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I've tried 3 services now, and what they all seem to not get is that they are not selling food. I can get food in the local supermarket. They are selling conven
by jVinc 8y ago
I've tried 3 services now, and what they all seem to not get is that they are not selling food. I can get food in the local supermarket. They are selling convenience and peace of mind.
Whats the difference? The difference is that if you screw up my order 2-3 times, then I will quit your service and never look back. Sure you deliver food to my door most the time, but you are not providing convenience and peace of mind.
I have never had the issue where going to the supermarket to shop for dinner unknowingly left me without crucial ingredients or return boxes crowding my driveway. I have never had the issue where a supermarket sneaks shellfish into my order even though I am allergic and explicitly did not want shellfish when I entered the supermarket.
The tolerances on these services are just much much harder than a brick and mortar store and it feels like none of them take it seriously at all. You need to provide near 98% for every single customer or they eventually drop off as they lose patience with you and switch service, and after a couple they just don't want to bother any more.
- Sebguer 8y agoAdditionally, the dependency on last mile shipping companies which by and large are awful means that some problems will never be entirely under their control. I used BlueApron for several months, but then the last mile delivery company stopped dropping the package at my door and instead began leaving it in my apartment's mail room, which doesn't notify me when I have a package and closes overnight. That + some growing concerns over food safety (esp around their meat) lead to me dropping and giving up on them.
- MuffinFlavored 8y agoWhat'd you switch to instead?
- LordDragonfang 8y agoI'm assuming they just went back to B&M groceries.
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y agoSame experience here. Every single service will credit you for mistakes but it only takes one or two mistakes before the convenience factor is destroyed. I’ve had the core ingredient missing from my boxes before. As in, the core ingredient is in the recipe name! I also found the produce quality to be hit or miss. Spinach especially was regularly too wet and thus spoiled before I even had a chance to use it. That never happens to me with store bought produce. The ecological impact also started to wear on me. I felt gross with the amount of plastic I was throwing out.
- TomVDB 8y ago> The ecological impact also started to wear on me. I felt gross with the amount of plastic I was throwing out. That was by far my biggest concern. I'm not very environmentally conscious, but this was just too much.
- Waterluvian 8y agoA lot of people here are saying "plastic trash." Are plastics not recycled in the U.S.? Of course, eliminating them is way better than any form of recycling, but I'm fixated on the use of "trash" to qualify plastic refuse.
- DangitBobby 8y agoMany places in the US do not offer recycling pickup at all. I live very near a major metro area and the only recycling pickup available for us is cardboard. This is the first place I've ever lived that offers any sort of recycling pickup whatsoever. I've only ever noticed this problem in Southern states, however.
- ipsum2 8y agoCheck out https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/national-sword/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/national-sword/, an incredibly insightful look into how recycling works in the US.
- TomVDB 8y ago
- grahamburger 8y agoI wish that there was a meal kit service without the meal kit. Provide curated recipes for X days a week and add the necessary ingredients directly to my Walmart grocery pickup or Amazon foods order or whatever. Would eliminate a lot of waste and shipping issues and give me all of what I like about meal kits.
- leetrout 8y agoPart of this exists. There are some recipe sites that have an instacart button to add the ingredients to your grocery order.
- papa_bear 8y agoCheck out my service Eat This Much (https://www.eatthismuch.com https://www.eatthismuch.com) It’s pretty much what you describe, and we offer instacart and amazon fresh integration. Since we have a big emphasis on hitting your nutrition targets, it’s a bit tough to guarantee you’ll love the first meal plan we generate for you. It takes a bit of refreshing meals to get everything perfect for your tastes, and it’s definitely the #1 thing we’re working on improving.
- pests 8y agoHey! This is yours? Huge fan for a long time. The app actualy solves problems verses just a fancy design or a wish for how things should be. Thanks!
- papa_bear 8y agoGlad to hear it! I started it a bunch of years ago as a side project, and now we have a small team working on it. Still a lot of work to do before it's as useful as we want it to be :)
- purplezooey 8y agoyeah the messing up of orders was a big one for me.