Building H Index

Home Chef

INDUSTRY

food

products Profiled

Home Chef meal kit service

Fresh and Easy prepared meal delivery service

H-Score

58

ranked 3rd of 16 within food industry

ranked 12th (tie) of 37 overall

product description

Home Chef’s services allows subscribers to choose from a variety of recipes and ingredients for weekly delivery. Subscription plans have flat rates, based on the number of meals and servings per meal. Additionally, their meals are available at select Kroger facilities for purchase on-site.

Home Chef’s Fresh and Easy prepared meal delivery service offers ready-to-eat prepared meals that are microwaveable, oven-ready, grill-ready or meal kits that involve no more than 15 minutes of prep/cooking time.

product usage

Home Chef and Fresh and Easy do not provide unique meal plans tailored to specific diets, but their plans come in a variety of options that allow subscribers to customize based on dietary preferences / restrictions and time constraints. The filters available include “calorie-conscious,” and “carb-conscious.” Subscribers can also specify certain types of food (e.g. beef, poultry, nuts, shellfish) to avoid. Subscribers are able to select from recipes created by their professional chefs and nutrition specialists. Subscribers have the option of adding extras (desserts, sides, extra meat, and other meal items) and upgrading and customizing meals. Subscribers can order up to six (6) meals per week with two (2), four (4), or six (6) servings.(1) Both services enable subscribers to select meal kits and ready-to-eat meals as items to be picked up at nearby supermarkets that are part of the Kroger family of brands. Non-subscriber may also purchase both meal kits and prepared meals in these Kroger-affiliated stores.

influence on health-related behaviors

EATING

slight to moderate positive influence

Home Chef’s meal kit service enables people to cook meals with fresh ingredients two (2) to six (6) times per week.

In general, fresh, home-cooked meals have been shown to be healthier than meals eaten at or taken out from sit-down or fast food restaurants.(2-6) People who cook at home more frequently also tend to have diets that have higher compliance with dietary guidelines.(7)

In Building H’s consumer research, nearly 80% of meal kit users (not specific to Home Chef) said that meal kit meals were healthier than (33.5%) or as healthy as (46.0%) the meals they cooked for themselves. In addition, 69.1% of users said that their meal kit meals were healthier than meals that they got via delivery or takeout.(8)

In an analysis conducted by researchers at UC Irvine in collaboration with Building H, a four-week sample of Home Chef’s meals had a median Adapted Dietary Inflammatory Index (ADII) score of 5.88. ADII(9) is one marker of nutritional quality and is associated with inflammation, which has been connected with obesity and diabetes. A lower score is better than a higher score. (By comparison, the ADII score for a McDonald’s Big Mac with a large order of fries is 10.47, a kale salad is 0.34 and a medium-sized apple is -0.32.) Home Chef’s score of 5.88 is the highest of the three meal kit services Building H reviewed (the lowest was 4.38).

In terms of calories, a four-week sample of Home Chef’s meal kits meals had a median of 650 calories per serving, representing 0.94 times the recommended calories for women and 0.73 times the recommended calories for men at dinner.(10) The median calories for HomeChef’s “easy prep” meal kits was 595, with 545 for the “oven-ready” subset of this line. Note that these calorie counts do not include beverages consumed with dinner.

Home Chef’s Fresh and Easy service emphasizes prepared, ready-to-eat meals rather than meal kits that are assembled from fresh ingredients. Prepared meals are typically less healthy than meals cooked at home with fresh ingredients, but generally more healthy than restaurant food.(11)

It is not clear what proportion of Home Chef’s sales come from the Fresh and Easy line of meals.

PHYSICAL ACTVITY

neutral influence

Cooking a meal certainly involves more physical activity than preparing ready-to-eat or takeout/delivery meals.

While Home Chef promotes home cooking, it also potentially deters subscribers from the physical activity associated with grocery shopping (to the extent that the meal kits obviate some amount of grocery shopping). By making its meals and meal kits available in Kroger-affiliated stores, Home Chef might lead to less of a reduction in-person grocery shopping. On the other hand, it enables subscribers to purchase up to six (6) nights of meals per week, more than other meal kit delivery services.

Sleeping

neutral to slight positive influence

By offering a relatively healthy alternative to fast food and other food delivery services, Home Chef could potentially be saving people time for sleeping while allowing them to still eat healthy, although research has not established a clear link between time saved on household activities and more sleep.

Home Chef’s Fresh and Easy line of prepared meals enable quicker prep and faster clean up as a way to save additional time.

Engaging Socially

slight positive influence

Offering meal plans for up to six (6) people might help bring families and friends together for meals. By requiring that the subscriber purchase a minimum of two (2) servings per meal, Home Chef encourages (though certainly doesn’t require) social eating.

In Building H’s consumer research, 77% of respondents who use meal kits (not specific to Home Chef) indicated that they eat with others (23% eat them alone). This result compares with a finding, from a 2015 report from the Food Marketing Index(12), that Americans eat approximately 46% of meals alone -- suggesting that meal kits could contribute to increased social engagement.

To the degree that the service leads to less time in grocery stores, it likely reduces the casual social interactions associated with in-person shopping. In Building H’s consumer research, 54% of shoppers rated these interactions positively, as compared with 9% rating them negatively.(13)

opportunities:

Offer the ability to order additional meals (beyond normal limits) to facilitate gatherings of friends, family.

Getting Outdoors

neutral to slight negative influence

As noted above, Home Chef’s services can substitute for grocery shopping – although it also makes its meal kits and prepared meals available in select grocery stores. To the degree that the service cuts down on trips to grocery stores, Home Chef could potentially reduce time spent outdoors.