Pre-prepared Meals

Rocky doesn’t cook for us much anymore. Breakfasts yes; dinners no. I’m not much of a cook but both of us must pay attention to our diet or health problems will escalate. Solution? Order pre-prepared meals from one of the many on-line providers in the market.

A neighbor put us on to Factor. Excellent meals, well prepared and tasty. A little costly at $12.50 per person. We chose 4 dinners per week. That cost $101 per week delivered. Late delivery only once in several months of service.

$100 a week is a lot of money but by eliminating fast food runs, we saved not only money but also decent diet. We figure we actually paid for Factor by not eating out (curbside pickup). Almost even-steven cost wise.

Then, our neighbor switched to Freshly. The neighbor shares dinner time with us nearly every day. So, we watched her eat these convenient meals often and came to realize how healthy, sensible and tasty they were. So, we changed to Freshly, at least for a while to see what it was like.

Freshly meals are smaller and have fewer calories. They are still healthy and taste good. Bland is another descriptor. Factor meals have much more flavor. The first week, our delivery came at the same time as our neighbor’s. The next week hers came early and ours came very late in the day, almost missed dinner time. The third week the deliver was a day and a half late. The fourth week the delivery arrived on the third day. Freshly advised us to trash the food because of expired timeline. We got a credit on our bill. The fifth week the delivery arrived early on the second day.

So, with Freshly, Monday delivery may mean any day of the week. Frustrating. Totally bolloxed up our meal planning and diet. Complaints were handled quickly with small credits for our inconvenience. But the real problem is the continued unreliability of delivery time.

We also live in a condo building with 39 units. We have a building front door and lobby, then an inner lobby with a security communication panel. Delivery drivers are to announce themselves and we buzz them through to the lobby and tell him to just leave the box there. We go down and retrieve the goodies quickly.

But Freshly delivery merely drops the box outside the front door of the build. Under a portico but outdoor weather. We have no way of knowing the delivery has been made. Another point of frustration.

Seems Freshly doesn’t much care about customer satisfaction. We are working with them on that because the product is good and affordable. Their prices allow us to buy 5 meals per week for each of us for less than Factor’s total invoice. On the other hand, Factor delivery was reliable.

To replace Freshly, I went on-line and shopped for alternatives. I learned two things: first, pricing is highly variable, some astronomical for two senior citizens surviving on Social Security. Second, website designs are confusing and impenetrable.

So, we remain with Freshly and hope for on time delivery.

December 21, 2020