Home Chef

On two occasions the boxes that were delivered were packed in such a way that the "frozen" ice packs weren't frozen at all. The food contained in the packages were warm and the meat was completely thawed out. Needless to say the entire contents had to be thrown out due to concerns of possible salmonella. I cancelled this subscription and recommend you choose a different food delivery service unless you want to risk getting sick and don't mind throwing your money in the trash.

I'm a long-time mostly satisfied user of another service. Rec'd a solicitation from Home Chef and thought I should check them out since mostly-satisfied isn't completely-satisfied. I hit roadblocks almost immediately re delivery days and frequency. Unfortunately I couldn't get questions answered because there wasn't any support service at that time and when there was service, I was sitting on hold. I gave up and emailed Home Chef that I wasn't interested in their service because of my concerns going forward re the website and support.

I booked this service through Groupon. One delivery was fine. The next 2 were confirmed in an email and when I waited for the boxes on Wednesdays, they never arrived. After sending a complaint, 1. they said I did not order enough meals to receive my confirmed delivery. Second time they said I did not have enough money in my account so needed to provide a credit card number. (I understood 2 meals for $9.95 and the fellow I spoke with said 2 meals cost $19.90.)

I like the concept and the recipes. But delivery days available are only Wednesday or Thursday and I don’t want to cook on the weekends. The biggest problem is when the box is delivered, the meat is room temperature and I’m not taking any chances on that. Chicken was spoiled within 2 days of delivery on two packages.

I was enjoying the meal service for a few months and then I started to get rotten produce. At first I thought it was a fluke. Then it got worse. I got brown broccoli, slimy and liquidy green beans, soft and mushy cucumbers and finally an almost rotten head of butter lettuce. That was the last straw. That came along with meat that was smothered in fish that leaked in the meat bag. At that point I took the time to search for the support number and waited on hold for 30 minutes and complained. In the past they gave me credit for upcoming deliveries. This time they finally refunded the entire box.

The food is good, it’s set up to be very easy to make meals and for the most part all the meals tasted good. But the customer service is lacking, they do not respond. I tried to contact them after realizing I had not paused the account, my fault on missing that but to get absolutely no response shows that it’s not important to follow through with the customer. Maybe a small thing to some but l ended up permanently pausing my account, because you can't cancel, because of it. A poor ending to what was a decent service before.

I have tried other meal delivery services. Blue Apron which was way too time consuming and complicated. HelloFresh didn't arrive the first week, the box was all wet and damaged the second week and the third week didn't arrive again. Home Chef is by far the best service out there. They arrive every week as scheduled, the food is still cold and ice still frozen, the meal choices are many and so good, and the food is easily prepared with easy to follow recipes.

Pros: If you want to learn some masterful cooking techniques, these folks are for you. Also, Customer Service will refund you readily for spoiled product. Meats are high quality. Cons: Plan to use that aforementioned customer service refund thing a LOT. Like every other order. They ship fresh veggies and partially partially-frozen meats in a thinly insulated cardboard box with frozen gel-packs. Boxes arrive ripped, with thawed gel goo coating your food.

We used Home Chef for about 2 months. First few meals were amazing. Each week after seemed to be of lesser quality. The last 2 meals we received were so fatty that they had to be tossed. The first one was a salad with chicken. The chicken was horrible and fatty. We only ate the greens. The second meal for the week was supposed to be pork tenderloins with broccoli. The broccoli was brown and the tenderloin was so fatty not even worth cooking for the dogs. I sent an email expressing my concerns since it was now our 3rd time complaining. We received a partial discount and a empty apology. Of course we cancelled our subscription. It’s a waste of money if they cannot correct their issues.

The box was delivered 3 hours prior to me getting home. All the "ice" packs had melted. I had 3 meals with chicken. The chicken smelled spoiled. The spring mix was old and soggy. It looked like it had expired 4 - 5 days prior. The apple and dried cranberries were fine. I threw all the chicken in the trash. To say it was nasty would be an understatement.