Plated

I was very disappointed with the quality of the plated food. We had almost one item that was bad with each meal. Moldy sweet potatoes, moldy bread, slimy/old spinach, salads and herbs. They offered small credits but it didnt help because I cancelled service after a month of weekly service. One of our boxes was crushed upon delivery too. Ill include some pictures below. We previously used Hello Fresh and will be going back to them. The only reason we switch to Plated was because my mother wanted us to try it. I would not suggest Plated to anyone.

The first recipe from my first box was AWFUL. I was so disappointed. Lots of money for low-quality ingredients. The photos on their website are pretty and appetizing, but don't fall for it. You can do so much better on your own. I asked for a refund and was refused. Cancelled my subscription before they could take more of my money and send more of this crappy food.

The last two meals were not good
One was minestrone and it was off on flavor and texture. Maybe some pasta would have helped. I have made it many times using different recipes and this was the worst. Threw it out. The other was a medetranian dish that was dry and too many uneccessary steps. They had you roast potatoes and mushrooms on foil lined baking sheets and veggies stuck to foil. Overall my complaint is that the recipes are just not tasty.

We have always enjoyed Plated but recently notice that ingredients have been eliminated and reduced from past recipes that we have had before. When you like something and have the opportunity to order it again and it has been cheapened with less ingredients and reduced quantity and quality it turns us off. Plated is the most expensive and now they are the poorest quality.

My husband and I aren't great cooks so we were excited to try this meal out. We cooked the seared steak with roasted veggies and loved it. Took us about 35 minutes, food was tasty, and the prep was super easy. Only downside was the green beans were a little old so we used some we had. Not terrible though considering the box was sitting on the shelf at the store for a bit. Great meal for a decent price.

We stopped the service after we had repeated incidents of poor quality or missing products. Resumed service a year later hoping things were improved, but our second box was not delivered and not even shipped. When I reported to customer service, they responded 2 days later asking me to report again in chat or by phone. When I did that they offered to refund the box I did not get. No discount for the inconvenience or anything. Annoying, because we subscribed to augment a busy schedule, but in all it took way longer to report their issue to them and get my money back for something they didn't deliver. Totally negates the convenience factor when you have to run out for food 2 nights in a row that you didn't plan for. Their "$#*! happens, and it happened to you... meh" response just shows that sloppy delivery is backed by sloppy customer service. I rarely write negative reviews but I feel compelled to take time out of my day to share this.

I once liked Plated, but recently dropped the service due to poor product quality. Stale, tasteless bread, wilted greens, tough carrots, sprouting yellow parsley, lemons picked so green they taste bitter instead of sour, rock-hard avocados that can't possibly ripen before the meat goes bad -- I think Albertsons pulls the perishables that are too low quality to sell in its stores and uses them for Plated.

Poor working conditions along with horrible supervision of food quality and handling. Workers do as they please touch whatever they use and Do not change gloves, serve expired food but only plated will know, not the customers. Supervisors sleeping with workers, pest problems along with paint chipped walls with lead. Items always missing from food or not weighted correct.it's a very unprofessional place to have your food coming from. Just my opinion.

I bought my first Plated meal at my local Safeway a few days ago. The meal kit was on sale for $9.99 to entice people to try it (Regular price $18.99). I liked that it was a meal for just 2, prep time was only 10 minutes (30 minutes cooking time) and $5 per person seemed like a good deal. I purchased the Chicken Marsala with Roasted Fingerling Potatoes.
I am NOT a cook by any stretch of the imagination but the ingredients were well labeled, and the instructions easy to follow. Everything seemed fresh and only the parsley was slightly wilted - no big deal.
I naively thought that 10 minutes prep time was all that I would spend in the kitchen and for the remaining 30 minutes the meal would cook in the oven or on the stove. It took me a full hour to prepare and cook the meal while standing in the kitchen the whole time.
I struggled with the following items: Rosemary was to be minced and parsley was to be finely chopped. I didn't know the difference between minced and finely chopped so both ingredients were cut into small pieces. Unfortunately, I mixed the two items when I should have kept them separated. The tip on drying your chicken before dredging it in flour was good but once cooked, my chicken looked pale and did not have an 'evenly browned crust' or any crust at all. I also failed at making the Marsala sauce. I couldn't judge when the liquid was reduced by half and my sauce turned out thin & watery. I also didn't have a meat mallet to flatten the chicken but a heavy pan can be used instead. The potatoes turned out well but the sizes were quite varied some - very small and others 4 times as big but it didn't seem to make a difference when they were cooked.
Additionally, the meal was 710 calories per serving but didn't feel worth that number of calories.
Would I do it again? Hmmm, maybe. If it was still on sale, I'd try a different meal and go in knowing that prep time and cooking time will take longer than indicated and all that time will be spent in the kitchen.

My first box from plated was 4 meals-2 persons. When the box hadn't arrived by about dinner time, I called, and they could not even track it, and advised me to go to the store for dinner supplies for that night. First meal was barely edible, due to way too much lemon juice included in the recipe. (About 1 1/2 lemons in each serving.) The second meal was very good, BUT they sent peanuts to use in the Pine Nut Encrusted Salmon, resulting in a 30 mile round trip to shop for Pine Nuts at the nearest store where they were available. Phone calls were made, and refunds, and credits were given, but the "credits could not be applied until the next box, even as they charging for the delivery. I'm still waiting for the refunds... I'll get back to you on that. There are some good meal kit services out there, but Plated is not one of them.

After 1.5 years loyal to Blue Apron and dealing with missing/wrong ingredients and recipes, I finally decided to try a different meal service when Blue Apron sent me a random recipe claiming the scallops I ordered were sold out. Plated was an absolutely incredible surprise. The taste and flavours are explosive and different than anything else I've tried! So glad I made this change!

No Customer Service!

For three weeks in a row the delivery was "lost" by the carrier. I reached out to them every time and "they would look into it" - Yesterday's box was on the truck and out for delivery and it was "lost" - sounds like someone is enjoying the food and when I called yet again for the third time all I got was "I'm so sorry that happened to you again." Unbelievable!

I just wanted to comment on the reason why I cancelled my weekly subscription box from Plated. I was a brand new customer, very excited to try their products, so I opened an account and set up a weekly delivery and made meal plans for several future weeks. I was so excited to receive my first order... and then it didn't come. I contacted customer service and they apologized and refunded me. I was told that everything was straightened out and I would definitely receive a box the very next week.

A few days later I received an email from Plated saying "Yay! We're going to ship your order!" So I shopped light at the grocery store, confident that Plated would send me a box... and then it didn't come. Again. (I had nothing planned for dinner for the next 3 days and had to go out and buy more groceries after working a 12-hr shift.) Anyways, I contacted customer service and received a refund to my bank account. But really? Two weeks in a row? Did they not want my business? Why would they not make certain that the order was shipped given the failure of the previous week? There was no explanation either time for the missed shipment. I was told they didn't know why it wasn't sent out. They did not offer a coupon or any type of customer recovery. When I told the customer service rep that I felt that I should cancel my account they said "I understand, sorry to see you go". That was it. So I cancelled my service. It's been a very disappointing experience, and I would not recommend their service to anyone else.

I'm surprised by the number of negative comments about Plated because we are very happy and satisfied! My husband and I have had the service for about 8 months and get two meals two times a week. I'm a fairly accomplished cook and my husband a little less to but love the meals and directions we've received from the service. I would say we have absolutely loved about 45%, really liked about 45% and there are just a few we didn't care for. The company is exposing us to a variety of meals and combinations that we wouldn't necessarily have gravitated to on our own. The ingredients are generally well packaged and fresh from our experience. In addition, they immediately responded and gave credit when we had two separate issues (1. Pesto spilled within box; and 2. Fedex delivered one box a day late. I also love the variety of meal choices and the ability to easily skip weeks. Great company!

Plated is ideal for people who love food, and they customize all of your meals to perfection: desserts, seafood, meat and veggie meals.
What I love most about Plated is the variety of food options on offer. This Meal Kits services company offers an incredible 20 dishes every week. These menus are designed for newbies and experienced pros alike. Some of the menu items can take a while to prepare, from 20 minutes up to an hour so bear that in mind.

For more meal kit reviews, visit https://www.themealkitreview.com

Plated offers gift cards but does not divulge that the recipient must join their service in order to use the card.
This Christmas we gave gift cards to friends and family completely unaware that they would have to give out their credit info. That was offensive to many and embarrassing to us.

I have tried Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, Marley Spoon, Sun Basket, Dinnerly, and Green Chef and ALL of them, even Marley Spoon and Dinnerly, who delivered spoiled food two days after the reported delivery date, managed to find my house. Every single service besides Plated. Plated has miss-delivered my boxes twice. Yup, only twice. The problem is... I've only ordered from them twice. So, they are sitting at a 100% failure rate. I have spent countless hours on the phone with customer service who offers up lots of "oh no's" and "oh wow, I'm so sorry's" and "well that's strange, we've never had that happen before's" well, you have had that happen before... I called last week too, remember? I am so beyond frustrated with this company. How is it failing so badly at something so basic that event the crappy companies are getting right? Maybe use a reputable delivery service like the rest of them do instead of GSO which I've decided stands for "Gosh-Sh*t-Oops we messed up another delivery".

Good interior, comfortable location, but one waiter for the whole room, does not have time for anything. The toilet ran out of toilet liners and no toilet paper. But there is plenty of mold.

The food was spoiled by the time it reached my apartment. I would highly recommend not ordering here!

I loved this service for a long time, but eventually just got bored of it. Tasty meals while it lasted though!

I must have ordered plated 20 times and made 60 meals. I wanted so bad to like it because I loved the variety of recipes and they were pretty tasty and easy to follow. The quality of the food however week after week was not acceptable. I would get a $12 credit whenever I would report moldy, or expired food. I even had garlic that was growing mold once. My final straw was I had a meal that was completely inedible. The romaine lettuce was brown and moldy and when I opened the chicken my son could smell the stench from the other end of the room. I explained that $12 credits just aren't cutting it, I want to feel like I have consistent meals. What did I get. A $12 credit and heard nothing about my complaint on the chicken. I'm done. There are other companies, Blue Apron, Hello Fresh etc. that have good food and you don't have to be scared of it.

Mold on Empenada Dough; No dates on meat; avocados are rock hard while the spinach from the same meal is wilting... the quality of food is not worth the price they charge. The only reason I put 2 stars is the ability to choose 3 servings, as apposed to their competitors 2 or 4.

Judging by other reviews, I think the freshness of food probably depends on where you live and how close you are to their distribution centers. For me, everything has been good to great in terms of freshness. I've tried almost all of the same type of service (Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, Sun Basket, Marley Spoon, Home Chef) and Plated is still the one that I think has the best recipes. When I say best recipes, it's in terms of a) how good the final result tastes, b) whether the ingredients/process is easily reproducible and c) how well the recipe is actually written in terms of time management/clarity. One giant caveat: Plated doesn't publish their recipes/you can't retrieve archived meals or the other meals in your delivery you didn't purchase.
I'd say 90% of the time, the meals turn out great. There was one or two that I questioned their choice (large pieces of eggplant in lo mein, not what I'd choose but hey) but overall, just fantastic. The instructions are also always very easy to follow, and any highlights are printed separately for you to keep note of. I've also cooked a dish or two I've loved again and they were also great. It's slightly pricier than some of the other choices, but I think it's worth it.

Note: this is a subscription service like any other type (handbags, shoes, etc). You will be charged recurring weeks unless you deactivate your account or skip a meal. It's sometimes difficult to remember, but I always skip all the meals for the upcoming month or so to be safe and then go back to unskip once I'm not as busy. I'm pretty sure this is outlined in the sign-up somewhere, so it's not a surprise.