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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

meal delivery

CookUnity Raises $15.5M to Expand ‘Chef-to-Consumer’ Meal Service

Meal subscription service CookUnity announced today it has raised $15.5 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Fuel Venture Capital with participation from new and existing investors, including IDC Ventures, which led CookUnity’s seed round of funding. The Series A round brings CookUnity’s total funding to date to $23 million. 

The Brooklyn, NY-based company said it plans to use the new funds to expand its service across North America, grow its marketing efforts, and open two new kitchens, in California and Texas, to support the expansion.

CookUnity bills itself as a “chef-to-consumer platform.” Its subscription service, which currently serves New York City, offers users weekly choices of meals made by a wide range of local chefs, from those with Michelin stars to up-and-coming ones. Pricing starts at $10.49 per meal, with food options serving a fairly wide range of dietary needs and preferences. Meals arrive fully prepared, with instructions for heating and plating. 

For chefs, both established and up and coming, CookUnity’s platform provides another way to reach potential customers. This is especially important at a time when most restaurants are still operating under capacity restrictions. Consumers over the last several months have turned to other means of getting dinner on the table. One of those ways has been meal kits and subscription services, a sector that’s seen something of a resurgence in recent months. Bringing chefs, many of which have been out of work because of the pandemic, to the meal kit sector seems an obvious way to create new food options for consumers and opportunities for those making the food.

To that end, CookUnity says it plans to expand its roster of chefs in the coming months. The company currently has 32 chefs participating and says it will aggressively expand that number to around 150 by mid-2022. The new kitchen locations opening in Los Angeles and Texas will also expand CookUnity’s chef roster beyond local NYC chefs. 

Thistle Raises $10.3M to Expand Its Plant-Forward Meal Delivery Service

San Francisco-based prepared meal service Thistle announced this week it has raised a $10.3 million Series B round to expand its plant-based meal delivery operation. The round was led by PowerPlant Ventures, with participation from Siddhi Capital, Alumni Ventures Group, and the venture arm of Rich Products Corporation. The new financing brings Thistle’s total funding to date to $17 million. 

The company will use the new funds to widen its geographical reach. Currently, Thistle’s service is available in many parts of California, including the San Francisco Bay Area, the North Bay, Sacramento, Davis County, Orange County, and Los Angeles. It also recently added Las Vegas, Nevada to its roster, and also ships to other parts of Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.

According to today’s press release, the new expansion will push the company towards having “a bi-coastal footprint” at some point in 2021 as well as a new production facility most likely to be located on the East Coast. 

Thistle’s service itself offers ready-made plant-based meals delivered to customers doorsteps via a weekly subscription that can be customized based on the number of days a user needs the food. Meals include breakfast, lunch, and dinner items as well as snacks and juices.

The company said in today’s press release that part of the new Series B funding will go towards launching new features for customers, including a complimentary virtual consultation with an in-house dietician.

Meal delivery, whether ready-made meals a la Thistle or more traditional kits from the likes of Blue Apron, have enjoyed an uptick in demand because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has limited options for consumers in terms of eating out or finding prepared foods. As it expands, Thistle’s chief competition will be other companies that delivery ready-made healthy meals. That includes Factor75, which was recently acquired by HelloFresh, and FreshlyFit, the healthy meal line by Nestlé-owned Freshly.  

 

I Tried Yo-Kai’s Ramen Meal Kit, and Now I Have to Move to California

“This is amazing!” That was my 9-year old son raving in between big juicy slurps of his Black Garlic Tonkatsu ramen that I had just whipped up for him.

This five star review was soon followed by my wife, who after trying the Spicey Kimchi ramen I also made this afternoon, said “That’s soul satisfying food.”

Am I a ramen prodigy? A culinary genius? Not quite (or at all). Both of those delicious ramen dishes were courtesy of Yo-Kai Express, the automated ramen vending machine company that launched a ramen meal kit service last week. Right now, Yo-Kai’s meal kits are only available in parts the Bay Area, but the company was kind enough to overnight me a couple samples to try.

I was eager to see how all this would work for a number of reasons. I’m not the world’s best cook, and have certainly never made real ramen (read: not the bricks of dried noodles+salt you buy at the grocery store). I don’t really like traditional meal kits because they are too much work. And honestly, the Yo-Kai ramen was one of the highlights of my robot food tour of San Francisco last year, and I didn’t want to be disappointed.

Thankfully, the Yo-Kai meal kit came through.

All the ingredients for the two different dishes arrived in a plain box. I was a little concerned because the food wasn’t packed in dry ice or anything, but it was evident that the meats and broths had been shipped frozen. Tucked inside an insulated sleeve, they were still cold to the touch.

The one complaint I had about the meal kit was that it didn’t come with the cooking directions. I had to go to Yo-Kai’s site for those. Whether this was an accident or by design to get me back to menu and order page, I’m not sure.

The ramen kits run between $11 and $12 each, and both dishes were super easy to make. Boil water, add the noodles for a quick heat before draining. Heat up the broth and add the meat, corn, green onions and other ingredients right as it’s coming to a boil. Put everything in a bowl and enjoy.

The two dishes Yo-Kai sent: Black Garlic and Spicy Kimchi were delightful in their own completely different ways. The black garlic had a robust umami flavor with a lot of depth. The Kimchi, for this middle-aged suburban dad, was just the right amount of spicy. Enough to give the dish a punch, but not enough to distract from the flavors of the meal.

Look, I’m not a food critic, nor a ramen expert. I’m writing about this because I think it’s a fascinating move by Yo-Kai. As noted, the company’s main business is automated ramen vending machines. But vending machines are typically located in high-traffic areas like airports and office buildings. With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing shelter-in-place orders, most of those locations aren’t high-traffic anymore. So the company is adapting. If you can’t make it to one of their machines, they’ll deliver the ramen to you, where you can enjoy it at your own social distance.

Those of us living outside the Bay Area are too distant to even get Yo-Kai’s ramen kits for now. And while moving back to California would mean I could get these meal kits all the time, I’m guessing that if Yo-Kai’s meal kit line takes off, they’ll be available up here soon enough.

California Launches Meal Delivery Program to Feed Seniors and Aid Restaurants

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Friday the “Restaurants Deliver: Home Meals for Seniors” program, aimed at feeding vulnerable senior citizens while simultaneously giving more business to restaurants and their workers.

The meal delivery program, which is in partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), has two purposes, according to the state of California website:

  1. Help older and other adults at high risk from COVID-19 to stay home and stay healthy by delivering three nutritious meals a day, and
  2. Provide essential economic stimulus to local businesses and workers struggling to stay afloat during the COVID crisis.

The program is effective immediately. It will reimburse participating restaurants for three meals per day: up to $16 for breakfast, $17 for lunch, and $28 for dinner.  

Gov. Newsom noted in a press conference at the end of last week that the program is aimed specifically at independent restaurants that are struggling or that have been forced to close because of the pandemic. “We want to get a lot of independent restaurants up and running again,” he said.

Participating restaurants will be selected by local governments. Their meals must adhere to certain nutritional guidelines and, ideally, use locally sourced ingredients.

Across the U.S. restaurant transactions are down and at least 3 percent of restaurants have permanently closed their doors. Those that remain open are exploring other lines of business in order to survive and keep at least some staff employed. Some restaurants are selling groceries. Others have pivoted entirely away from food and are paying employees to sew masks.

The program is the first in the U.S. dedicated specifically to senior citizens impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. World Central Kitchen has a similar initiative in place in the U.S. and is working with restaurants to deliver meals to both seniors and communities in need.

California’s program will serve millions of seniors living in isolation at this time. Those interested can enter their location at 211.org to see if they qualify.

Lyft Will Deliver Meals to Seniors and Kids to Help During COVID-19 Crisis

Ridesharing company Lyft announced a number of new initiatives over the weekend to help combat problems arising from the continued COVID-19 crisis. That includes meal delivery for those in need.

In a corporate blog post last Friday, Lyft outlined the new steps it was taking:

Supporting delivery of meals for kids and seniors in need: Students who receive free or subsidized lunch at school and home-bound seniors have been heavily affected by shelter-in-place advisories. To meet crucial food access gaps, Lyft is working in partnership with government agencies and local non-profits. Starting with a pilot in the Bay Area, drivers will be able to pick up meals from distribution centers and deliver them without contact to individuals in need. We are working to quickly scale this program throughout California and across the country. 

As schools have been forced to close amid the global pandemic, there is ongoing concern about how kids in low-income areas will get fed. In response, schools have been creating grab-and-go meals, but those still need to get to the kids, something that isn’t easy when parents have to work (and fear losing their jobs). Lyft stepping in like this could provide a great community service.

Lyft also said it was activating its LyftUp program, a partnership with public heath entities, non-profits, governments and community organizations to provide additional assistance to serve populations in need. Through LyftUp Grocery Access Program, Lyft will be providing rides “to and from grocery stores in food insecure areas.”

Lyft is among a number of companies stepping up to serve the most vulnerable populations at this time. In Atlanta, Goodr has been working with schools to deliver meals to 40,000 students in that school district.

In addition to food related activities, Lyft also launched programs to assist with the delivery of medical supplies, and non-emergency medical transportation for low income individuals.

While Lyft, the company, announced these initiatives, it’s important to remember that it ain’t the C-level execs or hardware engineers or marketing teams that will be driving around and delivering meals. It’s the everyday contractors who are literally on the front lines of this epidemic. If you are still using ridesharing services (we assume you’re only leaving your house to get groceries), and are able — tip generously.

Kettlebell Kitchen Shuts Down Its Prepared Meal Delivery Service

Kettlebell Kitchen said today that it is no longer serving prepared meals. In an email sent out to customers this morning, the company wrote:

Kettlebell friends and family,

We’re sad to say we’re closing our kitchens today and will no longer be serving meals.

We’re grateful for the past 7 years and the opportunity to fuel you along the way, thank you for giving us the chance to do so! As we close our doors, we want to introduce you to Territory. Like us, they believe in the power of delicious, clean food, and have been serving healthy eaters like yourself since 2011.

While Territory doesn’t yet serve your area, they’re quickly expanding. Sign up for updates, and they’ll send you a note once they’re live in your neighborhood.

At this point, we don’t know if Kettlebell is just closing down its kitchens to pivot to something else or shutting the company down entirely, or why it is recommending Territory (which Kettlebell says it has no affiliation with). We reached out to Kettlebell and will update this post as we learn more.

Based in New York, Kettlebell Kitchen had raised more than $30 million in funding. The company specialized in delivering prepared meals tailored to specific fitness and nutrition goals like weight loss or burning fat as well as dietary lifestyles like keto.

I actually tried Kettlebell’s meals earlier this summer and liked them quite a bit. While they were delicious and convenient, they were more expensive than other prepared meal services such as Icon, and ultimately the cost was too high for me to continue using the service.

The prepared meal delivery business is tough to scale, given all the supply chain, safety requirements and logistics. Now we have to see if Kettlebell Kitchen is a canary in the prepared meal delivery coalmine.

The email from Kettlebell Kitchen announcing kitchen closures.

Amid Layoffs, Uber Eats Partners with Burger King

It’s been a bit of an up and down week for meal delivery service Uber Eats. On the upside, Burger King just announced it was partnering with Uber Eats for nationwide meal delivery starting today. However, this comes on the heels of news yesterday that Uber Eats is laying off one percent of its workforce including workers on the Uber Eats team.

People hungry to eat an Impossible Whopper (or any BK sandwich) from the comfort of their home can now place an order within the Uber Eats app. As part of the promotion, the Uber Eats is offering free delivery on orders of $15 or more through October 27.

BK’s partnership with Uber Eats isn’t an exclusive one. If you go to Burger King’s site, the “BK Delivers” link actually takes you GrubHub. Though when we searched for Burger Kings in a few different cities, there were no results, so GrubHub’s partnership may not be implemented nationwide.

The addition of Burger King to its roster also comes after McDonald’s ended its exclusive delivery relationship with Uber Eats in July of this year. Bringing on BK helps bolster Uber Eats at a time when DoorDash (which also delivers for McDonald’s and Burger King) leads meal delivery space with 35 percent market share of consumer spend, followed by Uber Eats, which has 25 percent.

With so many players in the space, meal delivery has become a cutthroat business, and Uber Eats is in a bit of flux as it works to stave off the competition. Uber has been under pressure after a lackluster IPO and racking up financial losses. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that while there is a lot of growth ahead for Uber Eats, profitability for the division is still a ways off. To help stem the bleeding, Uber announced yesterday that it was laying off 350 people across the company, including Uber Eats. The company didn’t provide details on how many from Uber Eats were being let go.

We’re still early in the meal delivery game and Uber Eats isn’t on life support yet. The company has a “preferred” delivery partnership with Starbucks, and has been experimenting with drone delivery of burgers. Perhaps an Impossible Whopper by air isn’t that far off.

Snap Kitchen Expands Prepared Meal Delivery to 15 Cities

Austin, TX-based Snap Kitchen has doubled-down on its e-commerce goals and expanded to 15 U.S. cities, the Houston Chronicle reports.

Snap Kitchen, who sells fresh, healthy grab-and-go meals, started out as a retail company in 2010 and operates 34 brick-and-mortar locations across Austin, Philadelphia, Houston, and the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.

But the company’s model of late has been to focus on growing the e-commerce side of its business, hence the recent expansion of its direct-to-consumer meal delivery subscription service, which is now available in Baltimore, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma City, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, and Washington, D.C., to name a few. Snap Kitchen Chief Executive Jon Carter told the Houston Chronicle that the company wouldn’t be opening any new retail stores for now, adding that “our model moving forward is to be asset light in our retail presence.”

On its website, Snap Kitchen touts itself as a service for healthy eating, and all of its ready-to-eat meals are free of antibiotics, hormones, artificial preservatives, and gluten. Customers can choose from a number of “lifestyle plans” on the menu that include vegetarian, keto, and low carb. Customers use the Snap Kitchen website or iOS app to pick and manage their subscriptions. All foods are shipped chilled rather than frozen and are ready to eat upon arrival.

Price-wise, Snap Kitchen offers six- to 12-meal boxes that cost between $3.99 to $12.99 per meal. That’s about on par with Kettlebell Kitchen, who also delivers prepared meals, but higher than Icon Meals, whose service ranges from about $7 to $11 per prepared meal.

And those are just a couple of the competitors Snap Kitchen will face as it further expands into the meal delivery market. With the future of traditional meal kits — that is, ingredient kits where customers actually prep and cook the food themselves a la Blue Apron — still uncertain, many companies are starting to offer options for prepared meals. Sun Basket recently added new products that can be quickly assembled for meals like lunch, where there’s often less time to prep food. Kroger and Home Chef are piloting a program for new heat-and-serve meals as well as lunch options, and while the latter’s offerings are only available in retail stores at the moment, the speak to recent findings from NPD: that opportunities in meal delivery are no longer just about providing dinner options.

When it comes to Snap Kitchen’s expansion, Carter told the Houston Chronicle that his company is “prepared to increase its kitchen production by 50 percent to 100 percent” and to “make production more predictable and reduce waste.” Now we’ll see if those goals plus a wider footprint across the U.S. will be enough to keep the company competitive in the meal delivery market.

I Tried Freshly, Which is Now Producing 600,000 Meals Per Week and Expanding into Snacks

It was the instructions to take the food out of the plastic tray and place it on an actual plate that hooked my wife. I mean, she enjoyed the meal as well, but it was this little touch that made Freshly stand out compared with the other meal services we’ve been trying throughout the summer.

It had been almost a year since we last checked in with Freshly, so when they reached out to see if I wanted to test out their meal delivery service, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to catch up with the company. After enjoying a few of their meals, I got on the phone with Carter Comstock, Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Freshly this week to learn what the company has been up to.

“We’re finally a national company,” said Comstock, “We launched two more kitchens this year, that gives us national coverage.”

Freshly now has three kitchens across Phoenix, AZ; Linden, NJ; and Savage, MD. This broader geographic dispersion means that the company can now ship meals to all of the 48 contiguous states. When I asked Comstock about the demographic makeup of his customers, he said “We are even across the board from 23 [years old] to 65+.” Geographically speaking, Comstock said that Freshly’s customers map closely to population density across the country, so more in cities than rural areas.

Comstock also said that Freshly’s kitchens are now producing 600,000 meals per week, up from roughly 200,000 a week a year ago. For comparison, ICON Meals puts out 50,000 meals per week.

While Freshly focuses on dinner menus, Comstock said that due to customer demand, the company is expanding into snacks, which just recently launched for customers only. Unlike its meals, however, the snacks are not made by Freshly’s kitchens; instead, they’re a box of prepackaged snacks that the Freshly team curates.

But it wasn’t the snacks that I tried, it was the meals. Freshly sent me (and, subsequently, my wife) four meals to try. Like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, Freshly has a list of 85 banned ingredients that it won’t use in its meals. The list doesn’t go as far as to make everything organic and locally sourced, but the meals don’t have artificial ingredients or flavorings, and contain no added sugar.

Meals arrive chilled (not frozen) in an insulated box with ice packs. Like with any meal kit or meal delivery service, the packaging always feels… excessive, even though I know they have to keep their meals cool to prevent spoiling and food waste. The insulation material is 85 percent biodegradable (though you still have to throw it in the trash), and the plastic trays are recyclable. The company also says you can drain the water-soluble gel from the ice packs into the garbage once it thaws, and recycle that plastic as well.

The meals I received were summer chicken and zucchini, super pesto and veggie fusilli, cod cakes and steak peppercorn. To cook each one, you just pop it in the microwave for roughly three minutes and dinner is served.

A dinner which the packaging suggests you put on a plate. It’s a small thing, plating, but I don’t remember the other meal services I’ve tried suggesting that. It actually made a difference and using a plate elevated the experience, like I was eating something homecooked and not off of a cafeteria tray.

Each of the meals I tasted was excellent, and as with other meal delivery services, convenient. Freshly provided me with a meal I wouldn’t ever make for myself that tasted really good, and only took three minutes to make. Having tested Freshly, Kettlebell Kitchen and ICON meals this summer, I’d have to say Freshly is my favorite so far. The Freshly meals tasted, well, fresher than the other options and I would totally eat them again.

The hardest part with any meal delivery service is the price. You can order 4, 6, 9 or 12 Freshly meals per week. Prices are $12.50 per meal on the four plan, $9.99 per meal on the 6 and 9 plans, and $8.99 per meal for the 12 plan. This is sort of a Goldilocks pricing between ICON, which starts down at roughly $8 a meal and the more expensive Kettlebell Kitchen meals, which are roughly $12 a meal.

I mean, fifty bucks a week isn’t bad for four meals, especially if you’re the type of person who goes out to eat four times a week. But I eat at home mostly, and adding another $200 – $240 to my monthly bills seems excessive, and kinda lazy.

But it is tempting to try it in bursts. Rather than a sustained, ongoing habit, I may try it for one week out of the month, just for the convenience and variety. If you’re interested in meal delivery, I’d recommend trying out Freshly, just remember to use a plate.

ICON Meals Delivers Convenience to Your Door

You know that thing, where if someone sees you have something like a decorative Santa statue, people start giving you decorative Santa statues, and suddenly all your shelves are jammed full of creepy decorative Santa statues?

That’s basically what happened to me when I reviewed Kettlebell Kitchen’s meals. After that article posted, direct to consumer meal companies started to reach out, asking if I’d like to try their particular meal solution and suddenly my fridge became full of fully cooked, fully assembled, pre-packaged meals**.

ICON Meals CEO Todd Abrams was one of the first to reach out to me. ICON had flown under our radar here at The Spoon, probably because they are based in Texas, don’t do much marketing outside of social media, and have only taken $5 million funding (a small sum compared with other meal delivery services).

Though the company bills itself as a healthy meal service, it’s really, quite literally, a very meat and potatoes offering. ICON prepares full meals like cheeseburgers and sweet potatoes, chicken fajitas, and even breakfasts like pancakes. These are then shrink-wrapped and arrive frozen at your door where you can keep them in your freezer and pop them in the microwave when you’re ready to eat.

Meals are between $8 and $12, and you can choose between weekly menu items like those listed above, or customize your meal to include certain ingredients, or add larger portions. The company also offers its own line of pre-packaged snacks like high protein popcorn, cookies and snack crisps.

It’s important to emphasize that ICON isn’t a meal kit company. All the meals are fully cooked and plated. Once you receive your shipment, you pick the one you want, blast it in the microwave for three minutes and voilá! Lunch, dinner or breakfast is served.

There are two things about ICON that might be a turnoff for some readers. First is the packaging. Meals arrive in a styrofoam-lined box and come in plastic containers covered in thick plastic shrink wrap. I spoke with Abrams about this and he reassured me that the styrofoam is just a temporary stopgap measure as they test out a new fully recyclable box liner. Additionally, the food trays are recyclable and if you’re skeeved out at the idea of cooking your food in plastic shrink-wrap, it’s actually a special film that is food safe.

The other thing that might give some people pause about ICON is that it doesn’t place an emphasis on sourcing its food. It’s not organic, ethically sourced or local. Abrams said that ICON is putting out 50,000 meals a week, and buying local just isn’t tenable at that scale. Instead, ICON works with Sysco for all its food buying not only to meet its high demand, but also because that makes all of its ingredients traceable should there be a particular food recall.

While that may not satisfy conscientious consumers, they might feel reassured to know that ICON has a full-time FDA inspector at its food production facility, so its meal prep environment is constantly being monitored. Abrams also said that the shrink-wrapping actually helps protect the food from freezer burn and prevents oxygen and other pathogens from getting into your food.

All that is well and good, but how do ICON Meals taste?

Pretty good, actually! They were balanced with a protein, a vegetable and a carb, and the options were varied enough that eating them didn’t feel repetitive. It’s not high-cuisine, they were a little bland with some meals feeling like cafeteria food (especially the rice dishes), but what you are really buying with ICON is time.

It’s pretty great to open up your freezer and be able to choose from a week’s worth of meals. Microwaving them makes ICON meals fast to prepare (though take out the bread before you start cooking them otherwise it gets stiff), so you can eat a full, well-portioned meal on a busy schedule.

The ICON snacks weren’t as appealing to me. I liked the cookies, which actually had more of a consistency of an energy bar, but the protein popcorn was too sweet even for my taste.

ICON is sitting at the intersection of a couple of trends we follow at The Spoon. It’s a meal delivery service and it’s part of the frozen food boom. The frozen aspect in particular makes ICON Meals super convenient because you can store them for a long time, unlike Kettlebell’s meals which have a pretty limited shelf life in your fridge.

Kettlebell’s menu is a little more complex and fancy, but you also pay for it. Kettlebell’s meals cost around $12 a pop whereas ICON Meals start around $8. But Kettlebell is also going for the go-get ’em gym demographic and offers special meal plans for things like fat burning or building muscle.

I’m tempted to keep going with ICON because of the low price and the frozen convenience factor. The hard part for me to get over is the food sourcing. I don’t need all my food to be from an organic farm two blocks from my house, and I understand that at scale, partnering with a company like Sysco makes sense. It just makes the food feel industrial.

However, if those things aren’t super important to you, I can easily recommend ICON for its affordability and the ease with which it can vary up your dining routine either at lunch or dinner. If those are appealing, maybe you can ask Santa for some ICON this year.

**ICON sent a lot of meals. Because they didn’t charge me, and I can’t really return them, I made a cash donation to the Milwaukee Rescue Mission (I had heard a story about them on NPR).

Review: Kettlebell Kitchen’s Prepared Meal Delivery Actually Delivers

You would think that working from home would translate into my eating more healthy lunches. There is a pantry and fridge full of fresh ingredients mere steps away from my home office. Despite all these options, I wind up making the same thing almost every day: avocado and scrambled eggs wrapped in a tortilla.

Healthy? Mostly. Monotonous? Definitely.

This same ‘ole, same ‘ole was one of the reasons I got excited when Kettlebell Kitchen offered to let me try out their meal delivery service. Kettlebell specializes in healthy meal plans that help you achieve your fitness or lifestyle goals such as burning fat, building muscle, going keto and more. Meals are fully prepared and delivered to your home, office or even your gym. All you have to do is re-heat them.

When you sign up for Kettlebell Kitchen, the first thing you do is provide some personal information like height, weight, whether you are counting calories and what your goal weight is. Next, you pick your menu plan from options like Perform, Slim, Vegetarian, and Keto. As I’m trying to lose some weight, I picked the Burn plan.

All of Kettlebell’s meals are soy and dairy-free, and according to the FAQ are also naturally gluten-free, though they aren’t certified as such. You can choose the number of meals per week you want, 6 (lunches), 12 (lunches and dinner), or 18 (breakfast, lunch and dinner). Based on all the criteria you’ve set, Kettlebell then shows you the meals you’ll receive, which you can then further customize by swapping out different dishes.

OK, this is great and all, but a meal delivery service is only as good as the meals it delivers. So how was it? In a word, delicious.

The meals arrived in a nice tote box
The downside of compostable containers: no tight seal to prevent sauce spills
Portable utensils for eating on the go
Kettlebell meals come in compostable containers.
The pork loin meal with sweet potato and apple
Chicken Milanese with cauliflower mash.

Three meals arrived earlier this week: Apple-braised pork loin with sweet potatoes, Chicken Milanese with paleo focaccia, and BBQ chicken with roasted zucchini. They all arrived in an ice-packed box and came in compostable containers and even included a plastic set of portable utensils (and inexplicably, Kettlebell branded sunglasses). The compostable containers were both great and not-so great. Great in that the packaging will turn into soil in 90 days yet is still microwaveable and oven-safe. Not so great in that there isn’t a tight seal around the lid, so the red sauce in the BBQ chicken kind of leaked out of its container in transit.

I tried the Chicken Milanese first, reheating in the microwave. And while the focaccia was a little gummy (from the microwave, I’m guessing), the meal was excellent. The chicken was tender and flavorful, and the fennel and other greens packed in there were still crisp.

I liked it so much that I started looking forward to my next Kettlebell meal the next morning. I was excited to try meals I wouldn’t otherwise make for myself, and reheating was super convenient. Every meal I had felt different from the other and was a delight to eat. Though I was essentially re-heating leftovers, it didn’t taste like it at all, and I didn’t feel bloated or gross after gobbling one down.

All this convenience and delight doesn’t come cheap, however. The lunch-only six meal per week plan costs $71 dollars or almost $12 per meal, and the 12 meal plan will set you back $136 per week (there is no long term commitment). While they aren’t as fancy, you can get Icon Meals for less than $10 a pop.

Beyond the cost, however, there is a certain amount of guilt with all that packaging and transit to basically deliver me three lunches, something I could make on my own with a little more forethought and planning. Having said that, I’m seriously considering keeping at least the lunch plan for a little while longer. The variety is really appealing and the food was consistently delicious. And it’s a consistency, thankfully without monotony.

Allplants Whips Up $9.9M for Vegan Meal Delivery Service

London-based vegan meal delivery service Allplants announced today that it had raised £7.5 million ($9.9 million) in Series A funding. The round was led by Octopus Ventures with participation from Felix Capital, Swedish VC firm Otiva, and others (h/t Techcrunch).

Founded in 2017, Allplants delivers ready-made plant-based meals, such as the BBQ Burrito Bowl and the Golden Sesame Satay, either on a subscription or individual basis. The meals are “quick frozen” and come in packs of six, the idea being that consumers will store them in their freezer to take out and heat up as needed. Much like buying frozen food from the grocery store, except fancier and delivered to your doorstep.

Weekly subscription meals shake out to £4.99 ($6.57) per serving, while one-off meal pack deliveries are £5.67 ($7.46) per serving. Which is a pretty good deal, especially since users can adjust their delivery frequency with relative ease.

According to the Techcrunch article, Allplants “reckons it is the U.K.’s largest Series A round for a vegan company.” While I haven’t seen anything to back that statement up — or to challenge it — I am sure that the vegan meal delivery and frozen meals spaces are quickly heating up.

A few months ago Del Monte invested a $4 million in vegan meal kit service Purple Carrot. Denmark’s Simple Feast raised $12 million for its plant-based ready-made meal delivery service. Though they haven’t announced any funding yet, Seattle-based Buttermilk Co makes microwaveable South Indian meals, all of which are vegetarian. It’s not strictly vegan, but Mealhero’s business model also reminds me of Allplants: the Belgium-based company recently raised $1.04 million for its meal kit service which combines frozen meals with a connected cooking appliance.

The idea of combining the convenience of door-to-door delivery with the longevity and flexibility of frozen food is smart. And though Allplants’ decision to go plant-based does put them in a bit of a niche, the timing is right: demand for meat alternatives has been skyrocketing lately, increasing by 20% last year alone. What a few years ago might have been a limiting factor is now be a driving factor to Allplants’ success, which means we might be seeing a few more record-breaking fundraises for plant-based meal companies in the future.