Meal Delivery vs Grocery Shopping

In the past few years, meal kits have risen in popularity. In 2012, Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, and Plated were the first brands to appear on the American market. Today, there are more than 150 meal delivery service companies active in the United States.

The meal kit market expanded due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Stay-at-home orders and the closure of in-person dining pushed more people to start cooking at home. Additionally, people favored meal kit delivery and grocery delivery over going to grocery stores and putting their health at risk.

Meal kit services have won over many Americans, and it’s not hard to see the allure. However, before you rush to sign yourself up, it’s worth examining all the details of meal delivery vs. grocery shopping.

Your food budget is likely at the front of your mind when it comes to comparing meal delivery with grocery shopping. With inflation wreaking havoc on grocery prices, most meal kit services seem more and more reasonable.

Let’s take a look at some recent comparisons pitting meal kit costs against grocery store prices:

Foodbox HQ compared the price of the mid-range meal kit service, HelloFresh, with similar-quality grocery-store ingredients for the same recipes. Here are her average results:

Cost per serving

• HelloFresh Average Price (2-person plan, five meals per week): $9.79
• Store-bought groceries: $5.61

David Watsky of CNET carried out a similar experiment but with a budget-friendly meal kit delivery service, EveryPlate.

Cost per serving

• EveryPlate Average Price (2-person plan, three meals per week): $7.48
• Store-bought groceries: $5.44

Grocery shopping remains the better deal budget-wise when we look at the cost difference of ingredients. However, it’s worth considering your personal habits and hidden costs. Do meal kits keep you from ordering takeout? How about those extra items you throw in your cart just because you saw them while buying groceries? What about gas money for driving to the store? It’s hard to quantify these highly variable factors, but depending on your lifestyle, meal kit cost could actually be worth it.

For this category, we’re sticking with hard numbers. Grocery shopping wins because, bottom line, meal kits cost more, and you can save money with grocery-store ingredients.

Preparing mouth-watering nutritious meals takes work. Not only do you need to be a confident cook, but there are time-consuming steps before you even start cooking. Meal planning, transport to and from the grocery store, grocery shopping, and preparing meals requires time and energy. Spending time grocery shopping and cooking are the last things most people want to do after a long day.

On the other hand, meal kit delivery services remove all the shopping and meal prep, leaving you with more time to relax and simply enjoy cooking. Most meal kits deliver ready-to-go ingredients, complete with preportioned spices and ready-made sauces. All that’s left to do is cook up your delicious meal and dig in.

German-based HelloFresh is one of the most popular meal kits in the United States and abroad. Let’s look at how easy it is to subscribe:

First, go to their website and pick a plan. You can personalize for diet preference, number of people, and meals per week. Next, enter your address, select your payment method, and you’re all set. You’ll receive pre-portioned ingredients at your doorstep every week.

There’s no denying it, meal kit delivery wins hands down in terms of convenience.

Your favorite recipe requires a few leaves of basil, but the grocery store only sells herbs in huge bunches. As much as you convince yourself you’ll put the rest to good use, you end up throwing it out by the end of the week. We’ve all been there! Managing a meal plan with food quantities, exact ingredients, and expiration dates is complicated.

Meal kits are designed to provide households with precise quantities of ingredients for making specific meals. 

This practice reduces food waste, particularly for items that are infrequently used and unavailable in small quantities.

However, environmentally conscious consumers may stress over the amount of plastic and cardboard packaging that arrives with their meal kit service.

Surprisingly, studies show that meal kit delivery services ultimately have a smaller carbon footprint than traditional grocery shopping when we factor in less food waste and lean supply chains.

Meal delivery services are superior in the food waste category compared to grocery shopping, and that’s a big win in our book!

In theory, planning your own meals and shopping for your own groceries provides limitless options. The reality is that we are not all master meal planners, and grocery stores themselves have certain limitations:

• Your local grocery store may not have certain ingredients you want.
• A meal plan can only be as varied as you are creative.
• Therefore, a lack of inspiration could get you stuck eating the same meal. Not only is eating your go-to pasta dish over and over boring, but it’s also unhealthy.

On the contrary, meal kits are innately varied and curated with care. For example, Green Chef is a meal delivery service that uses organic and sustainable ingredients to create gourmet-inspired healthy meals. The current weekly menu options include the following:

• Thai-Style Coconut Shrimp Soup
• Tumeric-Maple Pork Power Bowls
• Cuban-Spiced Barramundi
• Beef Tacos With Bulogi-Style Sauce

Meal kits introduce you to creative and flavorful recipes, and you may even discover new types of cuisine you wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to.

While both grocery shopping and meal delivery services could be argued as winners for this category, we think that for most people, meal delivery services offer the best chance of variety.