FOOD DELIVERY SERVICES IN TUSCALOOSA

Brown paper packages, tied up with strings, is food delivery one of your favorite things?

Packages may not have been delivered tied with strings for decades, and you may not be Julie Andrews, but that doesn’t mean you don’t necessarily enjoy the presence of a little gift from yourself sitting on your doorstep.

There’s been plenty of talk lately regarding the move of the shopping industry to online purchase and delivery companies such as Amazon, where people are turning to purchase items online that show up days later, typically in a brown cardboard box. That trend, however, isn’t only limited to clothes or books or children’s toys. Recently people have been getting food delivered right to their door as well.

There’s a difference between delivery food from restaurants, a common service which has been around for a while, and the recent surge of popularity of meal kit or ingredient delivery services. The difference is not “what’s cooking?” but “who’s cooking?” In the case of Blue Apron, Hello Fresh and similar competitors, the answer is you.

According to a 2016 Harris poll, one in four adults purchased a meal kit last year. Survey participants stated that their reasoning included “saving time on grocery shopping” and “trying new recipes.” Overall, the industry is estimated to be worth over $5 billion, according to a 2017 study by Packaged Facts. Some of the most popular companies include Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, Plated, Home Chef, Purple Carrot and Peach Dish.

Blue Apron claims to “eliminate the middleman to deliver fresher food,” so products aren’t wasting going through grocery stores. They also claim their business strategy uses “higher quality ingredients” that aren’t genetically modified or fed hormones.

For consumers in Tuscaloosa, Blue Apron services providing two people with two meals per week costs $51.95 including shipping, while the family plan serving four people four meals per week costs $159.84. There are other plan options, these being the least and most expensive available.

When signing up for a Blue Apron, one can choose the number of meals they’d like delivered each week, as well as whether they intend to feed two or four people. Customers choose from several menu options for the week, and the box is delivered weekly on one’s doorstep with all the ingredients included, labeled, and kept cool by sealed packages of dry ice.

“I enjoyed cooking the food because it ended up being things that we didn’t normally eat,” said Danielle Prestley, a Tuscaloosa resident and mother of four. Prestley said she started using Blue Apron because she thought it would be interesting to try new cooking ingredients that she may not have picked up in the grocery store, as well as the fact that the ingredients and recipes would be conveniently shipped to her door. She no longer uses Blue Apron, saying “I found that I was spending more time preparing the meals because I wasn’t familiar with the ingredients.”

“It said 15-minute meals, but I felt like it took a lot longer than that,” said Sydney Ellis, a student at the University of Alabama. Ellis said the instructions were simple, but took her maybe an hour to complete, saying that may be just because she doesn’t have much experience cooking. She no longer uses the service because meals are already prepared for her at her sorority house, but said she was satisfied with it overall while she used it this summer.

“The recipes were not only delicious but easily laid out,” said Jesilyn Davis, a student at the University of Alabama. Davis used Blue Apron for six weeks over the summer, and made sure to mention the high quality of the ingredients provided. She started the subscription at the suggestion of her mother, who uses the service in Atlanta. Davis said even her boyfriend could figure out how to prepare the dishes, and he doesn’t spend much time in the kitchen.

Hello Fresh also offers plans for two or four people, with anywhere from two to four recipes sent per week. Prices range from $59.94 to $119.88. The company claims its goals include to provide “wholesome home-cooked meals with no planning, no shopping and no hassle.”

With their primary office in Berlin, and others around the world including one in New York, Hello Fresh operates on a worldwide basis, in countries including the US, UK, Australia, Canada, Germany and more. Their website, when compared to Blue Apron’s, focuses less on the purpose behind the service and more on the appeal to customers of the service itself.

The delivery process for Hello Fresh is extremely similar to that of Blue Apron, according to Prestley, who has used both services. One of the main differences she noted were the portion sizes.

“Between my husband and myself and our four kids, the Blue Apron portions even for a family of four were enough but there were no leftovers or seconds,” Prestley said.

Another difference Prestley noted was the menu.

“Hello Fresh was more along the lines of things we’d normally decide to pick on our own,” Prestley said. While she said she enjoyed trying cooking with new ingredients with Blue Apron, Hello Fresh offered meals her family was more familiar with consuming.

Though she no longer uses Hello Fresh or Blue Apron, Prestley currently uses a slightly different food delivery service- grocery delivery through Shipt. This service allows customers to choose the groceries they would like delivered, just as if they went to the store themselves, instead of having the ingredients of a predetermined menu sent to their home.

“I can’t say enough about Shipt,” Prestley said. She said she signed up as soon as she heard the company was coming to Tuscaloosa.

Shipt works via mobile app or website, where customers can sign up, select their groceries, choose their preferred options for delivery, and pay for the service. In Tuscaloosa, Shipt workers purchase items from Publix and deliver them at the scheduled time chosen beforehand by the customer.

The service is currently available in 16 states in the south and midwest. Cities supported in Alabama include Birmingham, Gulf Shores, Huntsville, Mobile, Montgomery, and Tuscaloosa. A yearly membership costs $8.25 monthly.

Jenny Meeks, a Tuscaloosa resident and mother of college students has also used the service since it arrived to Tuscaloosa in August. She said she knows of many times when parents of college students have used the service to deliver medicine or other groceries to their students who may be stuck sick in their apartment.

Prestley uses the service regularly for her family’s groceries, and only goes to the grocery once every two or three weeks now that she has the items delivered.

One of the things Prestley mentioned loving about Shipt is the fact that it’s possible to use it even when out of town for the holidays. All you would have to do is change your city in the app, provided the service is available there.

“If you’re traveling and you have to go somewhere but you want to bring food, if you’re going on an airplane you can’t do that,” Prestley said. “But you can find out if Shipt works there and if they do, you can have your ingredients shipped to the place.”

Shipt is currently available in over 72 cities, and continues to grow.