Jill K.

I've used many meal delivery services, there are pros and cons with all of them. One of the gimmicks with Terra's Kitchen is the reusable shipping vessels. These things weigh a ton it would cost me what I paid for my whole order just to ship one of them, they must have an amazing deal with FedEx. My order actually came in two vessels. The second had two small containers in it. Two things. That seems pretty wasteful to me. You can add meals until your vessel is full. You'd think they'd either have a better handle on what full is or they would take out a freezer pack to stick the two extra items in the one vessel. Because of the way they package items, they need quite a bit of space to ship them. I found all the meals I had from them to be quite bland. I wonder if this has something to do with them trying to keep the number of ingredients down for their vessels. Out of three meals, buffalo chicken tacos, swedish meatballs and garlic mushroom smothered chicken, I wouldn't care to have any of them again. Another gimmick is pre-chopped ingredients (though some things like herbs were not pre-chopped). While it is convenient and saves time to not have to chop things yourself, it also means you need to use the items right away. The chopped veggies begin to go bad immediately, as opposed to veggies sent whole by other services. The meals are a little pricier too, with each having a different price based on contents. While none of the food was bad, I don't think I'd order from them again. It just wasn't very good either and I can get better cheaper from the other services. I re-use their packaging and don't mind chopping a carrot or mushrooms for the extra flavor in the dishes.

Updated 6/2019 as they have changed several things: I initially tried Green Chef in 2017. The food was good, but you weren't allowed to pick your own meals, they picked for you based on things you would eat such as fish or chicken. Plus the cost was about 20$ more per box than most of the other services. So I cancelled. Recently they sent an email that they had changed to allowing you to pick meals and offered a discount to come back. So I tried it again.The first box sat in a UPS warehouse for 5 days so they gave me a free replacement box. The second box was missing the shrimp meal I ordered, so they gave me a discount for a third box. The first time I tried Green Chef I liked the food. This time, not so much. And it is still more costly than most of the other services. You still get pre-made sauces and some pre-chopped vegetables, which helps cut down cooking time but means it won't last as long as ingredients in the fridge. It is still organic. They now have several different menus including gluten-free, keto, pescatarian, heart smart, vegetarian and omnivore. Each menu has 4 to 6 choices with many of the choices repeated on different menus. Unfortunately, though the meals sound good they don't taste that great- especially for the high price. And I ordered meals with chicken tenders twice- the chicken was disgusting. It didn't resemble a "tender," there were gristle tabs on all the pieces, when you take it out of the package it is so pulverized it sticks to your hands like a paste and when you cook it it seems more like chicken crumbles. They did answer emails about bad boxes, though I did have to contact them twice about the first box. So with the expense and the underwhelming flavors I wouldn't recommend Green Chef unless you just really want the lower-calorie meals with "healthy" ingredients and don't care if it tastes good. But it is okay to try if you can get a good enough discount on a box.

Placed an order in October for a backordered item, my card was charged 62.73 at this time. Got one email shortly thereafter that the item was backordered, which I knew so no big deal. Never heard from them again. Finally after about 4 months I contacted them. I was told sorry for the delay, the item will be shipping in the next couple weeks if you still want it, or they could cancel the order. I said I wanted it if it was actually going to ship. Was told it would be. The next day I got an email that the item was discontinued and they would refund my card. I got a refund. For 52.99. So they had my money for four months and charged me 10ish dollars for the privilege. And I now will have to deal with more people trying to get the rest of the money. Never again.

I tried Freshly with a discount code. I had 6 different meals. Only one of them, the Caribbean jerk chicken, would I ever care if I had again. And one of them I didn't even finish the chicken was kind of nasty. My take-away there was the grilled chicken is ok, baked not so much. The others were okay, just not "gosh, this is good." If I saw the meals in a grocery store for 2-3$ I would buy them. But a regular price of 11ish dollars apiece for somewhat better quality TV dinners is too much for me. And if I had the kind of disposable income that would make that price seem reasonable to me, I think I could find something tastier to spend it on. I think if you don't find that price out of line, it would be worth trying the service though. Maybe you will find the food better than I did. As for the recurring billing thing, I had zero issues. I paused the program right after I started it, and just left it paused instead of canceling, which is also easy and can be done online in your account.

I have bought several things from goldbely. Some I liked and some I didn't. But in each case I got exactly what I ordered. The Kentucky Bourbon Barrel cake was good but nothing special. Sarge's monster sandwich kit is supposed to be 10 to 12 inches tall. Mine was 8 and 4 inches of that was the bread. I couldn't even make anything like the photo if I folded it up a bunch of times and only put it in the first inch of bread. The Stella's spicy cheese rolls were okay, but there was next to no cheese in them. The Jack's Stack Poor Russ kit was very tasty. But any problems have just been with not caring for what I ordered, not that I received anything incorrect. And that can happen at any restaurant. The packages arrive on time and in good condition. I have had zero problems with the goldbely portion of the experience. And I go to the website of the company just to make sure it's a good deal, and the regular goldbely price is usually basically the same, though a few have been cheaper on the website, but I buy stuff when it's on special which makes it less than ordering directly from the companies that have that option. I'm satisfied. It would be nice, however, if they had a space for reviews on their site. So you would know don't order the Sarge's for 100$ because you will have a giant loaf of rye with tiny meats in it, though it does taste good. Or don't order Stella's there is no cheese in the cheese bread. Or hell yeah get the lobster rolls. Etc.

Edit: They do now have reviews, but I see no way to actually post a review so it seems they take the good blurbs from the emails they send out to rate your experience and post those. So not really reviews since you don't get to see any negative responses. I guess then I would be wary of places with no reviews. Maybe they are new. But maybe no one had anything good to say about them.