Mealcrate review: 34 boxes, 3 missing items, 1 pricing model that only works if you cook everything
Portion accuracy and delivery reliability were better than expected. Cost per actually-eaten meal was 41% above the advertised figure.
- Published
- Last re-tested
- (4 months ago)
- Next review
- (in 2 months)
- Reading time
- 8 min
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Full disclosure policyAcross 34 boxes and 102 meal kits, Mealcrate delivered on time 33 times, shorted an ingredient 3 times and refunded all 3 without argument. Protein portions averaged 97% of stated weight. The gap is behavioural: 19 of 102 kits were never cooked before their use-by date, which pushes the real cost per eaten meal from $12.48 to $17.62.
What works
- 33 of 34 deliveries arrived in the stated window
- Protein portions averaged 97.1% of the stated weight across 102 kits
- All 3 missing-item claims refunded within 48 hours, no evidence required
- Pause and skip work from the account page with no retention friction
What does not
- 19 of 102 kits (18.6%) expired uncooked — the model assumes a discipline most people do not have
- Real cost per eaten meal was $17.62 against an advertised $12.48
- Packaging waste per box: 340g of plastic and 6 ice packs, no take-back scheme
- Promotional first-box price is 62% off, which makes the ongoing price feel worse than it is
Buy it if
- Households that reliably cook 3+ nights a week and want to stop meal-planning
- People who want portion control without weighing things themselves
Skip it if
- Anyone with an unpredictable week-to-week schedule
- People optimising purely on cost per meal — supermarket shopping wins clearly
Why 34 boxes
Meal kit reviews are usually written after one promotional box. That box is not representative — it is discounted 62%, packed with the crowd-pleasing recipes, and arrives while you are still enthusiastic. I ran 34 consecutive weeks at full price specifically to capture what happens after the novelty ends, which is where the entire economics of this category lives.
The waste number
This is the finding that matters. I logged every kit as cooked, cooked-late or wasted. 19 of 102 kits went past their use-by date uncooked — almost all in weeks where something unexpected happened. That waste is not Mealcrate's fault, but it is entirely predictable, and no meal kit marketing accounts for it.
Swipe the table sideways for the remaining columns
| Basis | Meals | Total cost | Cost per meal |
|---|---|---|---|
| As advertised (all cooked) | 204 servings | $2,546.60 | $12.48 |
| As realised (waste excluded) | 166 servings | $2,546.60 | $17.62 |
The test that predicts whether this works for you
Service when it went wrong
- Week 9: missing chicken portion. Refunded $14.20 within 31 hours, no photo requested.
- Week 17: damaged sauce sachet. Refunded in full within 19 hours.
- Week 28: delivery arrived 6 hours outside the window with warm ice packs. Full box refunded, no argument.
Verdict
Situational. Mealcrate executes well — the operational side is genuinely good and the customer service is better than the category norm. Whether it is worth the money depends entirely on a fact about you, not about them: how many nights you actually cook. Be honest about that number and the decision makes itself.
Changelog
Every change to this review since first publication, including the ones that lowered the score. Corrections are logged here, never made silently.
Mealcrate introduced a flexible use-by extension on selected proteins. Re-checked pricing: weekly price rose $71.90 → $74.90. Score unchanged.
First published after 34 consecutive full-price boxes.
Sources
Each source is recorded with the date it was read, because vendors change terms pages without notice.
- Mealcrate pricing and delivery terms — accessed
- Portion weight log, 102 kits — accessed