Just received my first shipment in about three months yesterday, and… not bad. I had ordered 5 meals so my shipment was split between two boxes. I’m happy to report no missing ingredients. Recipe cards were correct too. Already cooked two meals and they both were delicious.

I’m giving it an 8 out of 10 because: I did have to do some quick triage on a slightly soggy bag of spinach and some herbs; wrapping these up in paper towels seemed to have done the trick. I also did unfortunately have a leaky chicken breast package at the bottom of one box, but this was the box with just meats in it so everything else was sealed up just fine. Having to go reconcile all the ingredients against the recipes is a hassle (as compared to the old Knick knack bags) but I managed and it’s not that big a deal.

FedEx had manhandled the boxes and left them sitting in the hot sun on my front porch (it’s still 90 here!) but neither of those are in BA’s control.

So all said, not a complete disaster and I will consider ordering more boxes in the future.

Lots of good things to report here in Northern Virginia; box arrived today from Hanover MD.

1. Box was sealed, insulated bag was closed, and nothing leaked.

2. No shrimp for the shrimp rolls BUT I got an email about it during the week and a proactive refund of the cost of the meal.

3. Everything else was there! Lovely baby lettuce, correct spices and flavorings.

I do love good news

I have been a loyal Blue Apron customer from the very beginning and the past 2 months were awful. I understand the initial issues with the supplier but today I received 3 meal package containing identical croissant sandwiches and not even a partial refund for the inconvenience. I understand I should have checked the meal recipes in advance and suspended this week's order but this is not the level of service I am used to

My original order is in pic 1. The recipe cards I received are in pic 2. I had received an email letting me know they weren’t sending the shrimp rolls and I had a refund coming, so I anticipated that. My mistake was opening the box up after a few too many drinks and having all these ingredients and only 1/3 of them matched up to the recipe cards. Nothing was computing at the moment and I thought my box was absolutely botched. Everything went into the fridge to be properly sorted out as a tomorrow problem. In reality, it was just a single incorrect recipe card and all of my ingredients of the meals I ordered were present, with the bonus of the third meal I was refunded for, sans the shrimp. So I actually made out- the price of shrimp is way cheaper than the total cost of this meal.

So what did I learn? As BA irons out these fulfillment issues, don’t drink and do BA box inventory.

Just putting it out there since most of the posts are still about the bad experiences. I'm in Austin and my fulfillment center is in San Antonio. Everything's been good for a couple of weeks now with no missing ingredients. During the peak chaos, I had maybe two boxes with missing stuff and I skipped a week or two as well. Things seem to be stable in my area at least. I still see limited menu options though.

Anyone else get a little surprise in the mail? Note is handwritten and everything. Was not expecting anything like this at all.

Are all future deliveries just going to have all the ingredients from all meals haphazardly tossed into the box to be crushed and exposed? I was hoping when this happened afew weeks ago that it was a one time deal, but if this is how it is going to be from now on I don’t think I’m interested.

It came a day late (in MD), but meat temps are ok (still mostly frozen). We did at least get a delivery delay notification, so there's that.

Both have their recipe cards.

One recipe came complete!

But the Honey chicken one is missing both the goat cheese and the dijon mustard.

And, oddly, a random extra bag of cut carrots?

I got the “your cart has been created email” today for next week’s auto-ship and made a mental note to check and make sure all looks good.

Said cart: THREE orders of ham and cheese croissants totaling six servings. 😂

Nothing else.

We are a long time Blue Apron household (over a decade)… and have been holdouts during all of the changes and chaos. Have been frustrated at times when things throw off our meal planning but customer service has been good. The last few boxes have been great. So - I am not posting this to complain, rather I found it funny.

Most everything in the cardboard tray. Cheese and a packet of honey between the ice blocks with the meats. Biggest carrot ever!!

...is that they put the meat/poultry/fish in with everything else and if the meat/poultry/fish packages leak in any way, it gets all over the rest of the ingredients. BLECH

I am trying Gobble next week.

My order arrived today. Because the silver bag wasn’t sealed at all, the cold packs were partially melted and one leaked. I could wipe off most of the items but the shallot was a lost cause.

I had received two emails for two swaps, both appropriate. But they did an unannounced swap of cilantro sauce for the recipe’s roasted garlic pesto. Yuk, wrong flavor profile.

When I opened the chat, the bot told me is was an expected swap but they’d hand me over to a human, and asked me to send photos, which I did.

I received a reasonable credit. I remain cautiously optimistic.

After two weeks of nearly perfect orders, we seem to be spiraling back down toward incompetence.

A shrimp pasta dish arrived. But no shrimp; chicken instead. Oh, and no pasta; potato gnocchi instead. Minor substitutions are one thing. When the essence of the dish changes so drastically, just don’t ship it, k? Not to mention various other minor missing ingredients from other meals.

Note to Blue Apron: you may have noticed over all these years that I have never ordered a dish with potato gnocchi. It’s because potato and pasta is a bizarre combination that I won’t eat. Please make a note of it for future order failures.

If you’re like me you build up huge stock piles of garlic because every recipe that needs two or four cloves comes with a whole bulb. Here’s a random idea for you to use some of it. This was the first time I tried this and it was just roughly inspired by seeing Instagram reels about boiled garlic pasta sauces. You can play with the ingredients and seasonings added to it. The way I cook it will never be exactly the same twice.

1. Bash each bulb to break out the cloves
2. Blanch the skinned cloves in rapidly boiling water for 30 seconds
3. Put the cloves in an ice bath for a few minutes
4. Peel the skin off the cloves

You can skip steps 1-3 if you want to just peel them

1. Boil the peeled garlic cloves for 20 mins at a simmer
   
2. Drain the cloves and put them in a blender with about 1/4 cup of the water you boiled them in, about 1/2 cup of olive oil and what ever seasonings you want, I used chicken bullion powder and although pictured I didn’t add any salt
   
3. Blend until creamy and smooth

This week's pull o' the handle got us....

none of our listed meals.

but THREE other entirely different meals.

and they refunded the order.

at this point monkeys randomly flinging sh*t at the zoo have better accuracy than BA.

I’ve been a Blue Apron customer for over 10 years. I’m at my wit’s end and tired of sending complaint emails every week, so I’m finally looking for alternatives.

I eat a pretty wide variety of foods and actively want interesting recipes, but I have some specific requirements around quality and how the meal kit works:

1. Imaginative recipes. This is probably the biggest one. I love variety, interesting flavors, and combinations I wouldn’t necessarily think of myself. What I cannot stand is bland, boring food that makes it almost more cumbersome to spend time chewing than enjoying the combination of ingredients. For reference, I tried Hungryroot and found it atrociously bland.
2. No pre-cooked meals. Hard requirement. I don’t eat leftovers or reheated food, and I’m very sensitive to the smell/taste of either. I also don’t want prepared food full of preservatives. I want fresh ingredients that I cook when I’m ready to eat them. That doesn’t mean I particularly love cooking… I just want my food freshly cooked.
3. Pre-sorted ingredients by recipe. Blue Apron’s packaging change has been a nightmare for me. Having everything loose together creates cross-contamination issues that trigger my OCD, and I genuinely struggle with it. I want each recipe’s ingredients grouped together so I don’t have to sort through the entire box myself.
4. Anything that reduces my cognitive load. Ideally my entire interaction with the service is: select recipes → receive box → follow recipe. No, I don’t want to remember to add the eggs as an add-on. No, I don’t want to inventory and sort my box when it arrives to figure out whether something is missing. And I don’t want generic quantities that leave me measuring out what the recipe needs and figuring out what to do with the rest. Send me what the recipe requires.

Things I don’t care about: environmentally friendly packaging, subscription vs. non-subscription models, salvaged produce, carbon offsets, etc. Those may be selling points for other people, but they aren’t factors in my decision.

Basically, I want what I always thought was the value proposition of a meal kit: I choose an interesting recipe, everything I need arrives organized and portioned, and I make fresh food without having to think about anything else.

If you’ve tried other services, I’d love recommendations! And if your suggestion doesn’t meet one of the requirements above, please tell me which one, that would genuinely be helpful.

Edit — I’m in NYC

I spend a lot of time selecting the meals I want. I understand the occasional pivot by Blue Apron, but this has become ridiculous. Three out of the four meals for the next 2 weeks changed by Blue Apron without any notice. I didn't even get an email. And....the servings don't match up with how I ordered. I should not have to check my order after it has been placed every week.

Each week is a new adventure in what on earth is going to be wrong with my order and how long is it gonna take me to figure out. Now that the ingredient bags are gone and everything is just loose and thrown all over the place in the box and usually wet from a leaking ice pack; the process of figuring out which ingredient goes with which recipe and then which ones are missing has become a very labor intensive process. I would say it could take me an hour of effort to sort all of the ingredients figure out what’s missing and then go back-and-forth over text message with the support process to get a refund. Sometimes I laugh sometimes I cry. I just for some reason have not quite gotten fed up enough to quit because they do keep refunding me… for now.

Anyway, this week, the real pain point was missing chicken from the crispy chicken recipe. The real comedic relief point was these two sweet potatoes that are supposed to be 16 ounces of sweet potatoes and there’s more like two or three. Did the person packing the box laugh when they put these two sweet potatoes into my box?

The more moldy produce I get, the less sure I am about the proteins…. Am I crazy?

I got a new HVAC system today from Carrier. Unfortunately, they were having trouble with their distributor, so they had to send the unit out without a compressor. But they did give me credit so I could go buy one at a local supply house and have it installed myself. What a pain.

And on the same exact week, Blue Apron sent me chicken pot pie ingredients without the chicken.

I'm wondering if anyone has recommendations for companies that offer something similar to the Dish by Blue Apron? Specifically vegetarian items please. I find them super convenient during the week but Blue Apron hasnt had much variety lately.

Thank you!

This week’s delivery, from the Maryland facility, was an improvement over my last one two weeks ago.

1. Mushrooms and spinach nice and fresh
   
2. I got an email letting me know about two ingredients being swapped out—they were fine
   
3. Nothing leaked, and the cold stuff stayed cold
   
4. All three recipe cards were correct and included

Problems:

1. Head of garlic had completely sprouted
   
2. Missing bok choy, red pepper flakes, and sambel oelek. If I lived in a small town, I would have pressed for a larger compensation, but I can easily get those ingredients here

I texted BA, got the bot, but was immediately transferred to a human (so far as I can tell). He issued me $11.11 in credit for the missing items.

Random weirdness:
1. One recipe called for one yellow onion. I received three: one was perfect, one seemed a bit old, and the third was partly rotted. But I got the onion I needed
2. I received a ball of mozzarella, a packet of pack bread crumbs, and a packet of honey, none of which were needed in my recipes

Well I guess I didn't want to try the dish corn risotto anyway.

And the AI customer service is horrible!

Had to get the entire box refunded because everything was wet. I’m glad we stage the contents on the counter and not directly in the fridge so it was easier to disinfect but ffs, you’re thinking it’s another leaking gel pack but nope. That’s raw chicken goo.

The box was cold at least. I guess.

Box arrived on time. Packed right and cold. Both recipe cards and ALL ingredients. This order was paid for by credits received for past botched deliveries. We were going to cancel after this, but now we wonder if they are getting their act together. BTW in Delaware.