Green Chef

My husband and I love Green Chef! We get the paleo meals and find that they’re innovative, healthy, delicious and easy to prepare. I haven’t run the numbers, but I believe we spend less weekly and we’re not wasting as much food. And I love that 3 nights a week, I don’t have to worry about what I’m going to cook, or if I need to go to the store for any dinner items. I also love the fact that they use organic food and grass fed meats.

You seem to have time for social media posts but not to respond to customers. On ¹⁄₁₉ I emailed green chef requesting to cancel my subscription since you do not have a vegan and gluten-​free option nor do u offer a recycle pick up for he waste from your delivery. I also mentioned I received 7 confirmation emails for my last order. I postponed the next week in case you didn’t get to my email in 48 hours. A week later I emailed again, on ¹⁄₂₆ staying no one responded about my cancellation order and I wanted confirmation. Two days later I email again and included the spoiled food and missing food from my last order and again asked about my cancellation. No response. It’s been 11 days and now I see you charged me for next week’s order. I would like a call for a refund! What terrible customer service. I’d recommend other organic food delivery companies — they are cheaper and offer to pick up and recycle the delivery materials.

Me: I am subscribed to the Carnivore plan. I see that my January 27^th delivery plan includes a vegetarian option:
Berbere Chickpeas
Butternut squash, peas, spinach & couscous. Can you please change this to reflect the Carnivore option that I have been charged for. Thank you in advance :)
Support:Thank you for reaching out to us, I took a look at your account, and I see why your getting that vegetarian option. The way the preferences work is that we feature three different animal protein options every week. If you decide to opt out of one of the proteins we are featuring that week it would automatically get exchanged with a vegetarian option. You opted out of certain one (s), and one if not two of those will be featured for that week so our system has replaced that unwanted protein for a vegetarian recipe. Rest assured that on weeks that this occurs, you are charged the lower price for the omnivore plan. Hopefully that clarifies a little bit. Please let us know if you have any additional questions or concerns.
Me:I was turned on to your company by my colleague (one of your customers) and I know that two of my other colleagues have subscriptions as well. I signed up for the Carnivore plan and selected to not receive, fish, lamb or game. I see that I will be receiving Berbere Chickpeas. I emailed support two days ago to address that I do not want Berbere Chickpeas and have just received the response below. This was obviously not the response I expected. I see that the Paleo menu has meat options of Spanish Steak Salad and Thai Baked Chicken. Why was one of those options not selected as a substitute? The Carnivore plan clearly states: 3 meat & seafood. Furthermore, I would have preferred to have been contacted about the substitution, as I would even prefer to receive the Herb Roasted Salmon dish and give it to a family member rather than receive a vegetarian dish. If this is the service that will consistently be provided to me, I will have to cancel my subscription. Which is a big disappointment because my family really enjoyed the food from the single shipment we have received so far and I like the easy account and delivery website functions.
Support:I definitely understand, and I apologize about the delay in response, we do have to answer the emails in the order they are received. Unfortunately we are unable to make any substitutions to or from our paleo menu, so the 3^rd dish for you that was selected based on your preferences was a vegetarian meal. We are definitely working on alternative choices as we speak, and hope to be able to provide that in the future.

I like two things: 1. Food is organic and always fresh. 2. It’s delivered from a few miles from my house (that’s probably why the veggies are always fresh)
I don’t like the recipes.
We get the Vegetarian option. There’s always some awkward milky ingredient or intense spice that spoils the recipe.
I love ‘Hello Fresh’s recipes, but they are not Organic, and they come all the way from Texas.
If GC hires HF’s cook, that would be awesome.

I’ve done trials of A LOT of these companies already (Blue Apron, HelloFresh, Gobble, Purple Carrot, Sun Basket, Din, Plated) and what sets GreenChef apart from the others is that the ingredients are organic and the recipes are unique. They also do a lot of the prep work, so it’s faster to cook the meals.
If you haven’t tried Green Chef yet, click on my referral link:
to get 4 free meals in your first box! You really can’t go wrong with the discounted trial :)
After signing up, I would highly recommend «skipping» future deliveries right away so you don’t get stuck purchasing meals you may not want. This is really simple and easy to do, and you can skip weeks up to about a month in advance. You can also easily cancel at anytime.
PS– I have a couple discount codes for HelloFresh and Gobble as well, so if you are interested in trying those, message me.

I just received my first week box which was a gift from an existing client.
I have now prepared two dinners and they were delicious. We are very picky. Eaters and signed up for the paleo box. Both dinners were very easy to prepare and looking forward to the third one.
I recommend declining the next week so you don’t get stuck with something you don’t want and then if you decide this works for you you can start back up. Yes it seems pricey but for organic, grass fed, wild ingredients all pre packaged, it’s much cheapr than whole foods by a mile.
And the meals are flavorful and delicious. And the portions are perfect and my husband is a big boy and can eat.
It’s given me an excitement to create delicious meals again.
Thank you Green Chef!

I have used several comapnies and this is the WORST. I cancelled my account on line 7 days ahead of time – as soon as I received an unwanted order AND contacted customer service. They sent me out ANOTHER order saying that I did not cancel in time.
Avoid this company like the plaque if you ever want to cancel.
Their recipes are not as good in my opinion as Plated or Blue Apron, both of whom have excellent customer service.

We had been doing Hello Fresh for three months when I came across GreenChef. While HelloFresh was delicious and easy, I was disappointed that the meats and veggies were conventional (not organic), when we are mostly organic on everything else. Not only is GreenChef organic, but also the meals are every bit as delicious as HelloFresh – maybe even better. I’m also really pleased about the paleo and gluten-​free options. As a busy working mom who loves to cook and try new flavors (but has little time to plan for it), these subscription services have won me over, and Green Chef has gone that extra mile to deliver organic meals with incredible, fresh flavor. Now, if only they could figure out a way to reduce the packaging.

We used to use Blue Apron but couldn’t tell what we were getting… often ingredients were not explicit in the processed ingredients. With the Paleo package, we know exactly what we are getting and it is nearly all organic. The quality is 2x better that Blue Apron and pretty much everything we’ve made has been delicious. At nearly $ 100/​week it is spendy, but the two serving plan feeds my wife, my 9 year old son, and myself. A luxury for sure, but Green Chef ensures we have quality time together and three excellent meals each week.

I’ve been using Green Chef now since spring of 2015, and my husband and I are big fans. We’ve never tried one of these subscription services before, so I’ve nothing to compare it to… but on the other hand we’ve been happy with this one, so why change?
The food is really, really good. We get three meals for two every week, and have almost always enjoyed them. There have been a few exceptions, but really, at this rate, they can’t possibly all be winners and there’s bound to be something that is not to our taste. It’s not the fault of the company; it’s just that everyone is different. Additionally for those complaining about the price: another reviewer pointed out that a service like this is indeed a luxury. Think about it: you have all the ingredients you need for two meals, most of the prep work is done for you, and you get to try new things all the time. I mean, really, what’s not to like?
On a personal note, my husband and I now look forward to spending time in the kitchen together and collaborating on a good meal. We crank up the music and cook together, and it’s fun!
Others complain that the portions are small (and I had to laugh at the reviewer who said, without a trace of irony, that the food was bad and there was not enough of it – that’s an old Woody Allen joke, seriously) – I have not had that problem. There is plenty of food to fill you up and many times I’ve been unable to finish what was on my plate.
There are only a couple of drawbacks to this service that I can see. One is the packaging waste. They say that everything they use is recyclable, and that may be true, but not in my area. Here, all I can recycle is the box and the small jars. I end up throwing away the insulation and the ice packs and the plastic bags and I’m telling you, I do feel a boatload of guilt every week when I do that. Another problem is that once you commit to a plan, you get the three meals they choose. In other words, if you’ve signed up for the Omnivore plan, and something on the Vegetarian plan appeals to you but it’s not in your meals for the week… too bad, you don’t have a choice. One more thing that bothers me is the fact that so many of the ingredients come marinated or pre-​made (such as sauces and dressings) and GC does not offer the recipes so that you can recreate the dish at home.
Overall, I’m very happy with Green Chef’s service and the food we’ve tried, and it’s coming up on a year now. I would not hesitate to recommend this service (with the exception of those few caveats in the last paragraph). I can’t give them 5 stars because of those things, but I’d like to give them 4.5. They’re onto something good.

We alternate between Gobble, Blue Apron, and Green Chef. I feel that we know them all very well. We usually get the all-​vegetarian option.
Generally:
Blue Apron teaches you a lot of techniques. The meals have a bit more cream/​butter/​cheese (very frequently there is some cheese in the vegetarian menus) and the meals feel «heavier» and very filling in general (e.g. a lot of casseroles with pasta/​cheese, casseroles really seem to be their favorite thing). There is usually at least one exciting new exotic ingredient or spice in each delivery (they include an extra insert explaining the history or provenance of the unusual ingredient) and the final taste/​look of the meals is very sophisticated. They teach you how to handle all this. The cards show you exactly how to do some very fancy cooking techniques and the recipes are very robust such that even if you screw up it still tastes great. The portions are often quite large (you could easily feed 3 medium size or 4 small size people with a «2 person meal»). But preparation is REALLY long… such as 45 minutes to an hour. There is a LOT of chopping and finishing of small finishes and sauces. You are really working the whole time. Basically at the end you feel exhausted and your hands may be a little sore but you feel like you have accomplished something amazing and looking at this food it could be in a restaurant. I feel that Blue Apron taught me to cook. I never thought I could make a bechamel sauce or zest a lemon and now, that’s no big deal. I learned about heirloom and exotic strains of oranges, artichokes, and lemons.
Green Chef: is similar to Blue Apron but organic and qualitatively easier. The natural flavors pop a tiny bit more, probably because everything is organic and the meals are created more to exploit the natural tastes rather than trying to layer on deep multidimensional flavors. There is a little butter but we haven’t seen very much cream or cheese (there’s a bit much really not that much). A lot of the sauces are already made and come in a plastic jar so that cuts on prep time but also means that you may not learn how to make the sauce for yourself. I’ve found that sometimes the sauces are a little bit sweet but I just cut back and don’t put so much on my food. In general, the meals feel light and the portions are generous but not tremendously large, e.g. enough from a «2 person meal» to feed 3 small people. We’ve gotten pretty good at making these such that we can get everything done in under 20 – 25 minutes. There will be some chopping and often a bit of finishing in the oven at the end but in general, you’re working on 2 or 3 aspects of preparation, as opposed to Blue Apron where you could be preparing 4 or 5 components to put together. We usually eat almost all vegetarian but because Green Chef is organic, we’ve tried a bit of beef or fish or shrimp from them and it’s all been very fresh. The meals still felt healthy and light even when they contained beef or seafood. I have to say that I don’t think I’ve learned anything new from Green Chef, but that’s okay with me. I got nice tasty meals without having to feel the stress of «being in school» and the physical drain of working for 45+ minutes. Sometimes I just don’t want all of that.
Gobble: is similar to take out. Basically the food comes and you pour it out of a plastic bag and heat it up. You might have to mix something together or put something on some bread. The taste and quality is pretty good given that everything is pre-​prepared. Out of several dozen meals, there was only one we really did not like, because it had a bit of a canned taste. The food is probably healthier than Chinese or Indian take-​out. It’s pretty convenient to have one of these around when you feel tired, although in the end it’s a bit of a tossup as to whether it might have been equally as convenient to order some take-​out. In the end, we keep it around because it gets really boring ordering take-​out all the time from the same places, so when we don’t feel like cooking at all, this is a substitute that breaks up the monotony and greasiness of take-​out. I order Gobble when I think it’s going to be a busy week.

The food arrives in an awesome iced package box so the food will be okay if it arrives a day or two late. Each meal has dishes that range from okay to amazing that includes the vegetarian meals which are my favorite. It all really depends if the person can read and follow very basic instruction.
Some of the reviews below are complaining that the portions are too small and that’s only because the average American isn’t used to eating properly portioned meals, I’m studying to become a nutritionist and I can tell you each meal for two is enough for what two healthy adults should consume about 5 – 6 times a day with the exception of breakfast which should always be one large meal. Unless the person is an extreme athlete then they should stick with what comes in the box.
Some of you need to get off your high horse «none of the items sounded appealing»…really? This isn’t your boyfriend’s /​girlfriend’s halfassed cooking that looks as bad as it tastes. Strangely I’ve found that the most boring and basic recipes are actually some of the best.
Before I subscribed to Green Chef I took advantage of their «free meals for new customers» offer twice and both times I canceled my subscription over the phone with no problem whats so ever and get this, they didn’t charge me anything. No really, just send an email or give them a call and say «cancel my membership» It’s not complicated.
Lastly for those complaining about the price just remember, this isn’t just a food delivery subscription, it’s also what is deemed as a luxury. If you can’t afford this luxury then it’s not a problem because Green Chef is cool enough to post the recipes on their site free, that’s right fo’ free. Seriously you poor people need to stop bitching about the price otherwise Green Chef well eventually listen and make it cheaper; which means they will start to cut corners, this is why we can’t have nice things.
Update: I helped a friend cancel his friends membership turns out Greencheff updated their policy you must email
to cancel account.

I was really hoping to like this company since the food is organic. However, my first delivery was a day late (in transit for 2 days in 70 degree weather), so already I am hesitant to eat it. I tried 3 different methods to contact Green Chef: 1. I tried calling the company twice, both times the phone just hung up; 2. tried their online chat, no representative was available; and 3. emailed, however had no response to that either. Subsequently, I canceled my membership due to the strict timing policy due to poor customer service and not receiving my order. Hopefully, I will not have the trouble cancelling as other reviewers have stated and the company will honor their cancellation policy.
After 3 days, my food arrived. I finally was able to get in contact with a Green Chef representative over the phone to address my concerns and was merely responded with an «I’m sorry, your food should be fine».
I have used Blue Apron several times and even given Blue Apron as gifts to family members. Although, Blue Apron is not organic the food has always been fresh and I have never had an unpleasant meal or customer experience.

I tried the Vegetarian meals and they were AWFUL! Also, I dont know where they come across thinking that each meal is enough for two people??? Maybe two tiny people with no appetite! All of the ingredients come jumbled up and most of the vegetables were squished! Before I was even able to test out all three meals they charged my card for the next delivery! The price is not fair to what they send you and the way its set up does not save time in the kitchen!
The customer service was awful when I tried to cancel future shipments!
Would NOT recommend!!!

Not only did my order not arrive when promised — but I was told that it was due to CC that was declined. (which was corrected weeks BEFORE my delivery date) However, delivery day came/​went — and no food. I emailed (because they never answer the phone) to check what happened — and was told my order was NOT shipped due to another CC error, I promptly forwarded the email from them that said that was cleared up. He stated it must have declined again — again very frustrated asked why I wasn’t notified if there was another issue. — He said I should have recv’d another email — after going back and forth about how their customer service was poor at best and there was no email in my spam etc, my door bell rings and my order is here.
So it WAS sent out, it was a DAY LATE– and he was wrong! He (STEPHAN H.) stated he apologized for not looking further in my account before replying — I promptly told him thanks/​but no thanks, we will not be ordering from them again. If they cant find my order and say it was my fault — but they DID indeed ship it and arrives a day late… I will not deal with such incompetence!

This company Stinks is more than one way, that is unless you don’t mind paying close to $ 100 for food you didn’t order, and don’t have the ability to cancel. My wife and I tried cancel our service and there isn’t a place to cancel your service on the website. After explaining the situation to one of their representatives, who didn’t reply until the next day, they refused to refund the several orders that were sent to us by mistake. We received meal items that we cannot eat for health reasons (I am a post liver and kidney transplant recipient).
ALSO THEY ARE NOT REGISTERED WITH GOOGLE MY BUSINESS. THIS IS A RED FLAG FOR ANYONE WHO WORKS IN DIGITAL MARKETING. I CAN ONLY THINK THIS IS BECAUSE THEY DON’T MEET OR WANT TO MEET THE REQUIREMENTS GOOGLE HAS FOR A LISTING.
They do have a phone number (888) 236‑7295, but you just get voice mail. It’s ironic that they attempt to make their «Abouts bio» about transparency, when they are anything but. We actually enjoyed some of their dishes, but there business practices are unethical and a con.

I just received my first box after seeing a great Facebook offer. I loved it so much, thought I would write a review. My son (8 years old) had been excited about this food is arriving. When it arrived today he helped me separate the color coded meals and cook the meal we choose for tonight. Everything was fresh and in perfect condition. The visual instructions/​recipe was great my son read it and helped cook the meal. It was a nice fun thing for us to do and since he helped with everything he was even willing to try the food and enjoyed it! He’s a super picky eater. I was impressed with the quality of the food and the ease of it all. I am pretty shocked by the other reviews. Complaining about the Tastes not being what you like? Okay that can happen at any restaurant, you just move on. Everything that came was so fresh and tasty. I would recommend to everybody.
I would totally love to see a single person plan with like 4 meals for ⁵⁰⁄₅₅ $ I think that would be a great seller. Also, a nice kid friendly version for single moms like me would be even more amazing. Highly marketable.

I just got my first box and am quite annoyed. The gel ice back broke so all the food was covered in the gel. I went on the website and looked at next weeks menu… none of the items sounded appealing but I guess the cut off FOR NEXT WEEK was 9am today so I’m gonna be stuck paying $ 80 for another box of meals that don’t even look good. It’s ridiculous you don’t have meal options, you’re just stuck with whatever 3 they decide. I’d also like these meals for the week (Monday delivery) but the only options are Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. I don’t need meals for the weekend but since the box has already been in transit 2 days there is no way I’m gonna let it sit 2 more days over the weekend to use next week.
Overall it’s a great concept but the execution is a joke. They do not have the customer in mind with their business model and as a result will likely suffer.

Definitely better than Blue Apron… but not better than Gobble. Green Chef’s dinner kits arrived on-​time, the ingredients were fresh and well packaged, good portions, easy instructions, and good variety of meals. However, its didn’t cut down on my prep time.
From start to finish, each meal took about 45 mins. It’s less than Blue Apron, but more than Gobble. For me, the dinner kit idea is suppose to cut down on the amount of time it takes me to cook dinner. 45 minutes to cook dinner for two people, not including clean-​up time, is too much.
Green Chef did not work for me because of the amount of time it took to prepare the meals. However, if you can spare 45 minutes to make a healthy dinner every night, then this is a great option!

So I tried Green Chef one last time after I wrote this not by choice because the cancellation I entered June 13^th apparently didn’t go through and I received a delivery on June 25^th. One recipe was missing 3 ingredients and vegetables for the other 2 meals were rotten not to mention the meat looked and smelled very off so the whole box was a throw away. I cancelled my subscription and contacted Green Chef. Their response was this — «I’d be happy to credit your account for a free week to make up for this issue, but if you’d rather keep your account cancelled, I completely understand.»
Yeah, not really but you can refund me for that whole order that was wrong… but no, of course they wouldn’t do that.
Now let me share the stark opposite experience I had with
— plated has creative new meals every week. I’ve always wanted to try making empanadas and they had them on the menu one week so I tried them. Unfortunately the dough got too gooey and I sent plated the picture of my empanada disaster which looked like a 2 year old had fun with with play dough. I also mentioned that the week before my empanada order I had a vegetarian dish that was pretty disappointing. I wasn’t looking for anything I just wanted to give them feedback that the boiled eggplant probably shouldn’t be boiled in so much white wine vinegar (my house smelled for almost 2 days). To my surprise, I was credited back for both orders in full. Not just those plates, 2 full deliveries back to back weeks. There was no negotiating, you have to do this if you want a credit, it just happened. They sent me an email to let me know I would receive a refund in full for both weeks and there it was. Plated had me as dedicated customer from that point forward and given that it happened so close to my Green Chef experience, it just highlighted how poor Green Chef is in comparison. My recommendation is steer clear of Green Chef and head right over to Plated (send me your email and I can email you an offer from plated that will get you first 3 plates for 2 people for free — I have 4 offers left to send since only other people in my family cook and no friends were interested. Can’t pass that up!)