Green Chef: Healthy Meal Kits

What people write about

Direction describes a theme in aggregate. An individual review may differ — select a theme to inspect its star profile and every text.

loading the rest of the reviews

1. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

   Classic Customer Service Failures. Signed up for this service with high hopes, but the entire UI experience was so poor - the initial discount offer didn’t apply and they make you put down information and place an order before notifying you. I cancelled my membership immediately and was notified that I didn’t meet the deadline for the first order, despite confirming the cancellation. I called customer service and they offered absolutely nothing. I’ll be filing a chargeback on my card, as I have proof of cancellation. I don’t recommend.

2. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

   You be the judge. Good food, reasonable app, unfortunate customer service. Not cheap as it is about $14 per serving (one shipment of a meal includes 2 servings for just under $28) for the non-premium meals. And then there is a flat delivery charge regardless of the number of meals ordered. We’ve ordered 3 meals a week (6 servings) for over a year, representing over $4k. Quality ingredients and tasty, nutritious recipes. Prep time is way off - expect typically twice as long as they say. We recently received a meal (two servings) without the salmon. Not really a meal. I reported it and we were only credited with about $9. On a $28 meal that was no longer a meal. And this was only the second time in a year we had reported an issue. Yet only $9? I submitted a complaint through the app and then ultimately was able to also reach a human on chat. After a lot of discussion, I was able to persuade them to refund the full meal ($28). I also then asked to have someone reach out (text, email, phone). I submitted another request for that via the app. It’s been over a full week. No response in the app, over email, or text or phone. No response to the concerns I raised with the customer agent. If I spend $4k in one year on a service, I expect more customer service than what I experienced. And less effort to be refunded for a clear failure to deliver what was paid for. I am surprised to say this but I believe I get more service from my wireless carrier and that is for ⅓ the annual spend. What gives? Maybe someone from Green Chef will respond to this. Maybe they can explain their (a) refund policy when the entree is not included and (b) their engagement strategy from this App and other contacts. Or perhaps this is just another example of the “service slop” that I’m experiencing more frequently. I hope not. But I’m not holding my breath. But you decide. I’ve given you plenty of information. I’ve suspended my account for the next few weeks (i.e., skipping weeks). We shall see. But I will update you here. Check back!

3. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

   Unethical. I’ve tried to cancel this service and received confirmation. Except that a few days later I’m getting a text message that my package is on its way. When speaking with customer service they mentioned canceling the subscription doesn’t mean canceling the box. Whatever that means. It’s unethical and precisely for that reason I do not recommend. They also won’t refund you for tricking you in having to cancel multiple times in various ways despite email confirmation of such.

4. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

   Awful. I signed up for this service and canceled my account within 8 minutes — both actions occurred on the 24th. The product was delivered on the 30th. Their own policy clearly states cancellations must be made at least 5 days before delivery to avoid being charged. I canceled 6 days prior, yet they still charged me and are now refusing a refund. Customer service continues to repeat inaccurate information instead of acknowledging their own policy and timeline. Charging a customer under these circumstances — after minutes of use and a timely cancellation — is unacceptable and misleading. Proceed with caution.

5. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

   Green chef keeps overcharging me. Calls to customer service have not helped. Green chef keeps charging me full price even though I have verified unused credit on my account from referrals. They seem to be committing fraud or at least not doing their due diligence in correcting billing errors.

6. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

   South Philly Reviewer. Don’t even try to order from these guys if you live in Philly. They can’t deliver to you. Bunch of Bums! Bums! They haven’t delivered any of my orders. The app sucks. The customer support sucks. BUMS!!!

7. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

   Scammy canceling. You have to cancel on the web. But if you’re on an iPhone and click for green chef on safari it takes you right back to the app. This is just manipulative and trying to prevent you from canceling. Not a good practice at all!

8. ★★★★★crashes, freezes and errors

   Inconsistent. There seems to be an increase in their quality and consistency. Meals often don’t show up as scheduled, produce is small and often frozen which damages it. These meals are advertised as high quality and healthy. They are decent protein wise, but the quality has become hit and miss. And the recipes are fairly stagnant unless you pay to upgrade. Save your money.

9. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

   Can’t Review Menu. They make you commit to the first order before ever seeing the menu. Not nearly as healthy as advertised with limited plant based options and dairy in most dishes. Doesn’t fit our diet which is fine but then cancelled 5 minutes later and still charged days later and just got a notice of a package on the way. Very disappointed.

10. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Useless Support; Discounts promised but not available. Became a subscriber and selected first meals, with the promise of 2 “Benefits,” one of which was purportedly a “free Add-on” item. Have not been able to obtain any such “free Add-on,” as explained below: Tried to select “free Add-on” item, but upon clicking the link to do so, no “free Add-on” category of items (the only items that I could have selected to reap the Add-on benefit) appeared. I tried again, and again, used different browsers and the app, but was NEVER able to add a “free Add-on” item. By the way, the site makes clear that “free Add-ons” have to be used within a limited number of weeks, essentially ensuring that, if you aren’t able to select one/week for the duration of the “Benefit,” you’ll lose the “Benefit.” I called the “Help” number 13 days before my first delivery was due, but the woman who answered couldn’t explain why no “free Add-ons” appeared. She simply suggested that I wait until closer to the delivery date and try to select again. Roughly a week later, and only a week before the first delivery, I tried again. Same problem - no “free Add-ons” appeared. Called Help number again (their chat was useless, as it was the first time I tried it, and there’s no redirection to “live” chat, or to an email. You have to call to try to get any support). This time, after explaining the problem 3 times and staying on hold for a while, I was told that the promotion was “limited” (not explained anywhere else - either on the website or in the app), and “sold out” (also not explained on the website or app, which continue to show the useless link to select the “Benefit”). Furthermore, the man from the “Help” line this time told me that I’d need to select a “free Add-on” quickly, due to the limited nature of the “Benefit” (vs waiting until closer to the delivery date, as the initial Help representative had said). So, I tried to select a “free Add-on” for my second delivery while on the line, thinking that doing so 2 weeks in advance would allow me to participate in the heretofore unknown “limited” “Benefit.” As you can likely imagine, I was still unable to select any “Benefit,” once again because no “free Add-on” category showed up after I clicked the “Select Free Item” link. The man on the “Help” line then modified his recommendation to tell me to wait until 10-11 days before the next delivery, because the “free Add-on” menu for that delivery wasn’t available yet. All of the time I wasted trying to get the GC site and app to do what their own instructions say should happen, plus the 2 drawn-out calls to the “Help” line, could have been avoided, if they had simply explained the (apparently very-) limited nature of the “Benefit” they’d promised, and explained when the “free Add-on” items would be available to be selected. For that matter, they could have explained why I could select meals up to a month in advance, but had to fit any attempt to realize a “Benefit” into an entirely different and obscure timeline. Deceptive marketing or website/app and “Help” failures? Could be “all the above.”

11. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    Gets annoying. There are many times the meals for a week don’t appeal to me. Due to the layout of their plans, if you do not remember to skip weeks you can and will get stuck with entire boxes full of hundreds of dollars of food you will not eat. I understand you can easily skip weeks, but if you are like me and juggling a busy schedule you will end up forgetting sometimes. If this were a truly flexible meal service it would wait for the customer to confirm the meals they are receiving rather than sending automatically. I cancelled my subscription as it ended up creating a lot of waste.

12. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    Delivery issues. My first week the box showed up a day late. The ice was almost completely melted and the meat was all temped between 41 and 43 degrees so I had to throw it out. Called and they gave me a refund. The second week my box said it was delivered and it was not at my house. I called again and they refunded me again. The box did show up the next day but again, most of the ice was melted. I love this company but these delivery issues need to be worked out.

13. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Delayed First Delivery and Awful Customer service. Signed up for the service last week and my first delivery was expected yesterday. I got notified around 4:00 pm that the delivery will be delayed until the next day. Obviously, this is not a gadget delivery. First, there’s the quality of food that has a declining value by the hour and despite the fact that it’s packed and has ice, is in fact sitting in a hot truck going around and losing quality. Second, I signed up for this service, like many if not all, for the sake of convenience. If I can’t count on the delivery being made I have to go to the grocery store or order take out at the last minute. Finally, when you contact customer service and they’re clueless blaming the weather when it’s 69 degrees and sunny out, you wonder what kind of company you’re dealing with here

14. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Support did not cancel account. Account cannot be canceled in-app. After chatting with support, they assured me our account was canceled. A month later, boxes started arriving again and I was charged. Dark business practices to not allow account cancelation, and then to not cancel account after support said it was canceled.

15. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    Difficult to cancel subscription. I decided to give it a try but the app(which is the main way I interact and authenticate to GreenChef) makes it hard to interact with customers. For example for canceling the subscription I have to login to the desktop experience. This has cost me to have boxes delivered since the main thing I can do in the app is cancel one by one of the box deliveries. It you just want to try one of their trial offers don’t do it, not worth the food.

16. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Absolute fraud. Be warned! I received a $200 gift card then after receiving one box, an $80 value, my account was cancelled. The customer service agent explained that there was no more funds on my account.

17. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    App Never Once Worked. Download for the first time, attempt to login, spins indefinitely. Restart app, never loads. Try and try, never loads. No errors, nothing to try…

18. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Prefer more whole grains/customization. I started Green Chef hoping to eat more whole grains, organic and less processed food. Any pre-made ingredient (such as tortillas, flatbreads, rice, included milk/dairy) does not show you the ingredients on the meal selection page. There is no customization options for example to swap out white bread/tortillas for wheat. The tortillas I received were considered ultra processed full of preservatives, emulsifiers, etc. 40+ ingredients. I wish with how Green Chef advertised it would recognize organic is more than produce and I was hoping for healthier bread and rice options that are whole grain and less processed. Or had an option to swap them out. I have used HelloFresh which is owned by the same company and Green Chef seems to use the same flatbreads and such despite being more expensive. There is often a card included saying the organic produce had to be swapped for regular. I don’t mind that as much just something for people to know. Please offer more whole grains and less processed food in the future. Thank you!

19. ★★★★★crashes, freezes and errors

    Hard to cancel. I wanted to give these guys a try, I’m vegan so maybe other diet options are better but i got tired of the selection which is not bad. My issue is that I’ve been trying to cancel my account for months now having to manually skip deliveries. Every time i go to the link to cancel an error message pops up, but every other part of the site works.

20. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Scam. Order once and they’ll keep sending you more every week, and it’s impossible to quit, they just keep sending you the over priced meals.

21. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    Scam App. Green Chef provides the ability to sign up within the app, but there is no way to cancel your subscription in the app. As a result I was charged for meals that I did not choose and could not even eat due to food intolerances. When I called customer service they refused to give me a refund despite the fact that I had not chosen these meals and the boxes hadn’t even shipped yet. This is a highly unethical business model, and I will never be using Green Chef again.

22. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    Unethical Design Choices. Unless I’m missing something (which would indicate a different problem because I have looked EVERYWHERE) you need to go onto the website to cancel your subscription. This is bad practice and intentionally convoluted to get in the way of people cancelling their descriptions which feeds into the next problem: if you forget to ‘skip a week’ before there’s 5 days until your scheduled delivery, you can make NO changes to it and CANNOT return it. This is especially egregious because I put my meal plan preference as plant based and the meals it chose FOR ME by default had multiple different animal products, and now I’m stuck with them without the ability to return. This is unethical design as it chooses the meals for you and assumes you want one regardless of your input after your initial plan, and won’t let you change or cancel it after it goes through. It’s also either incompetent or malicious design that you must cancel your plan from the website, overcomplicating the process of canceling your subscription and locking people into orders that scheduled themself passively. And I won’t even get into the problems with the food here. Green Chef needs serious work, I’m happy for anyone whose life has improved due to their business but mine certainly has not.

23. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    SCAMMERS!!. I ordered an INTRODUCTORY kit for ONE WEEK & I THOUGHT I was spending $50 or so. Then the very SAME DAY THEY CHARGED ME AN ADDITIONAL $54 & change for what is called a PREMIUM RECIPE CHARGE I did NOT sign up for. After calling their CUSTOMER SERVICE, I had a man with a very thick accent that I COULD’NT UNDERSTAND & he never understood me or just kept giving me the RUN-AROUND. I finally just told him I’m done, I’m calling my bank & REPORTING THEM FOR FRAUD!!

24. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Too glitchy. This app is way too glitchy. Recipes don’t load, nutritional info sometimes doesn’t load. Very annoying

25. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    Ripped off. I indicated gluten free on my order and they sent me gluten filled items. I immediately wrote them an email for a refund and to cancel, and they still charged me. 0/10 do not recommend

26. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    App does not save changes to order. Every other time I change menu order, the app does not save the changes

27. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    RECIPES NEED TO BE ON THE APP. This is an app rating not a food rating. I’ve written to everyone I possibly can about this problem before coming here. Like several weeks ago. No updates have changed the problem. If you misplace the irl recipe card they mail with the food, you are screwed! Because they don’t include the recipe in the app. There a button for “cooking steps” that leads you to a page that literally says “Download the recipe card to view cooking cooking steps” and then no instructions how to get said “recipe card.” No button. No link. No nothin. If you go to the website on your phone, it directs you back to this page in the app. It’s absolutely crazy making. I have 2 toddlers and a early onset dementia in-law in my household. Loose recipe cards do not last long here. lol. PLEASE HELP! If this problem gets fixed, I’ll change this review to five stars. The food is delicious.

28. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Online Green Chef isn’t working. Second call after a week and half. No solution to why the online website doesn’t allow me to change my meal selection. Their answer, let me help you select your meal. Or use the phone app. From the call, not sure if they will ever fix the online website. Might to time to look elsewhere.

29. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Changes not for the better. I’ve been getting these meals for a while now. I struggle with creating meals, so these helped. Recently, changes have made the meals less appealing. Portions have gotten smaller, menu is repetitive. It would be nice to see different fish for example. It’s always salmon, tilapia, or shrimp. Could we get some haddock perhaps? I’ve also noticed fewer items are actually organic…which is why I chose this particular service. It’s basically $30 a meal for 2. I think I can come up with a salad bowl for much less than that. Also, I can barely look at rice these days because it is used so much in the meals. Can we have more potato options?. I stick with vegetarian meals, so I can’t speak to the other products. One last thing, the vegetable aren’t as fresh as they used to be. I skip for weeks at a time, so until I see improvements, my participation will be very limited.

30. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    Rotten food. 5/2/24 I canceled after 2 weeks. The first week I struggled to choose 5 good meals. None of the meals tasted good so I meant to cancel and forgot. 5 new meals automatically sent and they were basically unusable. I used hello fresh for two months and had no issues so I’m surprised to have had so many issues with green chef. The tomatoes turned into mush when I cut them so I couldn’t use them. The green onion was soggy and mushy so I had to toss it out. The chicken package had a hole in it so it was trash. I just started to cook the last meal and the garlic wasn’t sealed properly and is molding. I just threw out the kale because it was wet and mushy in the wrapping. This is my current box that was supposed to stretch 5 days. Tomorrow is the fifth day. I cancelled before the box arrived so I don’t know if they could even help me with a refund. Not to mention that I could some meals without ingredients like chicken, now garlic, etc. I had a great experience with Hello Fresh and am happy to continue my meals with them. I will never recommend green chef because whoever packaged my meals was clearly having a bad day