Our Premium Selection of Top Meal Delivery Companies

Things to consider before choosing your meal delivery service

“What should we eat?” is probably one of the most frequent questions that haunt people everywhere. Ordering takeout might sound like a good and quick solution, but it soon gets tiresome and expensive. This is where the best meal kit delivery services come in.

Due to diversity in this field, finding a meal delivery service that fits your budget and meets your nutritional requirements and taste preferences is important. Consumer Opinion Guide has gone through the main factors you should consider before making the final decision and made a list of top rated meal delivery companies.

Recommended Meal Delivery Companies

• Blue Apron
• Gobble
• Sunbasket
• Home Chef
• HelloFresh

#1: Meal Kits vs. Fully Prepared Meals

Meal kits allow you to keep cooking while reducing your need for grocery shopping and meal planning. Fully prepared meals, on the other hand, take all of the work out of dinner time. Below you’ll find information on whom each option works best for.

Meal Kits

When assessing, if cooking from meal kits is right for you, consider the following questions:

• Do you want to cook?: If you like the idea of cooking but you’ve always struggled to cook or plan meals, these kits will build your confidence. These kits are also helpful if getting to the grocery store is challenging. However, if you simply have no desire to cook for yourself, then there’s no reason you have to choose a meal kit. Fully prepared meals can be just as healthy and are often the same price.
• How’s your balance, vision, and coordination?: If you feel energetic and enthusiastic about cooking, but you’ve experienced falls, you may want to discuss safety with your doctor. A doctor might give you tips for eliminating hazards and making your kitchen accessible. If you’re having severe problems with unsteadiness, loss of hand strength, sight, or memory, however, then for your safety it may be time to move toward fully prepared meals.
• How’s your energy level?: It can be hard to give up cooking for those who enjoy the process, but if illness or aging are making your energy levels low or unpredictable, then a meal kit may not be right for you. You don’t want to be stuck with a refrigerator full of meal kits and no desire to get up and cook.

Fully Prepared Meals

If you need a plan that requires zero cooking, then you can choose from one of many pre-prepared meal delivery services. Fully prepared meals from a meal delivery service may remind you of the freezer section of your local grocery store, but the truth is most meal delivery services offer more balanced, nutritious meals than you can get in a typical grocery store. There are fresh and frozen options available through meal delivery companies.

Before choosing a pre-prepared meal delivery company, you may want to look into alternative services such as nonprofits that provide seniors with ready-made meals. In addition, your area may have the option of affordable fresh meals made by a personal chef who visits you regularly to prepare a weeks’ worth of meals at a time in your home. These can both be great alternatives to cooking if they are available in your area.

Whether you get your meals from a meal delivery service, a nonprofit, or a personal chef, you’ll just need to reheat when you’re ready to eat. Reheating will take a matter of minutes in a microwave. Most of the time a pre-prepared meal will include one serving of an entree and side dishes, and sometimes you’ll be able to select what your side dishes are.

#2: Dietary Needs

After you’ve decided between premade meals or meal kits, pause to consider if your nutritional needs should influence your company choice. Almost all companies offer some form of specialty diet options, and many are designed by dieticians to be nutritionally balanced.

Many companies carry two or three of the following diet options:

• Low Sodium
• Low Carb
• Low Calorie
• Low Fat
• Heart-Healthy
• Vegetarian
• Renal-Friendly
• Family-Friendly
• Keto
• Diabetic
• Gluten-free or “no gluten added”

Other diet options, like the ones listed below, are rarer, but a few companies do offer them:

• Menopause-friendly
• Vegan
• Dairy-free
• High protein
• Mediterranean
• Cancer support

A few companies cater to special diets so much that they do one or more of the following:

• Coordinate with your doctor
• Staff health coaches that you can call
• Allow you to swap ingredients or side dishes
• Allow full meal customization

#3: Industry’s Pricing System Basics

If you eat out or order takeout frequently, then switching to a meal delivery service may save you money. If you’ve been doing your grocery shopping and cooking yourself, however, a meal delivery service may require a larger food budget, unless you’re able to have meals delivered from a nonprofit organization or through your insurance. Spending more on a meal delivery service will be worthwhile if it contributes to your safety, health, and happiness.

No matter your situation, try to determine how much of your budget you can reasonably afford to spend on meal services. It will help you to be aware of the range of costs currently on the market.

Per Serving Costs

Many companies charge the same basic price per serving for all of their meals, making your weekly costs easy to predict. However, a few companies price each meal individually based on its ingredients, charging more for, say, a steak dinner than for a soup dinner.

Most companies offer a discount to customers who order large quantities of servings or meals each week. Ordering two two-serving meals will almost always be more expensive per serving than ordering three four-serving meals from the same company, for example. The price difference can be as dramatic as $2 or $3 per serving.

The lowest per serving costs we have seen on the market for dinners have started around $6.50, and the highest we have seen have been about $25. You will probably find that most companies’ per serving prices fall between $6 and $12. Breakfast and snack items are often around $5 per serving.

Shipping Costs

Some companies factor shipping costs into their ‘per serving’ cost, but most companies add an extra shipping charge to every box delivered. Keep in mind that boxes are large and may include about 20 servings. A few companies determine shipping fees by national zones, which means those furthest from the distribution center face the highest costs. Very few companies ship to Hawaii or Alaska due to high costs.

#4: Determine Your Weekly Delivery Limit

Subscription is the most common way to buy delivery meals. When you sign up for a subscription you’ll usually have two or three options for the number of meals you receive per week as well two or three options for the number of servings per meal.

Consider the following factors to make a decision on how many days per week you want to have meals delivered:

• Your budget: Meal delivery services make life much easier for those who struggle to cook or shop, but the cost of using meal delivery for every single meal can add up. Many people find it best to combine meal delivery with some easy-to-prepare items from a grocery store (think bagged salad and rotisserie chicken kinds of dinners). With online grocery ordering and delivery becoming available in many cities, you might not need to leave your home to get a few basics.
• Your support system: The extent to which your friends, family, or other caretakers have the time and resources to help you will be the biggest factor to consider when deciding how many meals per week you should order. If your current support system is strained, adding even a small, two-dinners-a-week meal plan could give everyone the break they need while still providing the wholesome food you need to stay healthy.
• Insurance: A few meal delivery companies are capable of providing meals through insurance or Medicare waivers. If you have a chronic disease, are housebound, or are recovering from surgery, you can speak with your Medicare Advantage provider or other insurance and benefits providers about whether or not you qualify for temporary or long-term meal assistance.

A few companies allow you to order whatever amount of meals and servings you want, and these are a great option for those who want every meal of the week delivered. Another option for getting meals delivered every day of the week is to use two different meal subscriptions.

Step 5: Look for Promotions Before You Buy

If you have a company in mind, chances are good that you can find some kind of promotion to make your first few orders cheaper. Many companies include promotional pricing or free shipping on any new customer’s first order directly on their websites.

You can also find promotions through a variety of advertising platforms. Radio stations, podcasts, and social media influencers frequently offer codes for meal delivery services. During our research, we found $20 and $80 discount codes for leading brands through all of the above platforms. Chances are good that a younger relative of yours might be willing to use their social media accounts to conduct a hashtag search of a brand name to help you find a discount code.

Even if the company you want is more traditional and doesn’t advertise on the above-mentioned platforms, it may still offer you a discount based on your age or membership in certain organizations. It never hurts to ask.