At the Meal Kit Review, we offer in-depth meal delivery service profiles and comparisons, amongst many things! The meal kit and prepared meal delivery industry has rapidly expanded in the USA, and it is now quite overwhelming trying to work out where to begin. Our comparisons are a great place to start when you are trying to decide which company is the best option for you. You will find all the information you need at your fingertips which will make your decision easier and save you much needed time on endless research!
Today we are going to be looking at two entirely different companies – Sunbasket and Freshly. Both companies will surely save you time for not going grocery shopping, but they offer quite a different experience.
Sun Basket is a well-established meal kit delivery service, with all-organic ingredients meals to cook at home. They are known for being the dietary requirements specialist and cater to many lifestyle requirements. Freshly is more of a new kid on the block and it focusses on providing gluten-free meals that are fully-prepared and non-frozen.
Distribution of Sunbasket vs Dinnerly
Sun Basket currently delivers to 48 states. They ship to most zip codes in the United States excluding AK, HI, MT, NM, and ND. Freshly now delivers to all states within the continental USA. Please note that there are some areas that they are unable to deliver within their 48-hour delivery period.
Sun Basket and Freshly Available plans:
As a Sun Basket customer, you can select from two different plans. The Classic Menu caters for 2 or 4 people with 2 or 3 meals per week. The Family plan Menu caters to 4 people with 2 to 4 meals per week. Within these plans, Sun Basket offers an 18 meal option menu, with many different dietary sub-plans like paleo, lean & clean, gluten-free, vegetarian, and more.
As a Freshly customer, you will find a choice of 4 different meal plans that are based entirely on the number of meals you wish to order every week. Freshly includes the options of 4, 6, 9 or 12 single-serving meals per week.
Neither company locks you into a particular plan, and you can change plans from week to week. with both meal services, you are free to skip weeks whenever you need, with no extra fees.
Menu selection:
You will find a diverse menu selection with both Sun Basket and Freshly.
The Sun Basket menu is all organic and includes 18 delicious meals every week, planed for a perfectly home-cooked meal experience. Within this meal selection, you will find recipes that are suitable for many different dietary requirements. Sun Basket is very much known as a company that specializes in catering to many nutritional needs.
Freshly has a weekly menu that includes more than 30 dinner and breakfast dishes. All of the Freshly menu items are gluten-free meals. Their meals are fully prepared, just requiring heating before serving.
Both menus from Sun Basket and Freshly include a range of tastes, culinary styles, and international influences, from all American meals to Asian style meals or Italian style meals.
The style of meals offered by sun basket and Freshly
Part of our review process for our company profiles and comparisons involves a process that has us registering as customers, ordering meals, and most importantly tasting!
We felt that Sun Basket focuses on healthy eating with lots of bright, colorful, and fresh ingredients in a higher quality than what you would find in a local grocery store. We also love the fact that all their ingredients are organic, with no antibiotics and hormones free. Their meals were not overly complicated and were usually ready within 30 minutes or less. Some meals took us no longer than 20 minutes to prepare.
Here are a few examples of the meals we enjoyed from Sun Basket:
- Pork Cashew Curry with Udon and Fresh Herb Salad
- Italian Sausages with Vegetables in Marinara with Soft-Boiled Eggs
- Chicken Breasts with Olive Leek Sauce and Sautéed Kale
As the Freshly meals are fully-prepared and non-frozen, their service is highly convenient and will save you ample time on meal preparation. Their meals take only 5 minutes to heat. Generally, we enjoyed the tastes of the Freshly menu, but we did find that there were a couple of meals that were not so enjoyable.
Here are a few examples of the meals we enjoyed from Freshly:
- Chicken Livorno with White Beans and Kale
- Steak Peppercorn with Sautéed Carrots and French Green Beans
- Super Pesto & Sausage Penne
Quality of ingredients:
Both Sun Basket and Freshly are proud of the standard of the ingredients they use.
Sun Basket has a trusted network of suppliers that they work with to ensure that all their ingredients are organic and sustainably sourced, with no added antibiotics or hormones. Freshly is a certified gluten-free company so you can rest assured all their meals are free of gluten. They also prioritize using 100% natural ingredients that are free of preservatives, refined sugars, and hydrogenated oils.
The delivery and Box:
It is a pleasure to receive both your Sun Basket and Freshly delivery. As Freshly is a fully-prepared meal delivery company, it is merely a matter of unpacking the clearly labeled meals and storing them in the refrigerator until you are ready to use them. All the Sun Basket ingredients are sorted and labeled according to their recipe and you simply need to unpack and store where appropriate until you are ready to prepare your meal.
The app and website
Both Sun Basket and Freshly make managing your account headache-free with easy to use websites where you can register, select your meals, update your plans, and look at future menus. Sun Basket also has an app if you prefer. Both Sun Basket and Freshly are subscription services, but you can pause your account at any time and cancel without penalty.
Sunbasket vs Freshly – Who is our winner?
We had a positive experience with both Sun Basket and Freshly and think that both companies have something to offer, though they would appeal to quite different audiences – mainly because Sun Basket offers meal kits to cook at home, while Freshly offers already prepared meal delivery experience.
Our winner in this comparison is Sun Basket. We love their all-organic, antibiotic-free and hormones free promise, and were super impressed with the quality of ingredients. We find their recipes easy to follow, and they always tasted great. We also love the fact that most of the Sun Basket 18 weekly Meals are not overly complicated to cook at home and never took any longer than 30 minutes to prepare. Some of the meals even take no more than 15 – 20 minutes to prep, and you have a delicious and healthy home-cooked meal served!
