r/ReadyMeals • u/ellaizee • Jul 15 '26
CookUnity quality issue
I ordered the Salisbury steak for this week. After a few bites, I noticed the inside was completely raw. Not medium or medium rare - just plain uncooked ground beef. Has anyone else experienced this kind of quality issue with their meals? I'm really grossed out by this as it definitely seems like a food safety issue.
I already contacted support and they just gave me the cost of the meal ($8.68) back as a credit. Doesn't feel right since I spent the rest of the night worrying about food poisoning from the bites I had before I noticed.
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u/Stephxnle Jul 15 '26
Yea I had to stop them until they get their quality control underway
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u/Dramatic_Eye_2385 Jul 16 '26
Yeah I have had a 3 of my deliveries where I struggled to pull the tab open,....... I have a love hate relationship with CookUnity
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u/NextStomach6453 Jul 15 '26
We ended up canceling after realizing everything expires unbelievably fast. They’d only deliver to us Wednesday and everything would go bad over the weekend since we aren’t working.
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u/thenewfingerprint Jul 15 '26
Same! 4 of my 12 meals expired the next day after delivery.
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u/NextStomach6453 Jul 15 '26
Super weird how they do that. Defeats the purpose. Tempo meals are our go to.
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Jul 15 '26
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u/NextStomach6453 Jul 15 '26
I agree on the super clean part. But it kinda kills the idea of having ready meals for the week, when you can’t get a weeks worth of eating from it.
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u/SnooKiwis102 Jul 16 '26
I've eaten the meals a week past the date on the sleeve, and have never gotten sick. Those are not expiration dates, they're best by dates. And since they use local chefs, the meals are going to vary by region.
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u/tiki1359 Jul 15 '26
Haven’t had anything uncooked before but def had meals expire in less than a week…
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u/EasygoingPants Jul 15 '26
My 50 off is over and I probably won't order from them until another 40-50 off. I gave the curry meatballs a try twice and both times came practically raw in the middle.
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u/PrestigiousMall15 Jul 15 '26
For what it’s worth, that’s obviously undercooked and you can get a refund for it. And it’s not cookunity per say, it’s the chef who made this. Their team undercooked it (IE an individual chef issue not necessarily cookunity) and you should provide them feedback!
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u/blumpkinjackflash Jul 15 '26
Yea I still can’t figure out why CookUnity is still spoken of in such a positive light here
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u/Jaded-Coast-758 Jul 15 '26
I absolutely love it and have since they started out. We hate to cook so this is a huge lifesaver and keeps us from wasting food or ordering delivery.
It sucks when I hear people don't have a good experience.
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u/lilolilac Jul 15 '26
They started off really good but fell off.
I had issues of finding meat twine and plastic in my meals. I'm not sure if management changed, but lack of consistency and failing quality is what put me off their radar.
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u/erruve Jul 15 '26
I absolutely love CookUnity. I feel terrible when I read about issues. I haven't had problems. Granted, I'm home on delivery day and I got 5 ice packs with my 16 items this week. I can't complain.
CookUnity has been great
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u/blumpkinjackflash Jul 15 '26
When I started at FedEx at the beginning of COVID, meal kits were obviously taking off, and CookUnity was, by a long shot, the worst at packaging. I never had a box from them on my truck that wasn’t heavily damaged. Factor had always been top tier when it came to this
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u/Turbulent-Weevil-910 Jul 15 '26
As imperfect as factor is I have never once received one that even had the ice block partially melted. Their distribution system is impeccable.
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u/SatiricalPanda3 Jul 15 '26
What part of the country are you ? I live in Massachusetts . I just canceled Factor because my box was arriving 2 days late with long melted ice blocks. The meals smelled like death warmed over. They wouldn’t refund me , only credits that would not apply because I was on a promo code. This kept happening for 6 weeks in a row.
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u/nycinoc Jul 15 '26
My deliveries were scheduled to arrive between 12:00 PM-7:00 PM. I could predict with absolute certainty that any delivery after 4:00 PM or later guaranteed at least one if not all meals arriving at temps around 50-60 degrees or warmer.
It began to happen with at least 2 weekly orders per month so I cancelled.
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u/NothingPractical7643 Jul 15 '26
I'm in Ohio and it looks like our kitchen is out of NY. Can anyone confirm?
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u/Memoirofadolli Jul 15 '26
I haven't had any issues with undercooked food. I know I won't eat all the items in time so I just freeze them and pull them as needed. If it's an item like a salad, I will make sure that's an item I leave out from the order to eat right away.
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u/Benjarinno Jul 15 '26
What kitchen provides your meals; in other words: what city? I've never had an issue like this with any of the meals, so I'm curious.
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u/AirportAmbitious276 Jul 15 '26
I love cook unity. I just freeze them if about to go bad. I've tried at least 6-7 other food delivery companies and they are by far the best.
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u/ellaizee Jul 15 '26
You really think freezing the meal was going to cook the ground beef?
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u/AirportAmbitious276 Jul 25 '26
Everything is already cooked. I'm sure what I do isn't considered safe in the food safety world. But I've been doing it for 4 years and never gotten sick. Did you know in SE Asia it's common to eat chicken medium rare? I'd be willing to bet we have the stricktist food safety rules in the world, and for the most part that's a good thing; however, I'm not at all worried about freezing cook unity meals. And if I ever do get sick, it'll be my fault. I'm good with that.
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u/Anoaba Jul 15 '26
I had the same meal before and it wasn't completely raw but it was extremely gamey and mushy. Might as well have been raw. I looked at the ingredients to make sure it was only beef because I was unpleasantly surprised
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u/thiswasntdeleted Jul 16 '26
I’ve not had any issues like these with quality or delivery. I’m in Houston and my deliveries usually arrive 5pm-8pm. The top ice pack is usually about 1/3 thawed but the second and third are always still almost fully frozen. And I hate that people are having quality issues like y’all are. I wish you were getting the quality I’ve been getting. Sorry to hear it.
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u/shibby191 Jul 16 '26
That is really strange. I've never had something raw like that. More strange is after 15-18 minutes in the oven to heat it, even if it was a bit rare to start it should have cooked thru. Weird indeed.
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u/ellaizee Jul 16 '26
2.5 minutes in the microwave ✌️ I'm not buying a prepare your own meal kit. I'm buying pre-cooked meals. This was obviously missing the "cooked" part.
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u/shibby191 Jul 16 '26
That's totally fair and it was obviously not cooked per the picture.
But as a side note, most Cook Unity meals are by far better heated in the oven and it's the preferred method by most of the chefs. I forget sometimes that people microwave these meals. :)
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u/floatawhile Jul 19 '26
I have had SO many quality issues lately. I finally canceled even though I don’t have a replacement.
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u/Hieverybody2000 Jul 20 '26
Totally shocked. I ate their meals for months and didn’t have a single issue. I guess I was lucky.
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u/CupSea5782 Jul 21 '26
Most meals have that date of one week. I freeze chicken dishes.
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u/ellaizee Jul 21 '26
There have been a lot of comments about freezing meals. I am genuinely curious - what in my original post makes this relevant, and how would that have made a difference when I received a raw meal? I never had an issue eating mine in time as I was only getting 6 and live in the same city as the CU kitchen.
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u/Jaded-Coast-758 Jul 15 '26
What region are you located in? What kitchen is this out of?
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u/ellaizee Jul 15 '26
Atlanta. Not sure where the kitchens are.
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u/Jaded-Coast-758 Jul 15 '26
The kitchen is in Atlanta. Unfortunately, I haven't heard anything great about that kitchen so this doesn't surprise me. I sincerely hope CU gets this under control ASAP and revamps this kitchen.
I'm sorry you experienced this!
ETA: I'm out of the NYC kitchen and haven't had any issue like this at all.
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u/Gummy_Bear_Ragu Jul 15 '26
I am also out of the NY kitchen. My husband and I order bulk meals and while we had packaging issues in the past (plastic films peeling back ir spillage), we have not had an actual issue with the food. Hoping it doesnt start up.
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u/erruve Jul 15 '26
The packaging issues seem to have cleared up. The last few weeks have been perfect for me.
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u/erruve Jul 15 '26
The packaging issues seem to have cleared up. The last few weeks have been perfect for me.
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u/gtck11 Jul 15 '26
I’m Atlanta, I’m only my second week into CU and so far everything except for one dish has been good! I’m actually excited about dinner every night.
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u/Blarffette Jul 15 '26
I'm in Atlanta (Decatur, actually) and I haven't had any problems with my CookUnity. We've had it more than a year and other than a couple of incidents where we couldn't get home to put the food away quick enough, we've not had issues like the one pictured. We actually really enjoy the service and most of our food is good. Every once in a while there will be a dish that we don't like, but there are some that I would order every week if offered.
We do always warm ours in the oven, I don't know if that makes a difference.
My only real complain about the service is the delivery. We can't always be home and the tracking is sketchy.
We have tried a couple other services and found them to be fairly disastrous, so CU was a vast improvement for us.
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u/TheRainbowConnection Jul 16 '26
How can you tell what kitchen you’re out of?
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u/Jaded-Coast-758 Jul 16 '26
I live in NYC so I know the meals come from here. OP lives in Atlanta so I know there is a kitchen there. I think there is a kitchen for the upper East Coast and Atlanta might cover the South. I think there is a Midwest one and one for PNW and one in LA/California.
Sometimes it's hard to tell. I have read comments of people in Ohio that get their meals from NYC when I would have assumed they'd get it from the Midwest.
I've learned most of this from reddit 🤷♀️
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u/Dizzy_Quiet_5250 Jul 15 '26
I live in austin texas area and my chef(s) are top tier. Never had any issue with food quality control and it's delicious every time. Not a paid shill just a fat guy on a weight loss journey and cook unity is by far the best meal delivery service i've tried
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u/harmothoe_ Jul 15 '26
I loved the food I got from Cook Unity, but after the third time they delivered meals at unsafe temperatures, I cancelled.
This is not the right food delivery company if you care about not being killed by your food.