an experimental grocery shopper buys the same ingredients for the same menu. Dishes usually have no common ingredients, and they often include one or two exotic ingredients. So yes: if your diet was entirely based on Blue Apron recipes, it would be difficult for you to keep $ 20 for lunch.
On the other hand, a reasonable meal planning is suitable for your dishes in the style of Tetris: chicken, remaining on Monday – is the foundation for a dinner on Tuesday, and green onions, which you bought on Tuesday, will also be a party salsa, which you cook in this weekend. If you know it, you can save tons of money.
It is this difference in approach, not the price of ingredients, that affects the bottom line when we compare food and meal kits. Let’s see how much a week of blue apron costs and what alternatives we have.
Blue Apron purchases
I looked at FreshDirect prices to find three of the most popular recipes featured on the Blue Apron site this week: Roast Pork and Mustard Sauce with Asparagus and New Potatoes , Tandoori Chicken and Rice with Summer Squash and Wright , and Hot Catfish – ours with red cabbage. , apple and pecan . Most of the items on my shopping list weren’t for sale, but I “bought” the best price, usually the smallest amount, which didn’t look like a rip-off.
Alternative strategy: build your food based on what is on sale and what your store usually offers at low prices.
Most of the items I put in the basket were larger than I needed. For example, a five-pound bag of flour when the recipe required a tablespoon. In real life, I already have a bag of flour at home because I use it many times before it gets stale. Other things are more complicated: I don’t eat a lot of mustard, so an almost full can of mustard can really be wasted. If I really loved mustard pork, I would probably also try adding some mustard sandwiches to lunch next week.
And in that case, I’ll probably want to roast enough pork to leave leftover sandwiches. So I would buy a large tenderloin instead of a one pound serving. In fact, I could extend this strategy to some side dishes. I could buy an extra potato segment and use some leftover mayonnaise from the catfish recipe to make a potato salad.
Alternative strategy: Cook more meals with the same ingredients to get the most out of the foods you have to buy in large quantities .
And the total amount …
I used FreshDirect pricing for everything except the Tandoori seasoning I found on another site. If I had devised this meal plan myself, I wouldn’t have cooked tandoori chicken if I didn’t have the seasoning, or if I didn’t know where to get it. (In fact, all the ingredients are mine, so I can mix my own.)
Alternative strategy: Prepare what you know (or can reasonably acquire). Less fun but more practical.
The totals still show that in-store groceries are cheaper than Blue Apron, but only if you don’t account for waste or leftovers. (You can see my calculations in this table .) Compared to $ 20 for each meal together, my dinners were $ 18 for pork (seems to be the off-season price for asparagus, hmm), $ 15 for tandoori. chicken and $ 12.32 per catfish. It drops to $ 10 if I put back the catfish and spice mix and instead grab the cajun-flavored catfish fillet that was on sale.
That’s what I mean by leftovers. A pack of $ 3.99 Persian cucumbers means I counted one cucumber for $ 0.67, but of course I spent a lot more. (In real life, I would also have to buy a tub of hummus to have a delicious pickle snack.)
When meal kits are worth it
In truth, food sets are more than just a food source: they are also a service that develops recipes, decides how to combine them, and gets them to your door. They do it to their liking, so if Blue Apron gets a good discount on wholesale tandoori spices, you’ll be cooking just that with them. Some give it to you and some to your neighbor on the street. If you do all of this on your own, you must keep track of the distribution and consumption of everything yourself.
So, as a smart shopper who knows about shopping, I can conclude that Blue Apron does not plan its meals as well as I would.
But in fact, I’m not always that smart and quick-witted. I’m busy and when I’m not busy I’m a little lazy. Do you know what I eat when I don’t have a box with a blue apron on my doorstep? I eat whatever I can buy cheap at Trader Joe’s frozen food section.
Alternative strategy: Katya’s pockets , which I know are mostly hot pockets. Shut up.
So I pay the people who sell food sets to come up with ingredients that taste delicious (food sets rarely let me down) to decide what’s on the menu this week and really ship them. me home. Sometimes I find recipes I like on the Internet, but there is a 70% chance that I will leave the recipe in the open browser tab literally forever.
On the other hand, in Panera or Chipotle, I would pay $ 10 for half of the food that is still not very satisfying – and then someone else prepares it for me. For $ 13, I can order my favorite Thai curry and not only be prepared by someone else but delivered to my door. That extra few dollars (plus a tip) gives me time to sit on my butt for 30 minutes just before eating, instead of standing in the kitchen chopping vegetables and trying to rip all the thyme leaves off their stems.
Alternative strategy: just deliver something .
All in all, a $ 20 lunch fee is fine. This is not surprising, but not a rip-off either. You pay for food, delivery, and freedom from the mental effort of planning meals and using leftovers. Sometimes I get a little frustrated when I usually cook my own food, but other times the kit introduces me to a new flavor (hello black bean garlic sauce ) that I wouldn’t otherwise risk it.
However, the meal kits are only worth it if you love to cook and want to prepare a fresh and interesting meal. Otherwise, Trader Joe’s and takeout food are always on hand and cheaper.