How Expensive Is Food Delivery in California Compared to Grocery Shopping?
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We calculated the costs of meal delivery services, meal kit subscriptions, and cooking at home for the same meals in the Bay Area.
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Author: Jessica Roy, Personal Finance Columnist Updated on October 12, 2024 at 7:28 AM
Is buying groceries to cook at home still cheaper than opting for pre-portioned meal kits or restaurant-made meals delivered to your door?
I am a strong advocate of home cooking.
When I first delved into personal finance in 2017, I started tracking every penny I spent. To my surprise, ordering pizza a few times a week or walking to the nearby sushi place was draining my monthly budget.
I can cook. But starting to cook after a long commute seemed like an insurmountable task. And what would I make? My weekly grocery shopping at Ralphs typically consisted of cereal, coffee, and ingredients for peanut butter sandwiches. I avoided simple ingredients in Trader Joe’s frozen section because I knew I could make better stir-fries or pasta dishes. But even if I could create beautiful and healthy dinners from scratch, I didn’t have the time.
So, I made adjustments. When shopping at Ralphs, I had a plan for what to eat. Instead of going to the cafeteria for lunch every day, I brought leftovers in Pyrex containers. I achieved something most American politicians can only dream about: balancing my budget.
Meal kit subscriptions were gaining popularity during that time. If you listened to podcasts in the late 2010s, you must have heard introductory offers from services like HelloFresh, Blue Apron, Sunbasket, or their competitors. These subscription services deliver ingredients for recipes to your home, reducing some of the planning and preparation required for dinner.
But I never subscribed because of several reasons. All that packaging seemed wasteful. It appeared more expensive than buying groceries. Ralphs was just a five-minute walk away, and I enjoyed going grocery shopping. Additionally, my building was plagued by package theft at the time.
The same story applied to meal delivery apps that were becoming increasingly popular. My husband and I didn’t have children, so if we let someone else cook for us, we would choose to enjoy a night out at a restaurant.
However, in recent years, inflation has put pressure on everyone’s grocery budget. Add two young children into the mix, and my habit of dining out became unsustainable.
According to the Consumer Price Index, food prices at grocery stores have risen by 28% since 2019. Although the growth rate has slowed down, it is expected to increase slightly next year. Meal kit comparison website Too Many Foodboxes reported that meal kit prices increased by 14.8% from 2019 to 2023. People became more accustomed to using delivery apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash during the pandemic, but menu prices and various fees have pushed these costs sky-high.
My personal finance team and I decided to investigate this matter ourselves. Each of us chose a meal kit service (Blue Apron, Gobble, HelloFresh, Home Chef), one food delivery app (DoorDash, Grubhub, Uber Eats), and a local grocery store (Ralphs, Raley’s, Whole Foods, Sprouts). Then, we selected recipes from the meal kit providers and attempted to recreate our orders in stores and on apps.
Here are our findings:
Among four different stores, apps, and meal kits, the cost per meal was relatively consistent: meal kit dinners were around $13.50 each, food delivery was about $30, while cooking at home ranged from $5 to $10 per meal.
We made some considerations in our calculations:
* We only included the costs of groceries used, not total purchases. You might have leftover hamburger buns or mascarpone that you need to find another use for. That’s just how grocery shopping goes.
* If we drove, we included a standard mileage cost of 67 cents per mile to the store, even though most people don’t go to the grocery store solely for one meal.
* Restaurant portions are generally larger than home-cooked meals, theoretically allowing multiple servings with leftovers. In contrast, my meal kit recipes divided 12 ounces of pasta among four people. I didn’t expect any leftovers for lunch.
* Meal kit pricing varies significantly based on frequency and quantity: ordering two Blue Apron meals weekly for two people costs $14.74 per serving, while ordering the same recipe five times a week for four people drops to only $8.54 per serving.
So yes, even with inflation, buying groceries and cooking at home is still significantly cheaper than using meal kit kitchens or having food prepared elsewhere and delivered to your door. However, cost isn’t the only factor influencing food decisions. Women are typically the primary cooks in most households, bearing the mental burden of choosing recipes and the physical labor of shopping and cooking. This time and effort have value. The time and energy required to wash a full sink of dirty dishes also hold value, which can be avoided with deliveries.
While meal kits and deliveries come with packaging waste, if you never figure out how to use that extra 6 ounces of mascarpone, groceries often result in some food waste as well. Most grocery items are similarly wrapped in plastic like the components of a meal kit. A life cycle analysis by researchers at the University of Michigan found that meal kits have lower overall greenhouse gas emissions compared to meals from the grocery store.
For most people’s grocery budgets, using meal kits for every meal might not be practical. The USDA provides plans to help individuals set food budgets. Based on my family’s moderate weekly cost plan, we spend $247.80 per week on groceries, averaging $2.95 per serving when cooking at home. None of the recipes we cooked in this story were that cheap—and that doesn’t account for my young children’s insatiable appetite for fresh berries.
However, we tried to recreate meals offered by meal kits, which aim to provide a higher-end dining experience. When I analyzed similar meals in our regular rotation, I found they cost significantly less: lemon chicken thighs and potatoes were $2.92 per serving, pasta with frozen meatballs and premium sauce was $1.95 per dish, and rice and beans with onions and lime came to just 74 cents per person.
But as a way to reduce the “load” on busy individuals’ plates, meal kits are typically more affordable than succumbing to private pancake taxis.
Contact Jessica Roy:
October 12, 2024 | Updated October 12, 2024 at 7:28 AM
Jessica Roy
Personal Finance Columnist
Jessica Roy is a personal finance and practical columnist for the Chronicle. If you have questions about how to live your best life or spend your money wisely, send her an email.
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Source Website: San Francisco Chronicle
