In recent years, meal kit delivery services have blossomed around the USA to provide ready-to-use, fresh and healthy ingredients. These services work well for anyone who’s on a tight schedule but still wishes to prepare meals at home. Blue Apron is one of the leading meal delivery services in the country. Naturally, we had to write a Blue Apron Review to see why are they popular. The brand offers weekly menus created by chefs that users can follow using pre-packaged ingredients delivered straight to their doors.
While pretty famous thanks to celebrity and influencer endorsements, for example, Chrissy, are Blue Apron meals really worth it? To find out, take a look at our comprehensive Blue Apron review, where we analyze their services and customer reviews, but not just.
Blue Apron is a meal delivery service imagined to provide complete meal kits. These include both recipes and pre-packaged ingredients and can be sent to customers all over the USA. The company was created in 2012 by Matt Salzberg, Ilia Papas, and Matt Wadiak, who wanted to simplify making good choices when it comes to eating healthy.
To provide everything one would need for making quick and healthy homemade meals, the brand partners with farmers who grow high-quality ingredients in a sustainable manner, as well as distribution systems that deliver the same ingredients plus recipe cards. Ultimately, the goal is to create a better food system.
When we say the company uses only high-quality ingredients, we mean it. Blue Apron’s produce is natural and non-GMO, and their animal products come from animals fed a natural diet, free from antibiotics and hormones. The company has even been recommended by Seafood Watch, which is a global leader in the sustainable seafood movement.
Aside from offering full meal kits, they also offer wines that complement their meals. The company is also selling various kitchen tools, including cooking pans, knives, baking dishes, mixing bowls, aprons, and more.
Before diving into this review in more detail, let us go over some pros and cons of the Blue Apron meal kit delivery service.
The Blue Apron recipes prices range between $7.99 and $9.99 per serving whether you choose a Signature, Vegetarian, or Wellness plan, and start at $13.99 per serving for Premium recipes.
These Blue Apron offers are amazing, as we have come to discover. This can help you make your own opinion of the company’s meals at a fraction of the cost over three recipes!
The company offers not only meal kits but also a wide choice of kitchenware and pantry basics, and you can even treat yourself to an attractive monthly wine plan.
The Blue Apron wine plan allows you to try out wine bundles that come with six bottles in a 500 mL format (which is ⅔ of a standard-sized wine bottle). You can select any wine you feel like tasting and mix and match your favorites for $65.99 per month (including shipping and excluding taxes).
Blue Apron goes the extra mile by offering customers exclusive wine pairing tips and proving indispensable in choosing wines sourced from a circuit that completely cuts out the middleman.
The company carefully crafts many of its recipes with ingredients to substitute if you have specific dietary requirements. The brand’s flexibility is thoughtful and customer-friendly, as more and more people exclude complete food categories from their diet, such as pescatarians or vegetarians.
If you would like to subscribe to these meal kits, you can choose between:
If you cannot find a menu that works for you entirely, you can visit the chefs’ Upcoming page in advance and check out substitution ingredients they recommend for their recipes. You can then swap or add ingredients from your Blue Apron subscription for an additional cost ranging between $0.95 to $5.95 per serving. You are also free to skip that week’s delivery if the recipe is not to your taste. Upon receiving your order, you will find the substitution step indicated on the cooking instructions card.
The brand offers three weekly vegetarian options in their Signature for 2 Vegetarian Plan. Blue Apron’s menu is quite tasty, with some of the meal kits containing Roasted Sweet Potato Quesadillas, Peanut Lentil Curry, or Fontina and Pepper Focaccia Pizza.
If you have a severe food allergy, it is worth noting that they package the products in a facility that also manipulates allergens like fish, shellfish, eggs, milk, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, and soy.
Blue Apron provides fresh, high-quality ingredients to ensure their meals are both healthy and tasty. The company places customers’ and vendors’ wellbeing at the core of their business. They partner with family-run farms that use sustainable farming practices, such as Reeves Farm, Vermont Creamery, and Sun Noodle.
Blue Apron certifies that:
Blue Apron focuses on making their customers’ lives simpler and healthier by providing fresh, locally sourced produce and carefully packaging each ingredient to avoid any damage during transit. Just as you can have eco-friendly packaging while grocery shopping, the brand also offers sustainable solutions while delivering your meals.
The company delivers the pre-imagined meal kits in cardboard boxes, which gives a feel of authenticity. It’s good to know that plastic wrapping is down to a minimum for noodles or meat. As an eco-friendly initiative, vegetables come stripped from any packaging.
The company advises you to unpack your ingredients as soon as you get them and store them in your fridge to ensure they remain as fresh as possible for longer.
Over the last years, upon noticing a sharp decrease in the quality of our eating patterns, meal prep companies have been rising all over the United States. While Blue Apron’s approach to a healthy, sustainable lifestyle is desirable, it can prove beneficial to consider other meal prep options.
Blue Apron’s main competitors are Sun Basket, Home Chef, Home Bistro, Hello Fresh, Green Chef, Plated, Medifast, Veestro, Bistro MD, Trifecta, Magic Kitchen, Snap Kitchen, and Peach Dish.
On average, Blue Apron’s meal kits are priced reasonably for meals that care for the planet and products that are sourced sustainably. Prices start at $8.99, they are roughly the same as Sun Basket and Hello Fresh. Is it cheaper than going grocery shopping? Ultimately yes, as we never count petrol money on our way to the store. Unless you’re riding a bike. Let’s see what customers think of Blue Apron’s service.
For our Blue Apron reviews, we checked customer opinions on various websites, including Trustpilot, ConsumerAffairs, and TopConsumerReviews. The overall descriptions of the meals, plans, and pricing are very positive. This leads us to believe that this brand really is one of the best choices if you’re considering subscribing to a fast and easy meal kit service.
Blue Apron’s meal kits were rated 4.1 / 5 on Trustpilot. Many customers were excited by the quality and quantity of the fresh produce and pleased that the meals provided were healthy, easy to make, and relatively flavorful depending on the recipe.
Another feature of the recipes was that the instructions are straightforward and easy to follow, allowing customers to get fulfilling food at home in well under an hour. The generally positive sentiment lies in customers’ ability to try a wide selection of meal options from home.
“I recommend Blue Apron for anyone who’s interested in becoming a better cook, trying new menu items, feels like they don’t have time to menu plan or shop, or wants ideas for how to change up what they already eat. It’s also great for helping to get kids involved in cooking, in my experience”.
Some customers outlined orders missing occasionally, for which the brand’s team would credit the customers’ accounts straight away. Another complaint was the odd shipping delay due to the shipping company. Overall, Blue Apron is very reliable in providing fresh, tasty ingredients and easy-to-follow recipe cards to customers.
When we looked into signing up for Blue Apron meal delivery service, we found that it was a straightforward process. Upon entering their ZIP code, customers have the option to select their First Delivery Date from a list of available options. Customers will continue to receive deliveries on the day that you initially chose unless they decide to change it in their account settings.
Blue Apron charges no membership fees, which means you will never pay more than the plan you have chosen, and you are entirely free to skip or cancel any order before the cutoff date if you don’t feel like getting their order that week.
To find the best deals and promotions for the Blue Apron meal kit delivery services, we have checked the company’s website (as well as other websites) in detail. We have found that first-time customers can get $60 off spread over their first three orders, which amounts to $20 off each box. All you have to do to enjoy this discount is sign up to the website with your email address and a password.
We’ve also discovered that the company offers regular 15% and 20% deals off their Blue Apron orders, making for exciting discounts whether you are a first-time customer or not.
The company also offers Meal and Wine e-Gift Cards, with a $60, $120, or $240 value. If you would like to gift a special someone a Blue Apron Meal Gift Card, you’ll be pleased to know that the recipient can use it towards any subscription meal plan among the Signature, Signature for four, or Vegetarian plans. In the case of a Wine e-Gift card, both the customer and the recipient must be over 21.
The Blue Apron gift card, in particular, seems like a very convenient way to please a close one while broadening their cooking horizons.
If you have any questions that this review hasn’t addressed, you can contact Blue Apron via:
The Customer Experience team is available from Monday to Friday from 10 am to 9 pm (ET), and on Saturdays and Sundays from 11 am to 6 pm, excluding Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.
The Blue Apron website immediately attracts the eye with beautifully curated recipes. The many meal options mean that the company caters to most people’s dietary needs. These include vegetarians, pescatarians, those watching their caloric intake, etc. First of all, we like that Blue Apron offers good-quality and fresh ingredients. Secondly, they care about the environmental and sustainable aspects of food production.
By putting its customers’ health first and partnering with sustainable farmers, the brand is acknowledged as environmentally friendly. Blue Apron is certainly one of the best meal kit subscription services on the market. The brand places itself as a genuinely caring company that offers tasty meal and wine plans for a fair price compared to other meal delivery services. We also appreciate the fact customers can be specific about the dishes they want. Various dietary restrictions, reduced calorie content, and so on, are all possible with Blue Apron.
The conclusion? If you’re a beginner cook looking for healthy, easy-to-make meals and you care about sustainability, Blue Apron is definitely worth it. However, if you have very strict dietary restrictions – for instance, you have a severe gluten allergy, or you’re on a keto diet – you’ll want to look for another meal kit delivery service.
Here are a few more popular subscription services to consider such as Hedley & Bennett, FirstLeaf Wine Club. and Winc Wine Club.
Upon looking at the Blue Apron meals specificities, you can find that quite a large number of customers can benefit from the brand’s tasty and healthy meals, including:
People who are beginners in cooking, in particular, might be excited about bringing to life delicate dining level dishes on their own, with all the ingredients provided to suit their lifestyle and dietary requirements.
Blue Apron has introduced the WW Mark of Wellness, with veggie-forward meals catered to their Weight Watchers customers. The company offers weekly Weight Watchers-approved recipes that make healthy eating and staying on track accessible and easy.
Blue Apron offers 11 Weight Watchers-approved recipes, with customers’ ability to choose from at least three delicious WW-approved options every week, such as Garlic Shrimp and Spanish-style potatoes, Togarashi Chicken and Brown rice bowls, or Sesame-Sambal Turkey Lettuce cups.
The company allows you to scan the recipes’ barcode and track SmartPoints® weekly based on your myWW™ color while offering nourishing, satisfying kits. The Weight Watchers-approved recipes have vegetables as the meal star, limited calories, saturated fat, sodium, and added sugar meals.
The Blue Apron meal kit delivery service allows you to cancel and skip orders planned for the weeks you don’t feel like cooking. The company emphasizes freedom with an almost entirely self-service website doubled with an app for both Android and Apple devices, on which you can select your upcoming deliveries to skip or cancel.
The company offers you to adjust and customize each delivery by ordering an extra box at your will, selecting only the recipes you’re interested in, or skipping weeks entirely up to five weeks in advance on the “Upcoming page” of your account.
If you would like to cancel your account entirely, you can contact the Customer Experience team at [email protected] , who will provide you with detailed instructions on how to proceed. It is worth noting that an order marked as “Processed” or “Shipped” cannot be canceled.
