Freshly Review
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By CANDICE GREY ConsumersCompare.org Update: May 23, 2022 |
- No cooking necessary. All of the meals are already prepared for you.
- The customer gets to choose their own recipes.
- You can cancel, pause, or change at any time with no hassle.
Freshly is a meal subscription service that compares to many other meal kit services out there today such as Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, and Purple Carrot. The big difference between Freshly and the others is there is no cooking involved. The meals come right to your doorstep already made, and all you have to do is heat them up.
They deliver to 27 states, and when you go to sign up you will be asked what zip code you live in to see you if qualify for delivery. CEO and co-founder Michael Wystrach founded Freshly when he felt he was not in his best physical shape and was not able to eat healthy meals with his
busy lifestyle. He created this platform to solve his dietary problems and get back into great shape. [1]
How Does Freshly Work?
First, you will add in your zip code to see if you are eligible for delivery, and once that is a go you can start the process of choosing which plans you want. There are four different plans to choose from:
4 Meals Per Week: $12.50 per meal, $49.99 per week
6 Meals Per Week: $9.99 per meal, $59.99 per week
9 Meals Per Week: $9.99 per meal, $89.99 per week
12 Meals Per Week: $8.99 per meal, $107.99 per week
The customer gets to choose the exact meals they want to come to their door each time, and the company accommodates specific dietary restrictions like gluten-free and peanut allergies. None of the meals are frozen, and they are always fresh ready to heat up and eat. The company delivers Tuesday through Saturday, and you can skip any week if it does not line up with your schedule. You can choose a variety of meals: Entrees and Breakfasts. [2]
Some of the meals are Pesto Chicken, Black Bean & Sweet Potato Patties, Southwest Chicken Bowl, Korean- Style Shrimp, Pork al Pastor, and Spaghetti Squash and Meatballs.
Is Freshly Safe?
This company is completely safe to order from, and they are environmentally conscious with a section for how to recycle your deliveries on their home page. [3] When asked how Freshly keeps their meals fresh they responded,
“To keep your food super fresh in transit, we use special modified atmospheric packaging, which involves modifying the composition of the internal atmosphere of a package (commonly food packages) to improve the shelf life of fresh food by 200% or more compared to packaging in air.” [3]
Pros and Cons of Freshly
As with any meal plan subscription, there are pros and cons that you must weigh out before you sign up and pay for the first month.
PROS
- No cooking is necessary. All of the meals are already prepared for you.
- The customer gets to choose their own recipes.
- You can cancel, pause, or change at any time with no hassle.
CONS
- Expensive! Ordering from Freshly is more expensive than buying your own groceries, but that’s where proof of convenience comes to play.
- Cumbersome packaging and waste (although recyclable)
- Some have said a select number of meals had an odd taste to them. [4]
Conclusion
Overall, Freshly is going to be a nice company to invest in if you are really short on time and do not want to cook at all. Some people noted that the meals were not all amazing, but others enjoyed a variety of them at the end of the day.
Any time you are working with pre-made meals (think airline food) you are going to get only a certain level of quality. Having fresh ingredients sent to your doorstep with the ability to cook them yourself sounds more appealing to me personally, but some people just don’t have time for it. Either way, this company has received good reviews overall, and they offer a variety of meals to choose from for every palate.
I tried this service. The pros are correct in that you don’t have to cook – just pop them in the mic and you have a ready to eat meal. I expected the meat to come out dry or rubbery – and it did not. However, after trying a couple of the meals, I noticed a very odd taste and a weird coating/feeling on my tongue. They were also very under seasoned. I had to add salt to everything – even those with soy sauce ingredients. The vegetables were never crisp and were never a vibrant color and most came unseasoned – mostly the broccoli.
After noticing the odd flavor I rechecked the ingredients. There are many preservatives and chemicals used. The packaging is not what keeps them fresh – it is the chemicals and additives they put in them. this can explain the odd taste.
Even with salt – they are not great – they solve the hunger thing, but nothing to write home about. I would prefer lean cuisine over these.
I canceled my subscription. I first tried to suspend, but then was told I could not, so then I just canceled after just 2 weeks of food.
Home Chef, Sunbasket, and others actually deliver fresh ingredients – it does take some effort – but those meal programs are far superior in my opinion, and much less waste.
I am not even going to finish my second delivery as I just don’t feel right after eating them and I do not want to put those unnecessary chemicals and additives into my body.
Never even had the chance to try the meals. I was rescheduled 4 times, there was always some kind of excuse why the meals could not be delivered. There was one instance where weather was a factor. No excuse for the other three times. The people I spoke to were clueless. Don’t waste your time or your money!!
Horrible service. Will never order again
Food choices are basic and balanced as I prefer, not too complicated. Very convenient, no prep needed, just reheat in the microwave for 3 minutes. They provide beef, chicken, turkey and pork based meals as I prefer.
They say you can cancel at any time but they will charge you for the next three weeks because they copied your first order and then they take whatever promotional incentives that you have and charge it to the regular price plus shipping
Freshly does not do vegetables well, all are mushy or over cooked, definitely don’t get any dish with broccoli. Zingy Buffalo Chicken is the best one I have tried, it is cauliflower mash with turkey bacon and buffalo chicken. Turkey Meatballs & Zoodles is awful, watery and no flavor, broccoli is mush. Three-Cheese Turkey Lasagna is pretty good, very filling.
Down-Home Turkey Meatloaf is bland and I would skip this one it comes with a lima bean medley that is just okay..Homestyle Chicken, the chicken and mac and cheese are good, not enough of it, green beans are inedible. Stay away from broccoli and green beans.
Over priced and not good for the money, if you want my advice, buy an instant pot and batch cook for the week.
Another person in the office gets this weekly and really likes it so I thought that I’d give it a try. I cancelled immediately after the second delivery and chose not to finish my 4 week trial special. It was a huge disappointment and definately not worth putting any more money into. I guess my co-worker would probably eat anything.
Ordered two gift certificates for my mother. They immediately started charging her credit card for meals even though she hadn’t ordered. Ignored she had two certificates in hand. Constant battle having the meals stopped and charges reversed. A total nightmare. Finally cancelled the whole thing.
Horrible, the company is a total rip off, food was not what I expected an you have little control of your ordering, will bill you before you select your next order, therefor I cancel my subscription!!!
This is a rip off. I ordered my one week package. Never odered any more. Now today I get another package of meals THAT I DID NOT ORDER. I did not like the meals that I ordered with my initial try-out. There was no place to cancel on the screen, so I inactivated as far as I could go. Which was 3 weeks. I emailed them to cancel the ordering. Now today they told me that I signed up for a “subscription” which I DID NOT SUBSCRIBE TO.