Meal Kit Mania (Online Exclusive)

If you want it, you can order it. There seems to be no limit to the kinds of meal kit services popping up. Here’s a look at just a few of them.

• Terra’s Kitchen provides fresh, prechopped ingredients for users to make Mediterranean Diet–inspired meals. Ingredients arrive in a climate-controlled delivery vessel that can be reused up to 100 times. In addition, the plastic containers inside are recyclable, though the company encourages consumers to find new uses for them instead of tossing them.
• Chef’d calls itself an online meal store, providing a range of different meal lines created by celebrity chefs or focusing on a particular dietary issue. No subscription is required, and it has offered Atkins and Weight Watchers meals, Spoon University kits for college students that included a choice of grab-and-go meals and snacks, and dessert boxes for Hershey’s, among other themes. The service also copacks for other meal kit delivery services and could one day include robotic fulfillment, according to food industry expert Phil Lempert.
• Veestro is a vegetarian prepared foods delivery service that was created when one of the founders realized how difficult it was to eat healthy after a long day. Veestro meals are fully cooked and arrive frozen; users simply heat and eat at their leisure. “Veestro is like the homemade meal you made yourself and put in freezer,” explains Monica Klausner, cofounder and CMO of Veestro.
• In addition to a partnership with Martha Stewart, Amazon is also working on prepared meals that don’t need to be refrigerated. These will draw on microwave assisted thermal sterilization, or MATS, which was developed by researchers at Washington State University and is being brought to market by 915 Labs. These dishes retain their natural flavor and texture, but some are not so optimistic about the idea. “I get why new food processing systems that increase shelf life may be good for Amazon,” Bentley Hall, CEO of fresh food delivery service Good Eggs, told Reuters. “I struggle to see how this solution addresses an actual consumer want or need better than fresh, prepared meals.”
• HelloFresh works with dietitians to create quick, healthy recipes using whole ingredients that users must prep themselves. “In 2017, we are concentrating on the continuous further development of our product,” says Ed Boyes, CEO of HelloFresh US. “We’ve recently launched our new wine service and online shop and are currently implementing new exciting innovations around choice and personalization.”
• Feastive delivers everything users need to host their own dinner parties. The service plans menus, sends ingredients, and provides recipes designed to let groups of people cook together. Options include DIY handrolled sushi, dumplings, hot pot, and raclette. Some menus include specialized equipment that the service provides and picks up after the party.
• Sun Basket lets users mix and match meals using Paleo, gluten-free, or vegetarian recipes. The company works with former The Slanted Door chef Justine Kelly to deliver fresh, seasonal ingredients from farm to table. Its website highlights the producers it works with, including ranchers, spice shop owners, and tofu makers. It recently raised $9 million in series C-2 funding led by Unilever Ventures.

Melanie Zanoza Bartelme is associate editor of Food Technology magazine.