We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.

The subscription service model is popular throughout America. Whether it comes to crafts, wine, or food, consumers can arrange to have all of their needs delivered to the door weekly or monthly. This includes the ingredients for making meals rather than ordering meals ready to cook. Both models are available in the United States, but Blue Apron is for customers who enjoy cooking more than shopping.

Blue Apron for Foodies

Here is the idea. Start with a menu that changes weekly. No two menus will repeat during the year and they are all based on seasonal ingredients. That means, if a food is available to chefs right now it will be featured in recipes.

When that season is over, the ingredient won’t necessarily be purchased from a grocer who has ordered it in from across the country or a foreign farm.

Consumers assemble their meals using the ingredients in their kit, tools as listed in online instructions, following video tutorials closely — or not. Some customers know what they’re doing but don’t want to shop for ingredients. They would prefer just to have the exact amount of a necessary ingredient at their disposal and no extra. That’s wasteful.

Blue Apron for Nutrition

Maybe you are on a diet, trying to lose weight or even gain weight as recommended by your doctor. Each serving is designed to contain between 500 and 800 calories, an estimated value, but an expert team arrives at their figure based on substantial experience and education. Talented chefs devise meals that are nutritionally well-rounded and will also provide vegetarian options with every week’s menu.

Other ingredients are sourced from sustainable farms where meat is raised without unnecessary antibiotics and no hormones. Many of their ingredients are also organic. Although Blue Apron has not yet devised menus for gluten-free, vegan, and dairy-free individuals specifically, many items fall into these categories.

They can’t yet guarantee ingredients will be prepared in a gluten or dairy-free environment, but the time could be coming. It might just take substituting one item to turn a food you can’t tolerate into one you can cook and serve to sensitive eaters.

Delivery Format

This is the trickiest part of home food delivery services. How are these perishable foods going to remain fresh when they are delivered to your door and meant to be eaten throughout the week? Select a day when you are likely to be in most of the time.

Packaging is insulated to remain cool, but give delivery drivers a place to drop items if you can’t be there; somewhere shaded and cool so that food stays cold until you get home. Delivery is free — a novel idea you might think — and available across the domestic United States.

The website for Blue Apron is very easy to use. Instructions are laid out a little at a time in pictures, articles, and videos. One panel shows all of the tools you will need to have available including what times of pans, pots, bowls, and utensils will make cooking easy and lead to the result you were hoping for.

Wines from Blue Apron

A good meal is made better by the right wine paired with it. Alongside each menu item are wine pairing suggestions based on the expertise of Blue Apron staff members who source varietals from Californian vineyards, Washington vineyards, and other US states producing exceptional bottles.

They cut out all of the supply chain steps which make wine so expensive and have also created a bottle size that’s perfect for two people: 500 ml as opposed to 750 ml. Ordering wines is an option, so add this in if you like reds and whites like chardonnay, pinot noir, and cabernet sauvignon.

Rest assured that these are not economy wines but great products sold at a discount. The cost per bottle is just $10 or $65.99 monthly for 6 wines with shipping and tax included. This could be your chance to learn more and become a connoisseur.

Summary and Review

How should you feel about this company and the idea of home-delivered food? It’s becoming more commonplace based on the number of similar firms opening their virtual doors. Innovative entrepreneurs have found an obvious need in US society which is riddled with weight and nutrition problems.

Two thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, including children. Ironically, many of these people also suffer from malnutrition and/or eating-related illnesses like heart disease and Type 2 Diabetes.

Even if having ingredients delivered is expensive, this is a great incentive to cook at home instead of going out; to eat healthy, home-style meals instead of fast food. Blue Apron will improve their site when dietary needs are addressed, but they are off to a good start.