Green Chef vs Purple Carrot is not a new debate, but it’s one we’re ready to take a stand on. Both are meal kit delivery services that focus on delivering everything you need to create healthy, fresh, and delicious meals in the comfort of your own home. Both companies deliver kits that are fresh, not frozen, and contain everything you need to create a crave-worthy meal.
Purple Carrot is a unique meal delivery service because they’re entirely dedicated to the plant-based lifestyle. All of their vegan meals are designed to be healthy while never compromising on taste or quality.
Green Chef is also focused on providing healthy meal options. They have a designated category of plant-based meals and categories for keto, paleo, and general healthy eating.
Green Chef
Pros
- Menu selection designed to appeal to a wide range of tastes
- Satisfying portion sizes for larger appetites
- Certified USDA organic kits
- Committed to supporting sustainable farming and environmentally friendly practices
Cons
- Limited weekly menu options
- Menus are plan specific, so you only have access to the six or so meals for each plan
- $8.99 shipping fee compared to Purple Carrot’s free shipping
Purple Carrot
Pros
- Menu is entirely plant-based and dairy-free, vegan meals
- Adds variety to plant-based diets with different plant-based proteins
- Not just dinner, Purple Carrot offers breakfast, lunch, and snacks
- Non-produce ingredients are almost entirely organic
- Good variety of choices, from comfort food to worldly cuisines
Cons
- Not the best option for non-vegetarians/vegans
- Lackluster customer service reviews
- Not completely organic
Dietary Options
Green Chef
Purple Carrot
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Both Purple Carrot and Green Chef meals focus on providing healthy meal options made with clean ingredients, and they accomplish this with slightly different approaches. Both companies cater to some special dietary needs, which is important for those who have dietary allergies or are working toward healthy goals.
Green Chef meal kit service is all about clean, healthy ingredients with meals that meet a range of dietary needs. They offer three different plans – Keto & Paleo, Balanced Living, and Plant-Powered. This really simplifies things if you follow a keto, paleo, or plant-based diet.
Green Chef offers dairy-free and gluten-free meal plan options. If you have other allergies or intolerances, you can reach out to them directly. There is a small risk of cross-contamination with allergens in their facilities.
Purple Carrot is one of the few meal kit services that is completely plant-based, which means that they’re also completely dairy-free, with no risk of cross-contamination with dairy in their facilities. Their menu isn’t exclusively gluten-free, but they do offer a couple of GF selections each week.
If you have special dietary needs, you want it to be as simple as possible to choose healthy and delicious meals for you. With Purple Carrot, allergen information is easy to spot for each meal. Green Chef does this also, but the tags are less specific. For example, a dish might be tagged as Paleo but not dairy-free, although dairy isn’t part of the Paleo lifestyle.
Dietary Options Winner
This is a really close call. Both companies cater to special dietary needs in their own way. Green Chef comes out ahead because they offer meals that fit a wider range of dietary lifestyles and more gluten-free options, while Purple Carrot has more basic vegan dinner kits.
Meal Prep & Variety
Green Chef
- 6-8 in each plan
- 3 meals for 2 people
Purple Carrot
- 24
- 3 meals for 2 people
Meal prep and variety are key factors in choosing a meal kit delivery service. You don’t want to get stuck in a rut, ordering the same thing over and over, and you also want meals that are easy to prepare – saving you both time and stress.
Green Chef and Purple Carrot are both great at offering variety while simplifying mealtime.
Green Chef categorizes their meals into three distinct plans, with some overlap. The meal plans include Balanced Living, Keto & Paleo, and Plant-Powered. Each plan has nine meal options, with some meals available in more than one plan.
Green Chef’s Balanced Living plan includes meals that are healthy and nutritionally balanced, with some vegetarian options added in. Their Plant-Powered meal plan features plant-based meals and is closest in comparison to what Purple Carrot offers.
Purple Carrot offers options for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, with the majority of meals falling in the dinner category. With eight dinner options, and a couple each for breakfast, lunch, and snacks, Purple Carrot serves up a good variety of healthy, plant-based meal options.
One major perk of Purple Carrot is the ability to order prepared meals. Their prepared meals feature the same great nutrition as their kits, but they’re ready to eat in just a couple of minutes!
Both companies offer meal kits that come with colorful, easy-to-follow recipe cards for meals that take an average of 30 minutes from start to finish. The recipe cards are sturdy enough that you can save them and use them as inspiration later down the road when you’re stumped about what to prepare for dinner.
Meal Variety Winner
This is another toss-up, but we have to give the nod to Purple Carrot. Considering that Purple Carrot is exclusively plant-based, it’s only fair to compare them to Green Chef’s Plant-Powered meal plan when it comes to variety. Purple Carrot offers dinner, breakfast, lunch, and snacks, plus a unique variety of meals each week.
Ingredients
Green Chef
- Non-GMO
grass Organic- Grass Fed
- Wild-Caught
Purple Carrot
Let’s talk about the real stars of a meal kit – the ingredients. When meal kits are delivered fresh to your door, quality and freshness really matter. Both Purple Carrot and Green Chef set the bar high in this department.
With Purple Carrot being plant-based, they can’t get away with using anything less than the freshest produce in their meal kits. Purple Carrot works directly with reputable farmers from across the United States to source the best and highest quality produce they can find.
For Purple Carrot, this means that they don’t always use organic produce, but most of their non-produce ingredients are organic. This includes ingredients like organic tofu, organic plant-based milk, organic grains, etc. Purple Carrot values integrity from the farmers and vendors they work with.
Green Chef is equally committed to using only high-quality organic ingredients in their meal kits. Green Chef was the first USDA-certified organic meal kit delivery service. They also use non-GMO ingredients and have a strong commitment to ethical sourcing, animal welfare, and sustainability.
Ingredients from both the Purple Carrot and Green Chef boxes require little prep at mealtime. Some ingredients are already precut, all are pre-portioned, and stay fresh in your refrigerator for an average of 5 days (with meat and plant-based proteins having a bit longer of a shelf life than the produce).
Ingredients Winner
Green Chef wins this category for their overall stronger commitment to using organic, non-GMO ingredients and placing a high value on ethics, sustainability, and animal welfare. All of these details tend to lend this meal kit service company to overall higher quality ingredients, which translates into fresher, better-tasting meals in every Green Chef box.
Taste & Sample Meals
Green Chef
Purple Carrot
Now, let’s talk about taste. Meal kits have no value if the end product doesn’t taste fantastic. Everyone has different taste preferences, and meal kit delivery services like Green Chef and Purple Carrot strive to appeal to and satisfy a wide range of tastes.
In the category of plant-based meal delivery, Purple Carrot’s meals are known for exceptional taste. Their meals are a little different from what you find with most meal kits, featuring flavors and combinations that you aren’t going to find anywhere else.
A couple of examples of Purple Carrot’s culinary creativity include Cauliflower Shawarma with Harissa Beet Slaw and Walnut Crusted Artichokes paired with Dijon Lentils. Each dish is flavorful but not over the top.
Green Chef’s gourmet meals offer a combination of classic, familiar dishes and those that take a fresh spin on traditional favorites. Because many of Green Chef’s meals are familiar, picky eaters will probably find more suitable options in Green Chef’s organic meal kits.
For plant-based meals that compare to those on Purple Carrot’s menu, Green Chef offers dishes like Thai Peanut Noodle Stir-Fry and Truffle Butter Risotto. It is worth mentioning that not all meals in Green Chef’s Plant-Powered meal plan are dairy-free, so they’re not all suitable for vegans or those with dairy allergy/intolerance.
Taste Winner
To be fair, for vegans and those living a plant-based lifestyle, you can’t beat Purple Carrot for taste. However, in this comparison, Green Chef’s meal delivery services stand out as being just slightly superior. With meals that range from classic and familiar to those with new flavors, Green Chef is going to appeal to broader taste preferences.
Pricing
Green Chef
MEALS PER WEEK | 2 PEOPLE | 4 PEOPLE | 6 PEOPLE |
2 Meals | N/A | $12.99 | NA |
3 Meals | $13.49 | $12.49 | $11.99 |
4 Meals | $12.99 | $11.99 | $11.99 |
Purple Carrot
MEAL PER WEEK | Price Per Serving Serves 2 | Price Per Serving Serves 4 |
Two | NA | $11.00 |
Three | $13.25 | $11.00 |
Four | $13.25 | NA |
MEALS PER WEEK | PRICE PER SERVING |
Six | $13.00 |
Eight | $13.00 |
Ten | 13.00 |
Pricing for both Green Chef and Purple Carrot is pretty standard compared to other meal kit delivery services. You’re going to find some that cost more and others that cost less.
Purple Carrot’s meals range from $9.99 – $11.99, depending on whether you choose the two serving plan or the four serving plan. You can choose to receive either 3 or 4 meals per week at $11.99 per meal with the two-serving plan. The four-serving plan offers the option of two or three meals per week for $9.99 per meal.
The cost of Green Chef’s meals varies, depending not only on the number of meals ordered but which type of plan you choose. Generally, prices range from $9.99-$12.99 per meal, with the Plant-Powered meal plan being the most economical of the three. Green Chef frequently offers deals that slash the price of their meals by at least 25%, if not more.
Shipping with Purple Carrot is always free, so you don’t have to worry about factoring that into your budget. Green Chef does charge a flat rate shipping fee of $8.99 per box, but they also sometimes run promotions where shipping is free.
Pricing Winner
On the surface, both Green Chef and Purple Carrot have nearly identical pricing structures. The Plant-Powered plan with Green Chef stands as the most economical, especially if you can catch a deal that offers free shipping and meals that cost as little as $5.99 per portion.
Packaging & Recycling
Green Chef
Purple Carrot
Two details really count when it comes to packaging. You want each component of your meal kit to be packaged to maintain freshness, but you also don’t want tons of packaging material to deal with, especially if some of the packaging is non-recyclable.
Purple Carrot and Green Chef check both of these boxes for their packaging and recyclability. Purple Carrot makes sure each box of meal kits is insulated to preserve freshness during shipping, and they do this while minimizing packaging in as many ways as possible.
Purple Carrot has an entire page on their website devoted to recycling their packaging components. There’s a video that explains all of it, and they also offer some creative ideas on reusing their packaging components if your local recycling program doesn’t accept certain plastics.
Like Purple Carrot, Green Chef also offers an online guide to recycling their packaging materials. Their meal kits are packaged to maximize freshness, using as little packaging as possible. From an environmental standpoint, Green Chef goes above and beyond by working to find ways to offset the effects of their plastic packaging and carbon emissions.
Packaging Winner
Again, this is a category where these two companies go head to head. Green Chef wins only because of their efforts in offsetting the effects of their carbon emissions and plastic packaging. Both companies are nearly identical in their packaging’s recyclability and their ability to package for maximum freshness upon delivery.
Customer Service
Green Chef
play_circle Skip a Weekpause_circle Pausestop_circle Cancel
Purple Carrot
- Up to 10 Weeks
- Difficult
It isn’t something you might immediately think about when choosing a meal kit delivery service, but the quality of customer service is crucially important. Both Green Chef and Purple Carrot make it super easy to skip a week or pause your subscription for any reason.
Green Chef also makes it easy to cancel your subscription. With Purple Carrot, if you want to cancel, plan on jumping through a few more hoops.
Customer service is also one of those areas where you need to turn to the internet and read reviews to get a better idea of what to expect. Both companies have enough online reviews that you can feel safe that you’re seeing a snapshot that’s a good representation of their level of customer service.
Both companies have some weak spots in the customer service department. Still, overall, customers seem very satisfied with Green Chef’s customer service department. In contrast, customer service is the one area where Purple Carrot’s reviews take a hit.
Customer Service Winner
Green Chef makes it easier to cancel your subscription, and overall, they have significantly more positive reviews in the customer service department
Winner
Green Chef
When looking back at this review, Green Chef won in almost every category. This isn’t because Purple Carrot isn’t great. It’s just that there were minor differences that gave Green Chef the slightest edge in most cases.
Our winner in the battle of Purple Carrot Vs. Green Chef is Green Chef, but for plant-based meal delivery kits, you really can’t go wrong with either. Here are a few things worth considering when choosing which one is right for you.
Choose Green Chef if you:
- Like a selection of plant-based meals but also want the option to include animal products, high protein meals, or dairy
- Follow Keto or Paleo diets
- Don’t mind having your meal choices limited by the plan you choose
- Prefer to spend money on companies that value sustainability, ethics, and environmental protection
Choose Purple Carrot if you:
- Eat and plant-based diet and crave some variety and new flavors
- Want breakfast, lunch, and snack options in addition to dinner
- Like never having to worry about shipping fees with Purple Carrot
- Enjoy discovering new and creative plant-based dishes