Miss Fresh Meal Kits Review 2019

Miss Fresh is the first Canadian meal kit company that has partnered up with a major grocery chain.  It wasn’t always that way though. MissFresh was started in Montreal in 2015 by Ritter Huang, Bernard Prevost, and Marie-Eve Prevost (no relation to yours truly).  These three co-founders have collectively retained 30% of their growing company.

The Montreal-based food subscription box company states that they are, “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 seeks to bring convenient, nutritious cooking to your doorstep.

Miss Fresh Review Summary

Miss Fresh Review: Weekly Meal Kit Options

MissFresh is now available in urban centres from coast-to-coast and their custom food subscription box option let you choose from 10-13 recipes each week.

Customers can choose 2-5 recipes/meals, and each meal can be 2,4, or 6 servings in size.

The other MissFresh subscription option is their vegetarian box, which allows you to pick 2-3 meals that do not include meat.  These are also the best option for gluten-free diets.

The minimum order that MissFresh will ship is 6 total portions (say 3 meals and 2 portions) or 2 meals of 4 portions each (for a total of 8 portions).  The rationale behind this minimum is simply that it isn’t cheap to ship food all over Canada, to various doorsteps. Consequently, MissFresh simply needs this quantity ordered so that they can continue as a company!

One very unique aspect of MissFresh (and likely owing to their partnership with Metro grocery stores) is that healthy snacks like chickpeas can be added on to your main meal kit subscription.  You can also order healthy breakfast options like speciality teas and coffees, as well as an oatbox and granolust box.

As one might expect, Miss Fresh takes the freshness of their food seriously!  Their freshness guarantee states that if you ever receive an item that you can’t use, simply contact them and they’ll “make it right”.

Much like other leading Canadian meal kit companies, MissFresh packs their delicious goodness into an insulated box.  If you’re not home (and aren’t comfortable with having your food subscription box on your step), the best options for delivery include having it delivered to your workplace (where the insulated box will keep it fresh) or making friends with a local business owner that can accept it for you.  Basically, whatever you do for other packages that you receive will likely work for your Miss Fresh meal kits.

While the MissFresh ice packs are easily reusable, you quickly realize that it doesn’t take long to have a lifetime supply of ice packs stored up!  The cool thing about MissFresh icepacks are that you can simple empty out the water-based biodegradable solution and recycle the plastic liner.

Miss Fresh Meal Kit Recipes

No MissFresh review would me complete without some actual examples of the meals that you’ll be cooking up!

Miss Fresh Partnership With Metro Grocery Stores

Metro grocery stores have held a majority share of MissFresh (meaning they have had overall control of the company since 2017).  This is certainly an interesting development in that it appears to be the first large-scale grocer/meal kit partnership in Canada.  Some of the media reports I’ve read are encouraged by the partnership, saying that Metro could potentially lower the cost of the meal kits simply because they are buying food in such large quantities.  Other first-hand reviews and articles stated that they were concerned the company might now drift away from sourcing food locally and the elite customer service that had helped build the brand.

What is in evidence is that Metro is going to experiment with the “traditional” (is something traditional after 4-5 years?) meal kit model.  By offering snack and breakfast “add-on” options, they are able to offer little extras that their competitors currently aren’t offering. That said, it does make me a little nervous that meal kits aren’t necessarily the only focus for the company going forward.

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.”

One area where there will be an obvious synergy for the partnership is the ability to pick up a MissFresh food subscription box at Metro locations.  This is certainly a nice deal if you’re a regular Metro shopper, and allows Miss Fresh to cut back on delivery costs – all while potentially bringing more foot traffic through their stores.

In a separate interview, Metro CFO François Thibault summed up the partnership by stating, “As an alternative solution to healthy eating that is easy to prepare and delivered to your door, MissFresh offers products that will be complementary to what we have in store, which will help us to better meet the needs of consumers.”