I’ve let this new phenomenon settle into society for a few months before making any pronouncements. But I think I can now say, with confidence, that this novel attempt to engage inexperienced or non-cooks will turn out to be more of a fad or novelty than a true, lasting trend…
A Hello Fresh MIAB shipment: Three recipes portioned to serve four diners each.
You literally get everything you need, ingredients-wise.
What it is…
Unless you’ve been in a coma for the past year, or stuck in the depths of the Amazon jungle, you’ll already know everything you need to know about the MIAB kits. For those who don’t, here’s a brief rundown: You get all the fresh ingredients you need to make a main meal for two or four, portioned just right, packed neatly in one box, delivered by one of the major parcel services. You get full instructions on how to prepare the meal complete with pictures to show you how it should look.
The website of one of the first MIAB companies pitches the opportunity thus: “Step-by-step recipes with dishes curated each week by our team of in-house chefs and nutritionists. Let us worry all about the meal planning. You just enjoy all the cooking!” and “No grocery lines. No kitchen disasters. No grumpy diners.“
That last part, about the grumpy diners, will, of course, vary according to the instruction-following expertise and kitchen skills of each individual cook.
The reviews…
Reviews of MIABs that I’ve read range from ‘Okay’ to ‘Great!’. I expect that the variance there depends on the varying skills and enthusiasm of those who tried the MIABs. One not-so-great review I saw was by a professional cook who thought the instructions were overly facile. All the reviews I’ve looked at agree that the ingredients, themselves, are uniformly fresh and of good quality. Thank you, overnight parcel service and high-tech insulated boxes!
For the occasional cook or culinary newbee, MIABs appear to have merit in as much as they provide good ingredients and instructions which should help the inexperienced cook produce even complex dishes successfully. And that’s great for a new cook’s self confidence!
One other advantage for the occasional cook: No leftover ingredients. You can try any dish you want without being left with bits of odd ingredients you probably won’t use in some other dish anytime soon. And you pay only for what you need, down to the carefully-measured dabs of Herbs, Spices and Seasonings.
A couple of drawbacks…
Convenience and meticulous planning come at a cost. You’ll pay something like restaurant prices, per plate, for most meal selections; (US)$ 11 to $15 per serving. Most meals are available to serve either 2 or 4 diners, and are priced appropriately.
On top of that, you have to subscribe to most of these MIAB services by the week, receiving a box that contains ingredients for either 3 or 4 meals times the number of diners you choose. So, a week’s subscription can cost (US)$150 or more. And that’s just for supper. And that’s for just 3 or four meals a week. You have to cover off the rest of your suppers on your own.
How much do you spend a week on food, now? MIABs will cost you an average of (US)$50 or more per meal to serve 4 people. By comparison, you could serve a family of 4 a similar meal to those offered by the MIABs for around $5 per plate ((US)$20 total) if you did all the shopping and portioning yourself, while a Burger chain take-out meal for 4 currently costs in the neighbourhood of (US)$35.
The good news is, the are so may MIAB players in the market, now, that even the originals, like Hello Fresh are offering significant discounts on their ‘regular’ prices. Discounts of 30 to 40 percent are not unusual. Check out their websites to see what today’s special du jour is…
“I’d try it once, just to see…”
I keep hearing that from friends and associates, and reading that in online and food-press reviews. And that doesn’t bode well, in my estimation, for the longevity of the new Meal-In-A Box (MIAB) industry.
In the beginning, MIABs went viral among younger couples and families with the money to spend on MIABs, who wanted to dabble in cooking. But younger folks I’ve talked to abut MIABs indicate that they’ll use them now and then, deciding whether to order a week at a time. They say they’ll still rely on take-out and order-in for many of their meals. One young family just up the street from me regularly tosses out as many as three or four delivery Pizza boxes per week on recycle pick-up day.
My take…
Based on the foregoing, I predict that the MIAB market will crash in another year or so, seeing as many as two out of three of the dozens of current players go under. And MIABs will probably never amount to anything more than a pop culture fad or an abiding novelty…
But, go ahead. Prove me wrong…
~ Maggie J.