Blue Apron Review Part One: Box received.
Another day. Another dinner. Does it leave you delirious? Does it suffocate you? Drown you in a sacrificial nightmare of submerging leafy greens in water with your own hands?
Does it?
If so, or perhaps if you’re just looking for time with the people you love (or Facebook, or Pokemon), Mise en plac à la Blue Apron aims to prep our lives for less hectic schedules — and turn us into master chefs, to boot!
I tried Plated once — and I vowed to never try a disaster like that again (a couple of Hellmann’s mayo travel packets from Plated does NOT make the aïoli base I’m looking for) — but when I received an unsolicited gift in the mail for $30 off Blue Apron, and subsequently googled for $60 off with success — I couldn’t say no to the 100% free food, and it looked beautiful. (Spoiler: The food looks just as gorgeous in person.)
I received my first box today. It was huge and heavy: 15lbs according to the Lasership label. Exciting! The packaging, not including the packaging around the individual ingredients, weighed in at 13.75lbs. Now, I’ll try to subsequently confirm this math with each meal, but here’s what I know so far:
- Shipped package, including food: 15lb
- Main packaging, not including individual ingredient packaging: 13.75lb
That leaves
- 1.25lb of food for $60
- A buttload of carbon emissions
So, it looks a little pricey, but do the time savings and excitement of putting ingredients like “fennel” in quotes make it worth the price? Motzah new-comers Ashley and Dave definitively say it does. I’ll be back with my take once we’ve had our meal, but in the meantime, here’s a snap of what you get for $60 (sans a few cherry tomatoes and garlic which sneaked out of the picture):
It looks yummy! While 4 oz of arugula divided in two 2 oz bags for questionable convenience greatly disturbs the conservationist in me, at least it’s not Plated’s travel packets of Hellmann’s mayo for “aïoli” (sorry, I just can’t give that up).
And here are the ingredients for the first dish for two people. All of this food costs $20, shipped.
Here’s a list, with weights of the smaller things, to compensate for my careless phone photo.
- Two cod fillets 12oz with packaging, so about 5 oz portions
- 1 egg
- 2 oz arugula
- A yellow squash
- Almonds (measured 0.5 oz)
- Champaign vinegar
- 1/2 cup panko (measured 1.75 oz)
- 1/4 cup quinoa (measured 1.7 oz)
- 1/4 cup flour (measured 1.25 oz)
- Garlic
So how much does this cost from the store, delivered?
Let’s do a quick comparison with Instacart 2hr delivery from Whole Foods. Yes, you may live near a more affordable grocery store than Whole Foods, and you may actually shop and weigh out your food yourself in the bulk section — but let’s look at some options with this baseline.
First, for the exceedingly lazy “chef:” you can get:
- $7.00: sustainably caught cod fillets, pre-beer-battered and fresh frozen
- $0.80: 2 oz organic, washed arugula from a $1.99 bag of 5 oz. The remainder can be used in the next meal, which also calls for arugula.
- $0.50 for the squash, $1.50 for organic
- $0.50 for a bit of champaign vinegar from a $7.49 12.7oz container
- $0.60 for quinoa from the bulk section, or $0.68 for organic
- $0.31 for the almonds from the bulk section, or $0.47 for organic
- $0.12 a clove of organic garlic from a $1.26 bulb
In this case, you do less work because your fish is already battered, and you pay a total of $7.00 + $0.80 + $0.50 + $0.50 +$0.60 + $0.31 + 0.12 = $9.83. Feeling rich? With Instacart you have the choice to step it up to organic squash, quinoa and almonds for +$1.24.
To be fair, that bottle of champaign vinegar did cost you almost as much as dinner — but even buying it outright and pouring the bulk if it down the drain, along with the rest of the arugula and the head of garlic (which do appear in your next Blue Apron recipes) — you still save money. I, however, do not like pouring champaign vinegar down the drain and find a bottle of vinegar, or straight white wine for that matter, useful and enjoyable.
Feeling a little more “pro?” Don’t want pre-battered boxed fish? Will it cost more? Actually…
- Add $0.65 for the panko from a $3.00 8oz container
- Add $0.65 for some Vital Farms Organic Pasture Raised Large Grade AA Eggs in a $7.79/carton. (These eggs are awesome and chickens live more than twice as long with Vital Farms. I regularly spend this money for animal rights reasons. That said, you can get organic cage free non gmo whole foods brand eggs for less than half of that.)
- Subtract $2 for 10 oz of frozen wild caught cod fillet (not pre battered), or add $1.10 for a fancy Finfish pacific cod fillet.
In this case, you get to bread your own cod, just like Blue Apron, and save $0.70 cents if you go with the frozen cod. Your total is now less: $9.13.
You can also spend a couple more dollars ($2.30 over the base price of $9.83) if you prefer the Finfish Pacific fishery brand.
Yes, you need to buy eggs, but you also need to eat breakfast, and the next recipe calls for them. If you must, you can also buy a half dozen cheap eggs for less. But again, I love the Vital Farms eggs for humanitarian reasons.
Now what about shipping? I personally pay Instacart the $100/year fee for free delivery over $35. I heard they raised it to $150/year. At $150, it’s still a bargain, and at this low price, I order about 2-3 times a week to keep my food fresh. I also tip generously. So, let’s add $2.50 for delivery of all three meals and 25% tip — that’s +$3.33 for delivery+tip. My meal now costs $9.13 + $3.33 = $12.46 delivered.
Let’s think of how I could try to spend more money aside from already buying from Whole foods, paying for delivery, and adding 25% tip. If I didn’t have Instacart express membership, and received only one delivery a week, like Blue Apron, my delivery cost would go up to $5.99 a week from Instacart. In this case, even though I’m stupidly ordering only enough food for 3 meals, I pay $2.50 + $5.99/3 meals = $4.50 in tip+delivery, or $13.63 for the meal delivered. That’s still over 30% saving to Blue Apron.
So, if Blue Apron competes poorly on time, money, and carbon — could the convenience, recipes, and social factors still make it worth it? Should I rip blue apron’s published recipes if I really want one (they are public), or should I use Instacart’s one-click recipes, or could there be other people on the internet who write about cooking?!
I’ll be reporting back this week with my findings, but right now it’s time to cook, and despite my calculations thus so far, I’m still very much looking forward to eating some yummy food!
Until later this week, bon appétit!
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