After nearly 2 years and a Sun Basket VIP membership; I’m back to the drawing board (or should I say cutting board?) in search of a new meal kit service company that will deliver despite Arizona’s extreme temperatures. If you want to know why I’m no longer getting Sun Basket delivered, read my previous post. https://rusticcountrymarket.com/why-i-suspended-my-sun-basket
I’ve received invites from the following companies:
Gobble: They do the food prep work. You cook.
Hello Fresh: Promise Simplicity.
Purple Carrot: Plant based meals.
Freshly: They cook and deliver the meals. You heat them up.
Home Chef: Already tried them.
Green Chef: Sorry, didn’t really like them the first time.
Factor 75?
And then I happened upon Factor 75. Their meals are precooked. They offer Keto, Paleo, low carb, gluten free, dairy free, and spicy meals. All Factor 75 meals are free of gluten, soy, hormones, antibiotics, and preservatives. All their meats are pasture-raised and grass-fed and their produce is organic. Their emphasis is nutrition, and healthy living. They even offer nutrition coaching. They are based out of Illinois.
After reading up on them, I was pretty excited to give them a try. My only disappointment is that they use OnTrac as a deliver provider. Historically, they do not deliver on time, if at all. I put delivery directions on my order, so we shall see if our food arrives. If not, I’ll be calling Factor 75’s customer service.
Stay tuned: I’ll let you know what we think of their meals!
I’ve been a loyal Sun Basket customer since Nov. 2017. I was even a part of their VIP Membership. In the past, I’ve received my meals despite extreme Arizona weather. Since Sun Basket changed their terms of service on 7/22/19, I’ve had several deliveries cancelled by Sun Basket (4 to be exact).
Turns out, for me to continue receiving Sun Basket despite extreme temperatures, I have to sign an extreme temperature waiver, IE: RELEASE AND WAIVER OF LIABILITY. This waiver releases Sun Basket from liabilities due to delivering food products during severe heat conditions. No where does the release define what “severe heat conditions” are. This ambiguity leaves this release open to Sun Basket’s determination.
As per Sun Basket’s current Terms of Service: “Each Sun Basket box utilizes carefully engineered packaging to sustain freshness even after our Delivery arrives on your doorstep. Our packages are designed to keep food products fresh if unopened and left at room temperature (i.e., 78 degrees Fahrenheit) through midnight of the delivery date.”
I translate these terms as: Sun Basket won’t deliver if the temperature is over 78° outside. That pretty much eliminates Arizona from getting Sun Basket, unless I sign their extreme heat waiver, because we usually have HOT weather here in Arizona!
I notified Sun Basket that it’s time for me to part ways with them. I let them know that I’ve really enjoyed their recipes and hate to let them go, but this extreme heat inconvenience forces me to do so. If Sun Basket can’t package my box to survive Arizona heat, I requested they cancel my account.
Contrary to reports that Sun Basket is hard to cancel, I immediately received notice that my Sun Basket account was cancelled.
The following day Sun Basket called me regrading my feedback I sent them. They assured me they monitor the weather and add extra ice during extreme heat, but they can not guarantee my shipment will arrive fresh during extreme weather, thus the waiver. They offered to pause my account until the 2nd week of December, instead of cancelling it, and they added 3 – $20 credits to apply to 3 future weeks orders when I resume delivery.
WOW! It was a busy, eventful summer! Time flew by. As things wind down, I now have time to share more about our meal time experiences.
After 4 weeks, we decided to let Home Chef go (pause/cancel the service) and try another meal kit service. My goal was to supplement our Sun Basket dinners with some quick lunch and snack items, not replace them.
I will say this about Home Chef…
Home Chef is affordable, and their main dinners taste like average, home cooked meals. Home Chef offers quick salads and smoothies – which initially intrigued me. During the 4th week with the service, we started to notice that the salads pretty much tasted the same for the most part. The smoothies were good, and easy to make.
I didn’t like the amount of extra shipping trash that came with Home Chef. (We haul our own trash to the dump/transfer station bi-weekly.) While the shipping material was biodegradable for the most part, it took up a lot of space in our trash compared to Sun Basket. On top of all that, the food flavor just didn’t compare to Sun Basket. (We are still enjoying Sun Basket.)
Next Meal Kit Experience: Terra’s Kitchen… (Update: They are no longer in business.)
We tried Terra’s Kitchen (TK) for a few weeks.
Love the shipping vessel.
TK ships meals in a reusable, climate controlled, delivery vessel that is return shipped (pre-paid) back to Terra’s Kitchen the following day. Shipping is free with orders of $100 or more or $6.99 (at the time of this writing) for orders under $100.
Everything fits inside neatly.
The vessel is empty and ready for pickup the next day.
The reusable vessel intrigued me, because I don’t like all the extra shipping trash that comes with other of meal kit services.
Ready to eat salads, perfect for lunch.
TK’s ingredients are “pre-prepped” which is supposed to shorten cooking time. The food is prewashed and individually packaged in recyclable containers. They offer meals, snacks, deserts, beverages, salads, meat, etc. They offer a variety of dietary options: Mediterranean, Paleo, gluten free, low cal, and vegetarian. Most products are antibiotic and hormone free, non-GMO and organic when possible. Pricing varies depending on what you order.
TK’s Vegetable and Chicken Couscous Bowl
I sent an email to TK’s customer serviced to find out if they delivered to my area, and they responded quickly with a friendly, yes! I downloaded their app and scheduled our first order.
We didn’t stick with TK very long. We quickly grew bored with their flavors and food selection to choose from. Absolutely loved the shipping vessel because I had minimal trash from the meal kit service; however, the pre-prepped items had a shorter, freshness life expectancy.
UPDATE: Since this post was written, TK is no longer in business.
Sun Basket is Still Our Favorite…
We’ve been with Sun Basket since January, 2018. We never grow tired of their flavorful recipes. We’ve cooked meals inspired by countries we’ve never visited. They save me shopping time, and are healthier and more affordable than going out for dinner at a restaurant. Plus, my husband and I enjoy preparing the meals together.
In fact, the featured picture on this post was one of our Sun Basket meals we recently cooked at home, Sesame-crusted Salmon with Orange and Roasted Carrot Salad. It tasted AMAZING!
We were ready to add another company to supplement our Sun Basket meals. I did some searching and decided to give Home Chef a try. They ship for free if you order over $45, so I ordered the following meals for 2: a meal to cook, a “no cooking required” salad meal and 2 smoothies = free shipping!
Here’s what’s on our 1st Home Chef menu this week:
Mojito Pork Chops
Sesame Chicken Salad
Strawberry Colada Smoothie(s)
The Home Chef menu will be added to our Sun Basket menu for this week:
Shrimp tacos diablo with pickled cabbage & lime.
Sicilian chicken breasts with salmoriglio sauce and broccoli.
Piri-piri shrimp with curried sweet potato-coconut mash.
Home Chef will be our 4th meal kit company we’ve tried. Our first experience was Blue Apron, the second, Sun Basket (our favorite), and third was Green Chef. You can read about our experiences by clicking the preceding links.
Our first Home Chef shipment arrives this week, so be sure to check back to find out how our meal kit experiencewith them goes.
We’ve been enjoying Sun Basket for awhile now.