Meal Kit Delivery Services: Are they right for you?

Host: Dr. Jennifer Hunter, Assistant Director of Family and Consumer Sciences Extension, University of Kentucky

Guest: Dr. Heather Norman-Burgdolf, Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist in Food and Nutrition.

Episode 3

0:00 Welcome to Talking FACS-what you need to know about family, food, finance and fitness. Hosted by the University of Kentucky Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Program, our educators share research knowledge with individuals, families and communities to improve quality of life.

0:20 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Hello and thank you for listening to Talking FACS. This is your host, Dr. Jennifer Hunter, Assistant Director of Family Consumer Sciences Extension at the University of Kentucky. Today I'm pleased to be joined by Dr. Heather Norman-Burgdolf, Assistant Extension Professor in the Department of Dietetics and Human Nutrition. Heather, thank you for joining us today.

0:40 Dr. Heather Norman-Burgdolf: Yeah, thanks for having me.

0:42 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: So, I'm excited that the topic you're going to discuss today is Meal Kit Delivery Services. And that I think so often, we get flyers in the mail or we hear advertisements on TV or the radio or maybe even other podcasts about meal kit delivery services. So, thank you for being here to tell us more about them.

1:00 Dr. Heather Norman-Burgdolf: Yes. So, we have this conundrum really in our society where we want to make healthy food choices and we want to improve the choices that we're making when it comes to food, but at the same time, we don't want to spend more money or we don't want to spend more time planning meals and grocery shopping. And so, just like other areas in our society, they've done a really good job of finding this creative solution for convenience and that's where meal kits kind of come in. They're becoming more and more popular, all demographics and ages are using them and it's actually estimated that almost one in five adults in the United States have at least tried meal kits once.

1:34 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Wow! Okay. So, like you say, they're out there, they're popular, we hear a lot of advertisements about them, but what exactly is a meal kit? What's included? What should a consumer expect?

1:44 Dr.Heather Norman-Burgdolf: Okay. So, meal kit delivery services; it's really just a service that delivers recipes and premeasured ingredients ready for you to use right to your doorstep. Essentially eliminating the need to plan your meals and grocery shop for the ingredients needed to build those meals. It's kind of surprising but there's over 100 companies in the United States that offer this service. And some of the most common ones you may have heard of or seen would be Blue Apron and Hello Fresh. But there's a lot of other smaller ones as well that maybe focused on individuals who have a certain dietary restriction; whether that's a personal decision or if they actually have a diet related conditions such as celiac disease, there's gluten free. They pretty much cover the whole spectrum.

2:30 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Wow! So, like you said that I had heard kind of those big three, but I didn't realize that there was nearly that many companies out there. I've also noticed recently that beyond that the mail delivery services is that when I go in our local grocery store, that right up front and in one of the cases, that they will have meal kits that you can just check out with and go home and prepare, that's prepackaged all the same. So, whether it is a meal kit that you might get at the grocery store or if it is a mail delivery meal kit, what are some of the benefits of using meal kits?

3:04 Dr.Heather Norman-Burgdolf: So, there's not a lot of research or literature out there that kind of breaks down benefits and drawbacks, but they've been around now for about five years. So, we've been able to identify some benefits actually of using meal kits. The first one I want to highlight is the variety. And that's the variety in maybe the vegetables, the whole grains, the lean protein that is typically included in these recipes. I mean, also variety in not only trying new foods, but cooking styles and food preparation methods that you may not necessarily choose to try on your own. We also know that variety in a lot of these healthier foods is really ensuring that your body is receiving all the nutrients that it needs to function properly. So, it's a great way if you feel like the food you're eating is in a rut, to add a little bit of variety and color to your diet. Another benefit would be portion control. So, we know that practicing portion control is a way to maintain a healthy weight or get to a healthy weight. But there's really not any scientific studies to show that meal kits actually contribute to weight loss. But if maybe you need some help practicing portion control, this would be an excellent reason to try them because they do come with those prepackaged ingredients specifically for the number of servings that you are purchasing. So, if you are purchasing ingredients for preparing a meal for two people, that's how much you're going to get. So, it's going to give you some control and your portion size. The elimination of food waste is another benefit. Because the ingredients are premeasured, there's very little food waste that you'll see with these meal kits. For example, when you're preparing a meal from scratch at home, the recipe may call for half an onion. Well, if you don't plan to use the other half of the onion in another recipe it may go to waste. So, in this case you're essentially eliminating the food waste you would have for preparing a meal at home. And then the last thing is we know that families who have recipes and their ingredients provided for them are much more likely to prepare a meal together. Where they’ll prepare the meal and enjoy the meal together. And so, that's going to obviously contribute to family bonding and improved communication as a family.

5:10 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: So, I can definitely relate to the idea of the meal rut, that I find that at home, we get into a habit of, “Well, Tuesday's Taco Tuesday” or that we’re just going to have the same meals over and over and over again because it just becomes routine or it's easy to do or we know that the kids will eat it. So, kind of the idea of having someone else plan those meals for us and kind of give us a little bit of rotation, I could definitely see that being attractive. But on the flip side, what are the drawbacks of using a meal kit service?

5:43 Dr.Heather Norman-Burgdolf: Okay. So, there are a couple that stand out. The first one is this idea that meal kits are healthy. So, they're automatically perceived as being a healthy food option and that may not necessarily be the case. So, just because words like ‘Natural’ and ‘Fresh’ are commonly used to describe them does not necessarily mean that they are the healthiest food option. So, you really want to look for a meal kit service that provides thorough nutrition information because not all of them do. They may provide a calorie count, but maybe not all the other nutrition information you'd want to take a look at. The biggest culprit when it comes to these meals is salt. So, thinking about foods that are having to travel through the mail, they may need to be preserved; which would require a little bit more salt or the recipe may call for you to use salt when you're preparing the meal. And several of the recipes that I've seen actually include over 50 percent of your daily intake of sodium. So, that's something to certainly keep in mind if you're over the age of 50, if you do have high blood pressure or you're at risk for high blood pressure or heart disease. A couple other drawbacks that are pretty common. The first one to be packaging waste. So, because we are shipping food through the mail, it's going to require quite a bit of packaging to keep either the food cold or safe for us to eat when it arrives at our front door. So, it's estimated that about 30 pieces of packaging are required for every meal.

7:06 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Wow!

7:07 Dr.Heather Norman-Burgdolf: So, for someone who maybe is environmentally conscious, this might be a deterrent or something that impacts your decision whether or not to choose them, just knowing how much waste you're providing. I will add that some of the websites for these meal kits do provide specific information on how you can recycle some of the contents of the packaging.

7:28 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: I will say that I've had friends that utilize meal kit services that have offered up boxes or they've offered up their freezer packs. They come in there and they’ll say, “You know, I hate to just throw this away. If you're going someplace that you need a cooler pack for a picnic or whatever”. Those are fairly easy to find for folks that get the meal kits.

7:47 Dr.Heather Norman-Burgdolf: And the last drawback that I want to bring up is the most commonly mentioned drawback and that is the cost. So, on average the cost per meal per person from a meal kit service is around $10 to $11. So, if for example if we do the math, three meals for two people during the week would cost approximately $60. That may not include shipping. So, that's something to keep in mind. A lot of times, these meal kit services will offer very heavy discounts at the beginning to get you on board to try it, but that discount typically does not last. It kind of, it's up to the individual to determine whether you know the value in spending the money really is worth the time savings of meal planning and grocery shopping.

8:32 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Do you know how kid friendly the meals are within the services?

8:35 Dr.Heather Norman-Burgdolf: One of the benefits, I guess, that I should have mention is that there's flexibility in that you get to choose your meals. So, they're not pre-assigned to you. So, if you do have kids or picky eaters, that's certainly a consideration. You can probably look through those recipes that are like your options for the week and maybe choose the one that would be best fit for your family.

8:57 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: That the kids are most likely to eat.

8:59 Dr.Heather Norman-Burgdolf: Yeah.

9:00 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: What other considerations do you think a consumer should think about if they are looking towards a meal kit delivery service?

9:07 Dr.Heather Norman-Burgdolf: There are a few. The first one is really that the majority, if not all of these services, require an internet connection. So, the Internet is where you're going to have your account, it's where you're going to select your meals, it's where you're going to set up how many meals you want for that week, that's how you will pay for the meals. So, if you don't have a reliable internet connection, then that might be an issue. Another thing, kind of what you just mentioned, is that you really need to be an adventurous eater. You need to be willing to try new recipes or new ingredients or maybe new vegetables and fruits that you never had before. So, it may not be the best fit for a family that has really small children who are picky eaters. So, it's something to keep in mind. And then I think that they could be a good option for someone who, like you mentioned, is in a rut a little bit with their meal planning or maybe they want to learn new skills, so they could use this as a temporary cooking school for themselves where they can learn new ingredients, learn how to prepare new types of meat or fish or vegetables. And then maybe it's good for a family in transition. So, you just got home with a new baby and you don't want have to think about grocery shopping or planning meals. So, this would be a good temporary option. Maybe you're returning home after temporary rehabilitation where you've been out of the house and you're not as mobile, so it might be nice to have some of those ingredients and recipes delivered directly to you. And then I guess my final consideration would be if you're really interested but you're kind of hesitant to jump all the way in on it, maybe find someone you know who's tried them and ask them about their experience or you could find another family who's also interested and you could split the costs for a couple of weeks and share the meals and kind of see how it fits into your lifestyle.

10:53 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: All great tips. Thank you again for joining us today, Heather. I know it's a very timely topic. It’s a conversation that we've had in our household as we're trying to figure out how to juggle all the kiddo’s activities and work responsibilities and other life responsibilities and still make certain that we provide a healthy and nutritious meals. So, definitely things that we've been thinking about at home and I'm sure that others have as well.

12:03 Thank you for listening to Talking FACS. We deliver programs focusing on nutrition, health, resource management, family development and civic engagement. If you enjoyed today's podcast, have a question or a show topic idea, leave a ‘Like’ and comment on Facebook at UKFCSExt. Visit us online at fcs.uky.edu or contact your local extension agent for Family and Consumer Sciences. We build strong families. It starts with us.