Home Chef

Home Chef Reviews

About Home Chef

Pros
  • Fresh and high-quality ingredients
  • Variety of meal options available
  • Easy-to-follow cooking instructions
Cons
  • High pricing for regular use
  • Inconsistent delivery reliability
  • Customer service response delays

Home Chef Reviews

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    Page 2 Reviews 10 - 40

    Reviewed May 6, 2024

    I purchased a Home Chef "Loaded Cavatappi and Cheese with Chicken" Heat and Eat meal from my local Fred Meyer today. In a word, it was awful. To me, the primary taste was salt, there was only a tiny bit of mushed chicken and following the heating directions, the meal was still uncooked and cool. I will certainly not recommend this meal. Unfortunately, I purchased two others and will find out how they taste later this week.

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    Customer ServiceOnline & App

    Reviewed April 26, 2024

    I suggests you stay away from Homechef Meal. The flavor is so yuck! Too salty. Basically all veggies are not fresh at all! I would not recommend. Customer service is also bad when coming to solving problem. I tried to contact them but they didn’t answer me. And when I tried to leave a review on their website, it could not be posted. The website is also very complicated to choose meals.

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    Installation & Setup

    Reviewed April 19, 2024

    I absolutely love Home Chef meals. The instructions are clear and yes, it takes me a little more time to prep than they say but so worth it. We have been customers for one month and not one meal has been bad. Matter of fact all of them have been delicious even though I was a bit skeptical about a few of them but turned out fantastic. I like that I am saving money on groceries as prices are so high for so little product. We cut down from five meals per week to three and that works for us.

    I like the binder they gave me to put the recipes in and I personally find it easy to prepare as everything is planned out for the recipe. I know I can make choices on what we feel like eating each night and if we are not hungry we skip a day or two. The ingredients are fresh, well packaged and delivery is perfect. The meals are healthy and well balanced. I haven't come across a meal where I have to "fry" anything. Vegetables are sautéed in olive oil and nothing is greasy. If you are looking for something completely easy then go to fast food. Good meals take a little time to prepare. Love you Home Chef. Thank you for making our lives easier and our dinners yummy. Compliments to your chefs!

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    Price

    Reviewed April 12, 2024

    I've been using Home Chef on and off for like 7 year. Years ago I would have given a higher rating. Over the past year especially there has been an issue with almost every single order. Incorrect meal kits, spoiled meat, dry/old produce, squishy/inedible produce, moldy produce... They always give refunds when I report in with a picture, which I appreciate, but I shouldn't need to do that every single week! I'm always told they'll talk to the production team about what happened. Um, okay.

    After hearing that probably more than 50 times with zero improvement, sorry if it doesn't ring true. It's become more of a headache than a convenience, and the meals are getting more expensive. Not worth it. I used to recommend Home Chef. Now, I'm planning to cancel as soon as we have another meal solution in place. I usually prefer not to publicly criticize companies, but I don't see how else to get the message across: improve the quality of the service you provide. Right now, y'all should be embarrassed.

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    Online & App

    Reviewed April 9, 2024

    I signed up for an introductory offer and chose 4 meals for 2 people per week. The website is not too user friendly and picking out meals is awkward (and I have a programming degree). When the food arrived the the package was leaking and only the meats were cool. There are no recipe cards and when I went online to cancel they informed me that I needed to log in to the website and find "my cookbook" and from there locate the recipe each time I want to prepare a meal. The food is fresh but the sauces etc are little tiny squeeze packs and the portions are small. I have not made any of the meals yet but will update if noteworthy.

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    Home Chef
    Response from Home Chef

    Hi there! Thank you for this feedback. We are sorry to hear about your experience, and will be sure to send this along to our team.

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    Customer ServicePrice

    Reviewed April 1, 2024

    We've used Home Chef a number of times in the past and, on a positive note, the meals are generally delicious. Unfortunately, there are negatives that make it impossible to ever use them again:

    1. They will "auto-send" meals unless you opt out. However, they will unilaterally reset your preferred schedule. For example, if you choose to get a delivery every other week they will unilaterally re-set it to weekly so you don't even know you have meals you need to "opt out" of.

    2. I had gone through the process of skipping meals the past several months because we were away a lot during the winter. I then placed an order for this week and got a confirmation of the order. When it didn't arrive I contacted them to find out that they had simply not shipped it because my credit card on file had expired. No notice, no request for an update, no rescission of the order confirmation - and they could care less.

    As I said, the meals are actually tasty (although very small portions at a high price) but how can I do business with a company that simply ignored a confirmed order with no communication and didn't even care when it was reported?

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    Response from Home Chef

    Hi there! Thank you for this feedback. We are an automatic subscription service, so by nature orders will be sent weekly unless specifically skipped or paused. We apologize that you were unable to receive an order due to failed payment and did not receive a notice of this. We always encourage you to check Spam as these emails should be sent automatically.

    Reviewed March 16, 2024

    We joined Home Chef about a month ago. The first box was fine and the food was good, although the ingredients were mostly melted and a metal pan that we were to use to cook a meal was smashed flat. Then the next boxes started coming in. The bags with the meats were not zipped, and the meats leaked all over the other food because the chicken and fish were leaking from their packaging. One box had two of five recipe cards (three were missing entirely), and one of those was between the insulation and the cardboard and we almost missed it. I'm done with this service. Moving on to see if I can find one that is food-safe.

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    Response from Home Chef

    Hi there! We are sorry to hear about this. If you haven't yet, we encourage you to reach out to our support team at support@homechef.com so we can properly document and assist with this issue.

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    Reviewed Feb. 27, 2024

    I will preface this review by saying that I used this service in the past, (about 2-3 years ago.) My previous experience was far and away better than my current one. I restarted my subscription on 1/22/24. I have received 6 meal boxes thus far. Out of those 6 meal boxes, 1 was shipped with everything that was supposed to be included, the other 5 had various ingredients missing, missing recipe cards, (one shipment failed to include any cards at all.) The current box I received on 2/26/24 had duplicate recipe cards, missing a recipe card for one meal, a recipe card for a meal I did order but the ingredients for a meal I didn't, (they got the protein right but packed the side vegetables that were for an entirely different meal I didn't order.) It's obvious to me whoever is packing the boxes for my area really don't care anything about accuracy. It's a shame too because I do like the food but if this persists, I'll have no choice but to cancel.

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    Response from Home Chef

    Hi there! We are sorry to hear about this. If you haven't yet, we encourage you to reach out to our support team at support@homechef.com so we can properly document and assist with this!

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    Price

    Reviewed Feb. 20, 2024

    Home Chef meals are not as simple as what they advertise. I trialed Home Chef for my elderly parents and the meals were not simple to prepare. The oven ready meals are advertised as “Oven Ready - No Prep, No Mess”. This is not true for the meals that my parents tried. One example was the pretzel crusted pork tenderloin which required you to crush whole pretzels and slice the pork (depending upon how it was delivered). These are not complex examples but this is not a no prep meal as advertised or an easy meal choice for seniors. We tried the microwave meals too and they also required some prep. The other challenge I had with Home Chef was that you could not order only microwave meals and meet the minimum required order. I cancelled the service with a remaining credit because the value wasn’t worth the cost and effort.

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    Response from Home Chef

    Hi there! Thanks for this feedback. We understand there is a bit of prep in our oven-ready meals, however, we do have a sister company named Tempo that is zero prep, microwave-only meals. We encourage you to check them out at tempomeals.com as they may be a better fit for your parents!

    Reviewed Feb. 5, 2024

    First of all, NONE OF THE MEAT in the meals is provided. You are paying for the other ingredients only, and all ingredients are not included. You need to provide your own cooking oil. I bought the meals that were suppose to be ready to cook and easy. Nothing ready or easy about it. They all had about 6 steps of preparation and the ingredients did not even last half the week. The green beans started going bad on the 4th day. Total rip off. I canceled after my first box.

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    Response from Home Chef

    Hi there! We apologize for any confusion--any meat and additional cooking items (except cooking oil) will be included in your kits. We encourage you to reach out to our customer support team at support@homechef.com for additional assistance.

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    Reviewed Jan. 11, 2024

    I have been a Home Chef subscriber since May 2021. To my credit, I have ordered and made 396 total meals. Approximately 6-7 weeks ago from this writing the issues started when my delivery instructions were not followed or ignored. I complained and that part of the service was restored. At the same time the delivery issues were occurring, I started receiving food packages with substandard fresh food items: A green tomato, poblano peppers that were too small to use for stuffed peppers, missing ingredients including one time marinara sauce packet, or seasoning packets.

    And the final straw occurred this week when they included a food packet completely different than the meal we ordered! I am done with home chef. If you choose to order from this company buyer beware. We will never order another meal from them. There are other services out there we believe not only will be better service wise but food-wise to meet our specific dietary requirements.

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    Response from Home Chef

    Hi there! We're so sorry to hear about this. We encourage you to reach out to our support team for more help, at support@Homechef.com.

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    Reviewed Nov. 25, 2023

    I bought 2 Home Chef side dishes for Thanksgiving from the grocery store; Cornbread dressing/stuffing and Sweet Potatoes. The cornbread dressing/stuffing tasted just like the kind you would buy in a box from the store. It wasn't terrible, but certainly didn't taste like homemade. I didn't save the leftovers. The sweet potatoes were the worst I'd ever had. I couldn't eat it, so it, and the rest got thrown in the trash. I would certainly never buy either of these two side dishes again, and given this experience, I would not try any other food from this company.

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    Response from Home Chef

    Hi there, we are very sorry to hear about your experience. If you haven't yet, we encourage you to reach out to our support team at support@homechef.com for more assistance!

    Customer Service

    Reviewed Sept. 25, 2023

    I was turned off by the lack of support my first week of trying this service. I was sent food I did not select and charged for things I did not receive. Every attempt to contact them takes 48 hours for a reply via email. This company is a joke and will be belly up on it's loans in no time.

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    Response from Home Chef

    Hi there, we are very sorry to hear about your experience. If you haven't yet, we encourage you to reach out to our support team at support@homechef.com for more assistance!

    Punctuality & Speed

    Reviewed Sept. 20, 2023

    Home Chef has problems with their packaging. The Oven ready meals that I ordered include a foil plan, this allows you to do little pre and then pop them in the oven in its own foil pan. One of the meals I had ordered was flattened by the weight of the cooling bags. In the same box, I had ordered the Garlic Sesame Chicken Stir Fry, this is a precooked microwaveable meal. This item was also flattened, the container had ruptured and the contents leaked out rendering this meal unusable. I wish I could say this was an isolated instance with Home Chef, but it has happened numerous time. I cancelled previously with them because my shipments were continually late, I’m talking days late. When the box arrived the contents were so warm that they were unsafe for consumption. I wanted to give them another try, wish I hadn’t of.

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    Response from Home Chef

    Hi there, we are very sorry to hear about your experience. If you haven't yet, we encourage you to reach out to our support team at support@homechef.com for more assistance!

    Customer Service

    Reviewed Sept. 19, 2023

    Be aware that once you sign up, there is no way to stop it. Going on 3 weeks of getting charged and receiving food we cannot eat. No one will answer support requests. Will dispute with the credit card company. Two weeks running I've paused the subscription and still received food. Over $150 wasted. The food is good, but preferences are completely ignored and options limited, so the food received is food we can't eat due to dietary restrictions (I didn't select other options because I thought I paused the subscription, and there usually aren't enough other options of food that we like or can eat). I've input four or five messages to the support option and the only answer I receive is an email that says they have a high volume of support requests.

    No wonder, since they do nothing they promise when you sign up. Lastly, while what we've not had to throw away was good and the recipes detailed, it's not at all faster or more convenient than the recipes I've always used. With today's grocery delivery options, having this food arrive on my doorstep is not the convenience it once was as I can get any food delivered to my house. Just be aware there is no way to stop the subscription once you start this.

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    Response from Home Chef

    Hi there, we are very sorry to hear about your experience. If you haven't yet, we encourage you to reach out to our support team at support@homechef.com for more assistance!

    Verified purchase

    Reviewed Aug. 18, 2023

    The WORST purchase I've ever made!! 2 meals! 1 leaked bag! Small portions!! $40!!! What do you think? HelloFresh or Factor 75 are definitely way better than whatever this is. I would have given 0 star if I could.

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    Response from Home Chef

    Hi there, we are very sorry to hear about your experience. If you haven't yet, we encourage you to reach out to our support team at support@homechef.com for more assistance!

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    Staff

    Reviewed Aug. 2, 2023

    I love soup but this brand makes me sick. I've tried nearly every flavor and enjoyed them at first. As time continued I started to get severe constipation from their soups or a nausea stomach. This soup has an alarmingly high amount of sodium in it. Secondly, they're highly perishable. Which is good but if you forget it in your food or wait until day three to open it you're screwed.

    For someone who has worked in the deli before; I have found their packaging to be cheap and terrible. Their packaging is not microwavable and has been a frequent complaint against consumers. Even amongst our staff that forget their not and the microwave in the break room becomes a horrid mess. They over order on product and not everything sells. We end up tossing out a lot of food. Which puts a shame to our company's slogan "Zero waste, zero hunger." We use to offer other soup brands in our deli but just like any other retailer they push their store brands the most thus eliminating any sort of competition. Which is a shame I now no longer can get some grab and go deli items from other competitors I used to be able to get.

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    Response from Home Chef

    Hi there, we are very sorry to hear about your experience. If you haven't yet, we encourage you to reach out to our support team at support@homechef.com for more assistance!

    Reviewed Aug. 1, 2023

    We started this program about a week ago. So far we’re not impressed. One of the meals, ricotta stuffed meatloaf was intense and overwhelming with salt. At almost 1800mg, it was difficult to finish. The sauce was just as bad.

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    Response from Home Chef

    Hi there, we are sorry to hear about your experience, but thank you for this feedback!

    Punctuality & Speed

    Reviewed July 24, 2023

    Delivery did not arrive as scheduled. No notification. All avenues listed for assistance provided no results. Kept stating new dates of delivery but still did not arrive. No compensation other than refund offered.

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    Response from Home Chef

    We are sorry to hear about this experience. Should you have any additional questions, please feel free to reach out to our team at support@homechef.com.

    Reviewed July 8, 2023

    I don't think I've had a single Home Chef box arrive without issues in the past 4 months or so. Shipments lost, ingredients bad on arrival, missing items, leaking ice packs, etc. I pray that one day HelloFresh does oven ready meals. I've rarely had issues with Hello Fresh

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    Punctuality & Speed

    Reviewed June 21, 2023

    I love the selection of meals. Their ingredients always arrive fresh. I would’ve given it a five, but I have had several weeks where I have either missed an item or they substituted a meal that I did not order. The good news is, they are very quick to correct the problem with the credit for your next delivery. I would absolutely recommend this service.

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    Customer Service

    Reviewed June 10, 2023

    Good meals. Now we learn they are sending us an order we did not make. Have to go online and do a lot of work to not automatically get meals. Very hard to cancel. No customer service after dinner time when we are not working. Food was good. Stopping getting the food is a problem with no apparent way to cancel an order.

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    Customer Service

    Reviewed June 1, 2023

    I have been a customer of Home Chef awhile back. But after awhile too many mistakes started to happen with missing ingredients, meal kits, bad meat or produce and deliveries not showing up or delivery people throwing the boxes. After contacting them they decided to pause my account since too many mistakes. A few months ago they sent me coupons to rejoin. So I did. Bad decision. After 3 weeks of no mistakes, the mistakes started to happen again. Missing meal kits, missing meat poor produce. Etc I really don't know what has happened to this company this past year as it has taken a serious turn for the worse.

    1. ONGOING MISSING FOOD ITEMS: This is three weeks in a row, that I have had missing food items. ! I contacted Home Chef Customer Care, they said they would follow up with Operations but the missing food continues. And now they deactivated my account and making me feel at fault with the email I was sent.

    2. MISLEADING FOOD PORTIONS: When the Home Chef initially started, the food was great and portions satisfying. This past year, everything changed. The portion sizes per serving are misleading and misrepresented online and on the pictures shown on the recipe cards. I used to keep the recipes so I could cook them on my own. No longer, I would give their menu a two star out of five at best!

    3. INEFFECTIVE CUSTOMER SUPPORT: I call every week these past three weeks regarding the missing food items. In each instance, the Customer Care Rep. told me they would investigate and correct the situation, but the issues continue. Customer Care is overseas such and the food warehouses are in the US. This shows poor Operations and management of the business.

    For all of the above reasons, I am no longer a customer of Home Chef.

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    Customer Service

    Reviewed March 20, 2023

    I’ve been a Custer for quite some time. Came today after I went to track my order and see that the account was paused. I never paused the account and in fact just chose foods for my order in 03/10. It was a mistake on their end and they basically said there was nothing they could do. They refused to rectify the situation. Ridiculous. Going with another food delivery service and hoping their customer service is better.

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    Customer Service

    Reviewed March 3, 2023

    I have been a customer of Home Chef for many years, I really don't know what has happened to this company this past year as it has taken a serious turn for the worse.

    1. ONGOING MISSING FOOD ITEMS: This is three weeks in a row, that I have had missing food items. Three weeks ago, the protein bag was missing, last week one of the food bags was missing, and this week the extra breakfast items were missing! I contacted Home Chef Customer Care, they said they would follow up with Operations but the missing food continues. I have now put my account on hold and moved to Barney's Spoon.

    2. MISLEADING FOOD PORTIONS: When the Home Chef initially started, the food was great and portions satisfying. This past year, everything changed. The portion sizes per serving are misleading and misrepresented on line and on the pictures shown on the recipe cards. I used to keep the recipes so I could cook them on my own. No longer, I would give their menu a two star out of five at best!

    3. INEFFECTIVE CUSTOMER SUPPORT: I call every week these past three weeks regarding the missing food items. In each instance, the Customer Care Rep. told me they would investigate and correct the situation, but the issues continue. Customer Care is overseas such and the food warehouses are in the US. This shows poor Operations and management of the business.

    For all of the above reasons, I am no longer a customer of Home Chef.

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    Customer Service

    Reviewed Feb. 18, 2023

    When you signup for an account it is not clear you will be immediately charged and scheduled for your first delivery without even looking at the meals. So I find out I was charged and they said they canceled the order but they didn’t. I got charge $71 and I just wanted to signup to see the meals. They never responded back to me, I was so nice too.

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    Verified purchase

    Reviewed Feb. 5, 2023

    Home Chef is by far the BEST meal service we have used! Food fresh and the packaging is amazing, everything together for the recipe is in one bag. I don't have to search through the whole box when it arrives. All the meat is in a separate bag. Easy. I love how the recipes tell you how many days to use by so I just eat in that order. And the recipes, good lord, they need a medal. The flavors and how you cook everything is too good! Better than other companies we have tried by far. I can't believe the lower reviews I have seen on this. People must not be cooking items right. Me and the hubs have been very pleased. One recipe they did not add an item, but I told them and so far everything has come that is supposed to. I totally recommend! It's easy, less than what we would pay for in our house and perfect for non-cookers! To each their own, I know, but just try them if you haven't and are looking.

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    Price

    Reviewed Feb. 3, 2023

    I really enjoyed the food I received however I'm going to have to make it at home because the price I paid for what I received is very off. I had the Bolognese Spaghetti and it's very easy to put together and microwave which is why I wanted to try it. The food was delicious and now I know to add cream cheese to my pasta sauce for an even better flavor.

    The problem is that one tray is considered a meal for 2 people. I ate one tray by myself. I would be very hungry if I only ate half of it. The portion I received was a bit less than what you'd get for one plate at a restaurant and would pay around $10 to $12 for but they are charging $19.98 for microwave food. It's only noodles and sauce with a little bit of meat and some seasonings on the side. There is no way I would pay $9.99 for a kid's portion of food.

    I would like to use Home Chef but I'm not okay with still being hungry after spending $9.99 or more per serving. It doesn't make sense to me financially. If we went to a restaurant and spent $19.98 on 2 meals, we'd be very full. In fact we could probably split one plate because the serving sizes are generally huge at restaurants. And again, there wasn't much meat in the sauce, there's no reason for it cost this much and I paid for shipping. I guess it's a service for rich people who don't like to eat much.

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    Customer ServiceContract & TermsStaff

    Reviewed Dec. 28, 2022

    First of all, once you create an account, you cannot remove your credit card. Beware! Secondly, there are terrible packing and delivery problems. All in all, a complete bust. In theory, this is a great idea -- to have an option of all the ingredients be oven ready. However, it is poorly packed and often ingredients that are supposed to be in the bag are missing. Then there is the delivery. I have been told that delivering until 10:30 at night is considered "on time." But it could even arrive at 10 in the morning. So, you cannot plan. Plus, the one week, the delivery person literally threw the box on the porch from 10 feet away. I was there when she did it and asked her why she threw the box did she not notice that the box landed on its side? She said the box was too heavy for her.

    I lifted the box, which must not have weighed more than 10 pounds, with one hand. In other words, she was just a lazy bum. But Home Chef does not care. They use Veho to deliver now, a gig company. It's a disaster. My most recent event (the one that caused a permanent cancel) was that we knew five days in advance of the delivery that the weather would cause us not to be home for the following week's delivery. I contacted them immediately to contact us and other than an automated email return, they did not contact me as promised.

    So, I called and they said sorry it was too late--the box could not be delivered elsewhere nor could it be canceled. Because it is the holidays, none of our neighbors would be home to pick up the box. We probably will be canceling our plans just to make sure the box does not sit on the porch for several days. This is a Kroger-owned company, and none of these terms were detailed in our contract with Home Chef (that you cannot remove your credit card at all or that you cannot change anything about your delivery a week prior to your hoped delivery date). If you interested in combining forces with us, please let us know.

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    Punctuality & Speed

    Reviewed Nov. 18, 2022

    I was excited to try the meals from Home Chef. I have used Hello Fresh and Blue Apron in the past but their menus are very repetitive and I wanted a change. I signed up and picked my meals for the following week and the box should have arrived on Wednesday. On Wednesday evening when I got home there was no box. I then had to find something in my freezer to quickly prepare. On Thursday, still no box and the website said it would then arrive on Friday. If they cannot fulfill their shipping on the date they say it will arrive, they should not be in business. People rely on the boxes to show up on time because they have held off on their grocery shopping. Very bad service.

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    Home Chef Company Information

    Company Name:
    Home Chef
    Website:
    www.homechef.com