Every time I turn on my computer, I see meal-kit boxes duking it out in a massive advertising war for my grocery dollars.
I’ve tried all of these meal kits, and although I loved the food and convenience, I found the pricetags too steep for our regular budget. Packaging was also a consideration, and often left our recycling bins stuffed with cardboard. Some services offered the option of mailing containers back to the company, but arranging for return-shipment was a hassle.
That’s why I was excited to hear about ACME Farms + Kitchen from Bellingham, which offers local, mostly organic meal kits at a competitive price.
How competitively priced? A Large Locavore box of five meals to feed a family of four costs $90. That works out to $18 a meal. We’re not talking about clearance-priced ground beef from who knows where, either. The meat in the ACME box might have been a grass-fed cow you drove past in Skagit Valley. ACME also offers vegetarian boxes for $65 and vegan boxes for $80.
I can’t eat gluten, so I ordered the Large Locavore dairy- and grain-free box for $150. That’s $30 a meal — kind of. I say kind of because the meals were generously portioned, and so we got lunches out of them, too. Plus, the box included a dozen pasture-raised eggs, even though I only needed two for the recipe I made. The eggs were fun to crack because the yolks were richly colored, and a couple of the eggs had double yolks.
The enclosed recipe sheet included instructions for roasted sausage with carrots and potatoes, rosemary-orange glazed salmon with sweet potatoes and kale, Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes and gravy, and Asian beef-lettuce wraps with steak fajita “rice” bowls.
The recipes assumed that I had pantry staples on hand like flour, butter, oil and vinegar. Five meals came in one box with a few ice packs and a couple of small paper bags. It was less waste than we would have gotten from the grocery store.
As for taste, my daughter is the type of picky 8-year-old who will only eat macaroni and cheese or spaghetti when we go out to eat. But she enjoyed most of the meals, especially the Salisbury steak. My teenager gobbled everything up.
According to the February’s data from USDA Cost of Food at Home website the weekly “thrifty,” “low-cost,” “moderate” and “liberal” costs for a family of four were $148, $195, $248 and $295, respectively. The ACME box fits into that range nicely, with high quality, local food.
Even with the more expensive dairy- and grain-free box I ordered, I was still able to keep my grocery budget at $200. A quick trip to the store for breakfast and lunch makings — plus a frozen pizza — and I was done.
I don’t have any association whatsoever with ACME, but I am ready to be their evangelist. This service seems like a win-win for everyone in Western Washington: moms, dads, farmers and picky eaters, too. You can find out more at www.acmefarmsandkitchen.com.
Jennifer Bardsley is author of the books “Genesis Girl” and “Damaged Goods.” Find her online on Instagram @the_ya_gal, on Twitter @jennbardsley or on Facebook as The YA Gal.
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