These Are the Most (and Least) Eco-Friendly Meal Kit Services – CNET

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Want meal kits without all the plastic waste? These meal kits have the smallest — and largest — environmental footprints in 2023.

David Watsky Senior Editor / Home and Kitchen

David lives in Brooklyn where he’s logged more than a decade writing about all things edible, including meal kits and meal delivery subscriptions, cooking, kitchen gear and commerce. Since earning a BA in English from Northeastern in Boston, he’s toiled in nearly every aspect of the eats business from slicing and dicing as a sous-chef in Rhode Island to leading complex marketing campaigns for major food brands in Manhattan. These days, he’s likely somewhere trying the latest this or tasting the latest that – and reporting back, of course. Anything with sesame is his all-time favorite food this week.

Expertise Kitchen tech, cookware, small appliances, food innovation, meal delivery and meal kits.

There’s no question that meal kits are convenient. Pick the right meal kit service, and it might save you some money over grocery store prices, too. One knock on handy meal kit delivery has always been that it’s wasteful since items and ingredients for your dinner are often individually packaged and shipped in cardboard boxes with disposable ice packs. But as this 2019 study shows, meal kits actually cut down on food waste since ingredients are perfectly portioned with little leftovers to keep fresh and use later. The same study found that meal kits typically produce a lower total overall carbon footprint than buying the ingredients in a store, despite containing more plastic.

If you’ve been wanting to try meal kits but are worried about the waste part, we commend you. To make sure you’re keeping it as green as possible, you might want to know which meal kits use the least packaging and are best for the environment. A 2022 study by US Packaging and Wrapping LLC sought to determine exactly that. The shipping materials company, which CNET confirmed has no business partnerships or contracts with any meal kit services, examined four popular vendors — Blue Apron, EveryPlate, HelloFresh and Home Chef — to find the least (and most) wasteful meal kits. 

Blue Apron, the original meal kit service, proved to be the most eco-friendly meal kit, with an impressive 50% of its packaging being fully recyclable, just 1.19 packets per ingredient and the least amount of empty box space. After Blue Apron, there was a steep drop, with HelloFresh (second on the list) using only 9% recyclable materials and super budget-friendly meal kit service EveryPlate finishing in third with similar stats. Home Chef finished last out of the four services examined, with 2.38 packets per ingredient and just 19% recyclable materials.

To analyze the four services, US Packaging and Wrapping ordered three meals from each vendor and employed standardized metrics to evaluate total plastic use, recyclability of materials, number of packets per ingredient and empty box space. The four categories were accounted for in devising a final score for each one. 

Blue Apron trounced the competition, with half of its materials fit for recycling, while no other service broke even 20% in the category. The study found Home Chef’s packaging is up to 90% plastic, amounting to 56 packets across the three meals. HelloFresh used the least amount of plastic (just 66%), as meals are mostly separated in large bags and ingredients are not individually packaged.

So how does that compare with our experience? We’ve tested every major meal kit service and also found Blue Apron to be one of the least wasteful — in addition to one of the best, with excellent meals at an affordable price per meal. EveryPlate is our favorite cheap meal kit. While EveryPlate’s ice packs aren’t recyclable, we didn’t notice as much plastic as this study suggests, since EveryPlate sends most of the ingredients loose in a cardboard box and not packaged individually. 

Want to try a meal kit on for size? Use this sneaky hack and get months of cheap meal delivery and decide which one you like best.

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