Freshly is based in New York and delivers easy to cook meal kits throughout the United States. What makes Freshly stand out is that their meals come ready to heat up in the microwave. This makes the meal delivery service perfect for busy professionals. They are also one of the only companies that offers a single serving per recipe. Most others require that you order at least 2 servings per meal. Whether you’re single or just need a quick solution for dinner a few nights a week, Freshly is definitely worth a look.
Company Info
Freshly was founded by Michael Wystrach in 2012. It was originally known as F3 Foods or Arizona. The company has taken in over $100 millions in venture capital including $35 million in October, 2018. Mr. Wystrach is still the CEO and holds a seat on the board of directors. The company is still private and has a dedicated team of over 250 employees. The ready-to-eat meal service is primed to grow for years to come.
Freshly Menu and Pricing
Unlike most meal subscription services, Freshly offers their meals in single servings. You can choose a plan that includes 4, 6, 9, or 12 meals per week. The 4 and 6 meal plans are great for singles. Even the 9 meal plan is a good option for those who want to cover lunch and dinner. The 12 meal plan is best suited for families. For example, you could split the 12 servings between 4 family members and have 3 meals a week. If you need more servings each week then you can sign up for multiple plans.
The cost is based on how many meals you order each week. Prices start at $12.50 per meal for 4 meals per week. From there you can bring the price down to $9.99 a serving for 6-9 meals a week. Moving up to 12 meals a week will lower the price to $8.99 a meal. Regardless of which plan you choose, all Freshly orders include free shipping. We believe the best choice for singles is 6 meals per week which costs $59.99. This is just $10 more than the 4 meal plan which makes it a great value.
Freshly Promo
Before you sign up for Freshly, or any other food delivery service, make sure to look for promotions. New customers are commonly given discounts on the first box or in some cases the first few orders. When we signed up Freshly was offering $15 off each of your first 4 boxes. That’s a savings of $60 off your first month of meals.
Let’s take a look at the impact of using the Freshly coupon code when signing up. We used promo code retail15 to save $15 each of our first 4 boxes. After selecting the 4 meal a week plan we were presented with the discounted pricing. As you can see our total was just $38.23 including tax. That’s under $10 a meal.
Customer Service
If you have questions related to Freshly the first place to visit is the FAQ section of their website. You will find answers to common questions along with pre-sales help and technical support. You can also start a live chat or call the Freshly team directly at 844-373-7459. We were very impressed to see that customer service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Hands-On Review of Freshly
We signed up for EveryPlate on Sunday, August 25th and received our first meal kit on Saturday, September 7th. When you order from any food delivery service you should take note of the gap between the order and delivery date. It normally depends on which day of the week you place your first order and the day of the week you set the delivery. You need to select the menu by 11:59 p.m. PST within 7 days prior to your next scheduled delivery. Since we ordered on Sunday it meant that our menu locked on Friday to be delivered the following week. You can view the delivery date for your first order while singing up for the service.
As you can see from the calendar below we chose the first available delivery date which was nearly two weeks out from our order date. Once the subscription is in place you can expect to receive meals each week. It may vary by region but we had the option of receiving our weekly meal kit box on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday.
Next we made our recipe selections for the first week.
Freshly offers a lot of variety. The week we ordered they had over 30 selections to choose from. You can filter and sort the list to make your selections easier. For example, sort the list by calories, total fat, sodium, carbs, total sugar, or protein. Keto fans will appreciate that Freshly has a number of low carbs meals to choose from each week.
We received our Freshly meals via Fedex early just before 5pm. The contents were kept cold with ice packs. The package was well insulated as you can see in the last image below.
Freshly meals are individually packaged and include one serving. There isn’t a lot to share as all the ingredients are packed and ready to microwave. Instructions are on the back of each box along with the nutritional values. They also have use by dates. In our case the dates ranged from 4 to 6 days from the time we received the package. The Low Country Boil needed to be cooked within 4 days since it included seafood. Note that the cooking is meant for an 1100 watt microwave so you might have to adjust the times.
Meal #1 – Steak Peppercorn
The Steak Peppercorn was prepared medium in the microwave and was very tender. We were surprised by how good it tasted. The vegetables were plentiful for a single serving meal. All we had to do was season the dish with salt and pepper. Since our microwave is 900 watts we cooked the Steak Peppercorn for an extra 30 seconds, for a total of 4 minutes. This is perfect for singles who don’t wish to cook or have the time.
Meal #2 – Super Pesto & Veggie Fusilli
You need to like pesto to enjoy this dish. The Super Pesto & Veggie Fusilli is an acquired taste. We enjoyed it. The noodles were done like they should have been. For a microwave the dish was surprisingly very good. This one took under 3 minutes to cook. Not to mention there is no clean up. Simply peal the corner, microwave, remove the film, and enjoy. Best of all there’s no clean up when you’re done.
Meal #3 – Sicilian-Style Chicken Parm
Like all the other dishes, the Sicilian-Style Chicken Parm was delicious. We keep saying it but the meal was way better than we expected for a microwaved dish. The chicken was so tender you could easily cut through it with a fork. The broccoli was not mushy. It was cooked just right. The parm is on the bottom so once prepared you will want to scoop it on to the top of the chicken. This meal was ready in just over 3 minutes.
Meal #4 – Low Country Boil
This was our only seafood dish. Since it included shrimp we had to cook it within 4 days. That wasn’t an issue as we make it a point to make all the meals within 3 days. The Low Country Boil took 3 minutes to cook in the microwave. We preferred to season the dish with some salt and pepper to our liking. Otherwise the meal was tasty. The shrimp were juicy, potatoes and green beans were tender. The corn looked and tasted good.
Conclusion
Freshly was a pleasant surprise. We weren’t expecting much in terms of taste after finding out that the meals were microwaveable. None of our meals took more than 5 minutes to cook, with most ready in just 3 minutes. This is so much faster than the other meal delivery services we’ve tested which include the ingredients but require 30-90 minutes of cook time. This makes Freshly a perfect fit for singles and busy families. The price makes the 6 meals per week a great value. As always, make sure you use the latest Freshly promotion when you sign up to save. We enjoyed the food and recommend Freshly to anyone who doesn’t want to take the time to prepare meals.
