Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec Meal Kits Review 2022

Background on Montreal and Quebec Area and Meal Kits Industry

	Value	Rank (of 10)
Population	8,433,301	2
Food stores per 100,000 ppl	81	4
Farms per 100,000 ppl	343	8
Average family size	2.8	5
Experience difficulties with food budget	30%	10
Eating fruits/vegies 5+ times a day	35%	1
Time spent eating per day	105	1
Vegans and vegetarians	9.1%	3

Duck Poutine – Quebec traditional dish

What Does a Meal Kit Look Like?

With several different national and local meal kit companies available in Montreal, Ottawa, and across much of Quebec, it’s tough to say precisely what your specific food box will look like. That said, the “Big 3” companies tend to deliver a very consistent product across Canada. Your meals for the week will arrive in an insulated box that keeps your meats cool with frozen ice packs, and the rest of your meal comes in self-contained bags. Simply store in your fridge, and when suppertime arrives, pluck out the bag, and get cooking!

The boxes are engineered to keep everything cool, no matter how hot it is outside. When we first started ordering Hello Fresh, we tested the claims by leaving the box outside in 32-degree heat for 8+ hours. The ice packs were still more than 50% frozen when we opened the box, and consequently, the meat was still quite chilled, and the produce was cool and crisp.  Chef’s Plate, and Miss Fresh, and Good Food employ similar engineering for their boxes to deliver meal kits in Ottawa, Montreal, and other Quebec cities, such as Sherbrooke and Levis. 

The boxes come complete with colorful, can’t-screw-it-up-even-if-you’re-a-rookie recipe cards. For a kitchen newbie, these step-by-step instructions are a lifesaver. It’s actually functioned kind of as a cooking 101 class for some of us to be honest. Now we are much more confident in adding spices or homemade sauces/marinades to other meals that we cook.

The bags come complete with all of the ingredients you need, save for a few kitchen essentials such as salt, sugar, oil, or parchment paper. Chef’s Plate is known for their 15-minute meal options, but most meal kit meals take 20-45 minutes from “fridge to table.” Many people choose to get their meal kits delivered to their place of business or a neighbor’s house if they aren’t home during the day or they don’t have a reliable parcel management system in their building. It’s basically the same deal as getting a package from Amazon. All the packaging is usually recyclable or reusable.

Global Canadian Meal Kit Companies Servicing Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec

Visit Hello Fresh Montreal

The most popular meal kit provider in Montreal and around the world is Hello Fresh. It arrived on the Canadian scene several years ago and has used its meal kit delivery experience from several continents to dominate the Canadian food subscription box market. They are not the absolute lowest-priced meal kit in Montreal, but they are competitive on price, and they seek to really deliver outstanding delicious meals (with large portions) each week. We have been a Hello Fresh customers for over a year now and can honestly say we’ve never received a “bad meal.” We should mention in the interest of fairness that most of us are not picky eaters, but everything from the cuts of meat, to the fresh produce that Hello Fresh sends to our doorstep, has been excellent quality.

Not available via MKC

Goodfood bills itself as “Canada’s #1 Meal Kit” (likely based on their Canada-owned status). While Goodfood is smaller than Chef’s Plate and Hello Fresh, it is larger than any of Canada’s other meal kit companies. Goodfood is clearly aiming to corner the market on being the most popular meal kit in Montreal and throughout Quebec, as evidenced by their partnership with award-winning TV Host and French Media personality Anne-Marie Withenshaw. Goodfood offers a huge menu each week, including many super-fast 20-minute options. We particularly liked how many low-carb recipe options that Goodfood included. We did notice that Goodfood portion sizes were consistently smaller than Hello Fresh’s; however, given that their price point is closer to that of Chef’s Plate, that would make sense.

Local Meal Kit Companies in Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec

Company		Rating	Covered Provinces	Dishes in menu	Price / serving	MKC Promo
	COOK It	n/a	3	14	$8.61 – $11.50	n/a

COOK It

After its huge achievement of taking over Kuisto in 2017, they have made another big move of taking over its largest competitor, Miss Fresh, in December 2019, with 30,000 subscribers added to its service. To accommodate Miss Fresh’s customers efficiently, they have expanded their production facility by over 24,000 sq. ft. Combining both its workforce makes them a prominent giant of the field with more than 500 employees ready to make their customers happy. This acquisition for COOK means: 

• EXTRA RECIPES
• EXTENDED MENU to choose your ready-to-eat meals
• VAST PANTRY items to choose from wasted food to stink up the fridge.
• OVER 50% LOCAL products delivered daily 

Cook It offers two meal plans regular and a vegetarian plan. From both the plans you can order meals weekly ranging from 2 to 7. This will allow you to enjoy a different taste every night without spending unnecessarily on buying groceries. This makes it the cheapest option available. Here’s a quick sneak peek of its rates. 

Overview of the Ottawa and Montreal Meal Kit Scene

With so many options and price points to choose from, it’s tough to make a blanket recommendation when it comes to meal kits in Quebec. The majority of our team are loyal to Hello Fresh after enjoying their product for over a year and having only great things to say. Once you start getting meal kits, why not give them all a try? It’s worth changing the provider every now and then just to compare the recipes and explore new tastes.

For kosher or halal specialty foods, you can check out several local companies that deliver ready-to-eat meals. With our exclusive promo discount offers, it’s relatively affordable to order several of these options and give them each a trial period since the first week for each one is such a good sale! (Just remember to cancel your credit card once you’ve decided what the right meal kit option is for you.)