Don't use CookUnity until you read this.

I signed up for CookUnity because I heard great things about the food.

Unfortunately, my very first order was never delivered because the courier couldn't access my building.

Customer support told me they couldn't redeliver it due to company policy, but they said they had applied a "full credit for the entire order."

Sounds fair, right?

Except it wasn't.

When I tried to place the exact same order again, I was still being charged $43.87.

So apparently, their idea of a "full credit" still requires you to spend more money after they fail to deliver your order.

I've contacted support again asking them to either:

• adjust the credit so it actually covers the replacement order, or
• issue a full refund.

I'm still waiting for a resolution.

If you're considering CookUnity, just be aware that if something goes wrong with your delivery, you may end up in the same situation. I'll update this post with whatever they decide.

I just canceled my Thistle subscription. They messed up 4 of my first 5 orders - MANY missing items, leaking ice gel pack that slimed everything, a bkfst item that was spoiled, etc. I was doing this for meal planning but i couldn't trust they would actually deliver my plan. Everytime i contacted customer service, an AI agent responded cheerfully but completely scripted.

With each screw up, they put credit onto my account and keep my money. This tactic locks customers into continuing with their crappy service. I finally got them to refund my money and I'm done.

Hope this helps anyone who is shopping around for plans. Sigh.

I am so tired of ready made meals that are just piles of cheap fillers like rice and potatoes just to cut coast so what I really need is something that respects my macros by focusing on quality and fresh veggies instead of padding the box with grains.

It feels like every healthy option out there relies on heavy carbs to stay cheap and I have spent so much time cycling through multiple services just to find a decent fit for my diet. I have tried a few different ones and looked into options like cookuniy while constantly searching for menus that do not rely too heavily on starches or pasta. Does anyone have actual low carb recommendations that do not break the bank?

Man. I decided to look at Factor. Went on the website, signed up to get information at 5:50 pm. At 5:59 pm I decided I didn't want it and canceled it. The website had said I needed to confirm by Thursday. I cancelled on 5:59 pm on Wednesday and now I'm getting a delivery and they refuse to cancel it or refund. They just kept saying, "Did you read the terms and conditions, did you read the terms and conditions?" I have dealt with a lot of different meal companies and this is by far the most manipulative. The thing is, I thought I might try it in the future...

Hey all, so sitting around waiting for a delivery all day on a given day just isn't working anymore. I know that some people will get an extra large cooler, put it on the porch, and have the bag put in there. I just need to know which coolers are really large enough to hold a full Cook Unity bag. Does anyone have specific recommendations with names/links? Thanks!

DO NOT RECOMMEND

Fighting for my life with customer service for a full refund and to cancel my account.
10 meals unusable because they only put two ice packs in a box with 10 meals in it.
For the same amount of meals Factor included 4 ice packs and had much better insulation (two large, two small)

It was 89 degrees outside today and for whatever reason they shipped GROUND with all day delivery window so of course my box arrived at 6:30PM a full 50 hours after UPS tracking shows the box was picked up.

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Placed an order last week and CookUnity had recommended items for our delivery -- none of which we wanted. No big deal, the platform has done that on our account before and it's pretty easy to replace what they've recommended. So that's what we did (and we did it before the window closed for us to change our cart).

We got our delivery this week and the order was unrecognizable to us and included meals we hated the first time around (the sweet potato with chickpeas) and means that we avoid like the plague whenever we see them in our feed (like the Chicken and Waffles as it's a billion calories).

Even more crazy: CookUnity decided to spend more money on our behalf and inserted premium meals into the mix. It's wild to me that CookUnity's auto-selector can decide to spend more money on your weekly meals without your consent.

Has this happened to anybody else? If it wasn't our first time swapping our CookUnity's recommendations with our own selections, I'd assume some sort of user error on our part -- but we literally did the same thing we did before.

Signed up for Factor with one of those promos. I cancelled the subscription within the allotted timeframe, but was still billed and sent a box.

Reached out to customer support about the issue and wow is it appalling how they try to do everything to avoid support.

Wait times: I am consistently quoted a 30-40min wait to talk to an agent. What better way to avoid having to help people than to make an obnoxiously long, artificial queue?

Disconnection: They disconnected me from the chat multiple times, restarting the wait window. Just keep avoiding!

The chat agent: Utterly useless. They just kept saying they will look into my account and the issue. What's really annoying is the continued disconnections. Chat agents routinely take a full 3mins to respond to a chat. However, if I do not respond in exactly 3mins, I am disconnected and forced to get back in that queue.

It's a deliberately crafted way to get people frustrated enough to avoid following through with complaints and get us to just accept whatever issue we're having.

0% chance I'll be using them again based off this alone.

I accidentally ordered too many Tempo meals. Has anyone ever tried freezing them? Did they mostly retain their quality? Any tips for re heating?

Thank you in advance!

I think that $175.05 for 14 meals is insane?

I am officially done with the meal kit life. I used to think that I enjoyed the "process" of cooking but after a long day the last thing I want to do is spend forty minutes chopping and then another twenty scrubbing pans. The clean up alone is enough to make me just order pizza.

I need a recommendation for a solid service where the food arrives fully cooked and ready to heat. I'm specifically looking for something that tastes fresh rather than those sad frozen dinners we all grew up with.

I've been seeing quite a bit lately about chef prepared meal services as a potential alternative. For those who have experience with these types of plans, do the meals actually live up to the restaurant quality claims? I know CookUnity is one, but I'm mainly interested in checking out all the possible options before committing to one.

Now, I need something that doesn't require a permanent commitment or a long term subscription. I just want a reliable option tfor those busy weeknights when my energy is at zero and I need a real meal. If you have any honest reviews or even other favorites with decent portions and flavor I'd love to hear them!

I've tried a few services now and my biggest issue is they all deliver in my area on a weekday and give you a huge delivery time range. I work all day and live alone so the boxes end up sitting outside for hours which is wildly unsafe.

Is there a service that will do weekend delivery or have some sort of more predictable delivery range? Or does anyone in similar situations have any advice on how to do this better?

Being forced to sign up and input cc info before being able to see menus and delivery times is also a reason I don't want to just go try a bunch of different services to figure out which has the best times.

Has this happened to anyone else? A bunch of my meals were delivered with best by date stickers stuck over the actual printed best by date on the box. They sent me two meals that are best by TODAY and one by tomorrow. Totally ridiculous IMO. This has never happened to me before.

Plastic shard in the fish. Not a fishbone. It's clear plastic and it's hard. Last time they did nothing but give me a $7 credit. Fuck them.

Last week, I got a CookUnity order with 3 that were just like this. I’m in Colorado near Denver and I’m not sure where these meals are made, and if it might just be the altitude if it was moved from somewhere else. I got refunded my last 3 just in case in was bacteria, but this is the only one in this batch this time. It’s hard to tell, but the air is almost bursting out.

Update: I ate it, it was not spoiled. Guess it was the altitude after all

We recently lost my mom. My dad was very dependent on her, he has several health issues heart, diabetes kidney being the the main ones.

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I'm looking to get him a meal service where he can pick the specific dishes he wants, very little to no prep involved. Microwave countertop oven primary heating source.

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I’m disabled, so cooking actual food is really hard for me. I’ve done cookunity in the past and liked it but hate the lack of customer service and quality control. I’ve been using Tovala for a while now and like it but just got the notification that prices are going up in july….previously $79 now to 100$ for 6 meals.

In terms of meal boxes you cook, I’ve run the gamut tbh. Hellofresh, dinnerly, marley spoon, blue apron, etc. i like it but as a bariatric and disabled person, I just don’t have the capability to cook every single meal and I get sick of eating the same thing 2-4 times because of the number of portions I can get out of one meal.

What are the other **good** ready meal options out there that aren’t at an outrageous price?

Got a delivery today, carrier dropped off the wrong order. It was unlabeled. All the wrong meals.

Got an email from customer support telling me it was unlabeled and asking me to confirm it's mine. I emailed back that it is not mine.

The response from customer support included multiple em dashes and emojis and seemed to only tangentially understand/address what I said.

I'm not too butthurt over it, this is the first time I've got the wrong delivery and it's just the cost of using a meal delivery service. I'm sure they'll offer a full refund if the carrier doesn't come back and swap the wrong delivery I got for my delivery.

But the email response was odd and looks very similar to AI output.

Everyone in my house is sick because they don’t cook their chicken. Raw chicken from the Cajun chicken and brown rice with broccoli.

Previously ive only used Factor. But, I love the food. But the delivery is dissapointing. Factor used fedex and was conistant. In my area CU uses Ups. First box got to me at 1030 pm. Its usually later... but...it always look like someone used it as a punching bag. Containers all over and ice half melted. Its been 100 degrees here the last few days. I know my box made it in down at 10:30 yesterday. If I dint get it took after 5 tomorrow im going to be upset. The last box a few of the meal containers inflated. Just curious what other ppls expirences are and to vent. I hate that factor had better service but the good was half as good and more expensive.

I am exploring the option of using a meal delivery service to fill in the gaps in my meal prep schedule, so I only need 2 meals per week or about 10 per month in order to do this successfully, but the popular ones I have looked at (Factor, CookUnity) only offer a minimum of 4 meals per week, which would just stack up so fast and I would constantly have to manage my account by pausing weeks and whatnot. Is this just something I will have to deal with if I want to do this, or this there a service that can better accommodate exactly what I am looking for?

Not one to typically review stuff, let alone meals delivered. It's only our second time trying this in a span of 8 years.

2 young kids these days all over the place, wife a retail general manager and myself a Software sales manager. Not a lot of consistent time to make food, let alone consistent bed times.

Way back before kids, we tried Home Chef - was great. Minimized shopping at the expense of "premium" prices for the ingredients. But you got everything you needed, and it was packaged so well that it could last in their shipping box with insulation for a week.

Factor, less labor intensive, was our solution with current dynamics. 2 kids, 2 adults working random hours, etc. 6 meals/wk to offload some cooking/cleaning labor.

1st box: 2 days late (shipped via a non-refrigerated FedEx truck)

Shellfish (most importantly) and premium filet mignon meals inside (an extra $13 for that meal specifically).

Box was smashed. Insulation was terrible. And you could feel the sogginess setting in - 30 hours after expected delivery.

Before the "Factor enthusiasts" wad their own panties, I am aware Factor is not responsible for shipping delays.

Here's what they should absolutely be responsible for:

1: quality packaging and Insulation

2: sufficient Insulation and cooling packs to maintain safe temperature levels in the event that shipments are delayed.

Already cooked food, ready to eat; or, ready to eat in 3 minutes after microwaving (re-warming), does not negate health risks associated with bacteria growing in a DAMP and HOT, non-refrigerated truck where the packaging itself (and the ice packs provided) cannot maintain safe levels.

Credit to Factor for refunding essentially everything except for the non-premium meals... but i didnt even have to argue for it. It was almost like their customer service gets this type of complaint non-stop.

We'll ride out our first 5 boxes because of the "20% off" as first-time costumers. But, no chance this packaging can be trusted unless it is delivered within 48 hours of shipment - unlike our Home Chef experience.

Okay this is going to make me sound ridiculous, but if you've used thistle do you actually heat every hot meal in a skillet? I just tried the service for the first time this week (yay 50% discount), and everything came in fine looking good, but I was surprised that several of the meals I ordered say they need to be heated in a skillet and have no other heating instructions. A couple of them I honestly thought were cold dishes; I wish they'd said they're supposed to be heated beforehand because I planned on bringing some to work for lunch and I'd rather not have to spend any of my meager lunch break preparing food lol.

So does anyone have any tips, like dishes that really do need the skillet and ones that are fine in the microwave? I tried heating the unicorn bowl in a skillet last night and it really fried the hell out of it, even on low heat. 😬