Boxed food delivery services are the craze, but not all of them work hard to connect with sustainably grown products. The good news is that it’s easy to find a trustworthy company that does. We did some research and found the five best businesses that make food sustainability their top priority. You can save yourself a trip to the grocery store and help your local farm community when you subscribe to any of these food delivery services.
1. Hello Fresh
Hello Fresh meal delivery ships weekly pre-portioned meal boxes nationwide. The service has professional dietitians and chefs that work together to create new recipes every week for all types of diets. They have built a massive data driven technology base that takes your food preferences and finds a local food supply chain to match preferred ingredients. Currently, their biggest suppliers are Growers Express based out of California and Murray’s Chicken. All of the companies they get ingredients from have missions committed to food and economic sustainability. Check out Hello Fresh reviews here.
2. Blue Apron
Like Hello Fresh, Blue Apron also delivers recipe food boxes nationwide and gets their ingredients from larger farm networks. All of their suppliers are also committed to a sustainable food process that puts more back into the environment than it takes out. Blue Apron currently partners with over 150 farms across America. Its biggest suppliers are Seafood Watch and BN Ranch (which the company just acquired). When you order meals containing beef, you feel better knowing that BN Ranch only uses grass fed and pasture-raised beef. Blue Apron is also open about their standard for fresh non-GMO ingredients. In other words, your food won’t come from a lab and is picked a peak freshness.
3. Green Chef
Green Chef has a smaller delivery network than the larger food delivery services like Blue Apron and Hello Fresh. If you are vegan or vegetarian, you will be thrilled with their versatile meatless meal options. Currently, Green Chef delivers everywhere in the U.S. except for Alaska, Hawaii, and parts of Louisiana. They work with many smaller family farms to source ingredients for their recipe boxes. Unlike the larger companies, they only get ingredients from USDA approved organic farmers. All of their farmers practice humane animal treatment and sustainable growth processes. Even their packaging is eco-friendly.
4. SPUD
SPUD is also a smaller food delivery service network. Unlike Green Chef, its food boxes are not geared towards recipes. They operate more like a grocery shopping option. You simply go to their website, check out local natural grocery stores and farmer’s markets, and select what you want in your SPUD box. Although you can order non-organic ingredients, most of their options are proudly organic and local. Currently, they are only operating on the West Coast and Canada. You can check out their website to find out more about which local suppliers they use.
5. Door to Door Organics
Similar to SPUD and Green Chef, Door to Door Organics works within a smaller network to connect more closely with small grocery stores and local farmers. Their service delivers throughout Colorado, Michigan, Chicago, Kansas City, and parts of the east coast. Like SPUD, their food boxes are not recipe-based but grocery style. You can choose to be surprised each week with local and seasonal ingredients, or you can be more selective. They partner with hundreds of local farms and small companies in the surrounding area to ensure fresh ingredients. Door to Door also has options to select only organic produce and humanely raised meats.