What it's like to use Purple Carrot, the vegan meal delivery startup that has changed the way I eat

Tim Stenovec

About six weeks ago, my girlfriend Rebecca and I signed up for Purple Carrot, a vegan meal kit company.

We're not vegans. We're not even vegetarians. We like to eat meat! But we wanted to cook more, and eat food that was healthy and tasted good.

We heard about Purple Carrot when Mark Bittman, the cookbook author and former food columnist at The New York Times, announced in November that he'd taken a job there to work on recipes, source food, and write newsletters for members.

We were not only attracted to the company because of Bittman — he's long been a proponent of ethically-sourced and environmentally friendly food — but also because the meals looked and sounded good. They're not based on "fake meat" or meat substitutes, which is what comes to my mind when I think "vegan."

Here's what it's like to use Purple Carrot.

First, a bit about meal-kit companies.

Blue Apron

The idea behind meal kit companies — you may have heard of the big ones like Blue Apron, Plated, or Hello Fresh — is that each week you're sent a box with perfectly portioned ingredients and step-by-step instructions that show you how to cook a meal from scratch.

I was skeptical of meal kits when I first heard about them because they felt like something for lazy and entitled people who couldn't be bothered to go to the grocery store. I had also heard horror stories about the amount of waste they create. (More on that later.)

But some friends of ours had Blue Apron and loved it — and we were eating way too much takeout — so we decided to give it a shot.

At first I was into Blue Apron, but after a couple of weeks we realized that we didn't want to cook and eat that much meat and fish. We were also sent some beef that left a lot to be desired, and the vegetarian options from the company seemed boring and loaded with cheese.

So we decided to try Purple Carrot.

The box from Purple Carrot arrives every Tuesday via FedEx.

Tim Stenovec

The box weighs about 12 pounds and is small enough to easily carry up the stairs to our third floor apartment.

Here's a picture of our cat, Frankie, on the box, so you can get an idea of its size.

Tim Stenovec

Purple Carrot has two meal plans to choose from. We signed up for three meals per week for two people, which costs $68. That's $11.33 per meal.

You can also sign up for a $74 family plan, which feeds four people twice per week. 

Four meals are offered each week, and subscribers use Purple Carrot's website to choose each week which three we'd like.

You can skip a week anytime you'd like or pause your membership if you'll be out of town.

 

See the rest of the story at Business Insider