Miss Fresh Meal Kits Review (What Happened to the Company?)
On December 11, 2019, Miss Fresh was acquired by Cook It, a well-known meal kit delivery company in Quebec.
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Miss Fresh was the first Canadian meal kit company that had partnered up with a major grocery chain, Metro. It wasn’t always that way, though. MissFresh was started in Montreal in 2015 by Ritter Huang, Bernard Prevost, and Marie-Eve Prevost. These three co-founders had collectively retained 30% of their growing company.
The Montreal-based food subscription box company stated that they were, “A Canadian company that strives to help people lead a healthier lifestyle by making eating healthy at home easy and accessible to everyone.” Much like MissFresh’s “Big 3” competitors in the Canadian meal kit space, (see our Hello Fresh Review, Goodfood Review, and Chef’s Plate Review) MissFresh sought to bring convenient, nutritious cooking to your doorstep.
Miss Fresh: Editorial Notes
Miss Fresh had a solid offering that resembled other companies in this industry in every sense, but being smaller, localized, and a relative newcomer, we didn’t see an advance over other brands such as HelloFresh. In order to form a better opinion of Miss Fresh, we had to test it ourselves and collate more opinions from across the web.
Miss Fresh meal kits offered a great variety of meals. For each meal, there was nutritional and allergen info provided. Vegetarians could enjoy a whole separate plan developed specifically to their culinary preferences. Gluten-free options were also available.
Once MissFresh merged with Cook it, the customers could enjoy even more ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat meals. Their sustainable kits contained over 50% of local products in each box. The MissFresh brand is no longer in operation and former customers were transferred to the Cook It subscription service. Many people are still interested in what MissFresh offered and how it started out, so let's take a look.
Miss Fresh: Credibility and Reputation
Established in | 2014 |
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Registered in | QC |
CEO | Unknown |
Independent rating |
Founded in 2015, the Miss Fresh meal kit company used to work in partnership with Metro grocery stores (they have had overall control of the company since 2017). This was certainly an interesting development in that it appeared to be the first large-scale grocer/meal kit partnership in Canada. Metro was going to experiment with the “traditional” meal kit model. By offering snacks and breakfast “add-on” options, they were able to offer little extras that their competitors were not offering at that moment.
Metro CEO Eric La Flèche stated in an interview that, “The meal-kit business is quite small […] the sales are modest, for sure. It’s something you have to invest in to get the customer to buy in.”
Today, MissFresh is a part of the Cook It family, which offers an extended menu, which is oriented toward including as many local products as possible.
Miss Fresh Menu: Plans and Meals
Miss Fresh used to have two meal kit plans: regular and vegetarian. Both plans included up to five recipes per week for up to four people. Vegetarian meals used to cost $8.75-$10.50 per serving, while regular meal prices ranged from $9.31 to $11. These prices compared to the prices of their competitors. Vegans could successfully convert vegetarian meals into their preferred way of eating because all the ingredients were packed separately, and all the unwanted ones like dairy were easy to avoid. Today, Canadian meal kit companies offer many more vegetarian meals and vegan options than before.The minimum order that MissFresh would ship was six total portions (say, three meals of two servings) or two meals of four servings each (for a total of eight portions). The rationale behind this minimum was simply that it wasn’t cheap to ship food all over Canada to various doorsteps. Consequently, MissFresh simply needed this quantity ordered so that they could continue as a company! Most food subscription box services have a minimum order laid out.
One very unique aspect of MissFresh (and likely owing to their partnership with Metro grocery stores) is that healthy snacks like chickpeas could be added to your main meal kit subscription. You could also order ready-to-eat meals, healthy breakfast options, beverages such as specialty teas and coffees, desserts, as well as an outbox and granola box. Some of these options are still available with Cook It, keeping the MissFresh spirit alive.
Cooking skills needed | Basic |
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Ingredients sourced from | Canadian farms |
Vegetarian restrictions | Select with plan |
Avoid an ingredient | Choose by meal |
Calorie range | Choose by meal |
Low carb options | Choose by meal |
Allergy restrictions | Choose by meal |
The Site Founder’s Personal Experience with Miss Fresh
No MissFresh review would be complete without some actual examples of the meals that you'd be cooking up. My favourite MissFresh meals were Souvlaki Chicken Fusilli Sprinkled with Crispy Bacon, Frisky Fish Tacos with Lime-Coriander Cream, Honey and Garlic Shrimp Skewers, and Brussels Sprout and Caramelized Onion Pizzas with Parmesan. All of these meals took me less than 30 minutes to cook!
As one might expect from the name, Miss Fresh took the freshness of their food seriously. Their freshness guarantee stated that if you ever received an item that you could not use, you had to simply contact them, and they would “make it right.”
Like other leading Canadian meal kit companies, MissFresh packed its delicious goodness into an insulated box. If you were not home (and were not comfortable with having your food subscription box on your step), the best options for delivery included having it delivered to your workplace (where the insulated box would keep it fresh), or making friends with a local business owner that could accept it for you. Basically, whatever you did for other packages that you received would likely work for your Miss Fresh meal kits.
While the MissFresh ice packs were easily reusable, you would quickly realize that it didn’t take long to have a lifetime supply of ice packs stored up! The cool thing about MissFresh icepacks is that you could simply empty out the water-based biodegradable solution and recycle the plastic liner.
Miss Fresh: Terms and Fine Print
Delivery
Delivery area | BC, NS, ON, QC |
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Home delivery | Yes |
Work delivery | Yes |
Must be present for delivery | No |
Delivery window | Delivered weekly at your preferred time |
Box stays cold for | 4 hours |
Flexibility
Switch between plans | No |
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Minimum subscription length | 1 week |
How to cancel subscription | |
Extra charge for skipping week | No |
Weekly deadline to cancel/skip | Unknown |
Auto-renewal | Yes |
Personalization options | Recipes per week, Number of people |
Miss Fresh: Support and Usability
In case you needed to contact Miss Fresh customer support, they were available via phone, email, and social media. Unfortunately, there was no online chat on the Miss Fresh website. A downloadable mobile app was also not available, unlike many of the larger companies around today.Customer Reviews
As part of our review, we wanted to give our readers a clear understanding of what real people who had already purchased meal kits from Miss Fresh thought about the company’s food and service. To get this information, we looked through hundreds of online reviews of different meal kit companies, including Miss Fresh, and analyzed the information in them. First of all, we marked each review as positive, negative, or mixed based on the overall impression of the reviewer about the company. Next, we noted all the specific meal kit company characteristics reviewers mentioned in a positive or negative light. Finally, we made a list of all the meals customers praised in their reviews and determined the top three recipes on that list.
When looking at online reviews of products or services, it’s crucial to keep in mind that most people who leave feedback online do so because they’ve had either a very bad or a very good experience. At the same time, those who are moderately happy with the service usually don’t want to spend their time writing a review. This is true in all industries, but it’s especially relevant if the product or service is sold online, which is the case with most meal kits. This is why you should always read deeper into the reviews to gain an understanding of the reasons why people chose to write them, rather than simply look at the average rating or ratio of positive to negative feedback.
Distribution of Miss Fresh reviews compared to industry-wide averages
Most frequently given reasons for liking or disliking the company
After analyzing the proportion of positive and negative reviews, we wanted to figure out why some people enjoyed the service provided by Miss Fresh while others didn’t care for it, so we made a list of all the specific things reviewers mentioned in their feedback. Thus, we’ve determined that happy Miss Fresh customers enjoyed the company’s tasty food, clear recipes, and responsive customer support. While the percentage of people who liked the company’s clear recipes was about equal to the industry average, the proportion of people who thought that the food was tasty or customer response supportive was lower.
At the same time, unhappy customers blamed the company for unresponsive customer support, stale produce, and small portions. This seemingly contradicts many of the positive reviews, but it’s important to note that some customers may have had an unusually good experience with customer support or the quality of the produce, while other customers may have had an unusually bad experience with those aspects. Regardless, complaints about stale produce and small portions were more frequent than the industry average, while the number of reviews that mentioned unresponsive customer support was on par with the industry standards. Together, all of these factors suggest that Miss Fresh may have provided a lower quality service than its competitors.
Three most popular recipes mentioned in reviews
Finally, we wanted to see which Miss Fresh recipes customers deemed to be the tastiest, so we tallied up the number of times different recipes were mentioned in a positive light. According to our statistics, Miss Fresh customers loved the company’s peanut chicken, Asian tofu stir-fry with shiitake mushrooms and kale, and fish chowder the most.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Our Final Thoughts About Miss Fresh
The Miss Fresh meal delivery company arrived on the market in 2015. After its partnership with the grocery store retailer Metro in 2017, Miss Fresh started delivering not only ready-to-cook meals, but also breakfast items, beverages, desserts, snacks, and meals that were already cooked and ready to eat. All meals came with nutritional information in a well-insulated box. All the packaging materials were recyclable.
Since December 11, 2019, MissFresh became a part of Cook It, a Montreal-based meal kit company. You can no longer find MissFresh on the internet or delivering meal kits. You can refer to our Cook It review to see how they've been performing in the past few years, and what kinds of meal kits they offer. We think you'll like what you see!
Select up to four meat and vegetables recipes out of 12 meals each week
This plan contains 5 vegetarian meals with no meat or seafood