These Are the Six Best Meal Kits and Delivery Services for Southerners

Meal kits and delivery services have revolutionized the way humans buy food. Everything started when Kicki Theander launched the first meal kit service called Middagsfrid back in 2007. From there, things just straight-up snowballed into a multibillion-dollar industry as other companies adapted the business model.

For many people, meal kits are worth every penny. Although they cost a little bit more than shopping for the ingredients yourself, they provide convenience and are cheaper and healthier than fast food in exchange. While the now-defunct Peach Dish used to be our favorite service, we have scoured the services to come up with others that we think any Southerner will love. That said, here are the six best meal delivery services for anyone in the South.

1. SunBasket

If there’s anything hotter than the Southern weather, it has to be SunBasket’s tasty menus. Subscribe to the company’s meal kit delivery services to access dozens of recipes made from fresh, organic, and sustainable ingredients. On a diet? No worries. Order a custom meal plan that accommodates any dietary preferences – from paleo to vegetarian, to gluten-free, or any other diet known to man. You can even add a variety of healthy snacks to your plan so you can survive the challenge of cravings without compromising your diet. Meals start at $10.99 per serving with at least three recipes for 2 – 4 people every week. Plus, delivery is free on your first order.

2. Splendid Spoon

Looking for healthy, fresh, and green yet affordable ready-to-eat meals? Then you should consider checking out Splendid Spoon. Pick a plan offering various food options like smoothies, soup bowls, grain dishes, and veggie-topped noodles. You can follow the balanced menus that select from among 50 ready-made dishes or create one of your own. Oh, almost forgot to tell you – everything is plant-based. Additionally, the ingredients come from the most honest farms in the country that grow products without artificial modification. The price per serving starts at $9.50 – $13.00, depending on your plan. Meals will be delivered in chilled boxes once a week or every two weeks, depending on your preference.

3. ButcherBox

Alright. Not everyone can live the vegan life. Many people love digging into a hot-off-the-grill steak or savoring a succulent oven-roasted chicken. If you’re one of those people, ButcherBox exists to serve you. It’s also great for someone on a keto diet. Visit their site and shop for various meat of different cuts, which will be delivered to your door inside a large eco-friendly box. The company takes pride in supplying 100% grass-fed beef, free-range organic chicken, heritage pork, and wild-caught seafood. Price per box can go as low as $129 for a classic one (ButcherBox picks the meat pieces for you) to as high as $270 for a custom box containing 18 – 26 lbs. of meat of your choosing.

4. Freshly

Whether you can’t cook or simply don’t have the time, Freshly’s here to save the day. Just heat a ready-made meal for 3 – 5 minutes, and it’s ready for you to enjoy. Entering the industry in 2012, Freshly offers fresh, never frozen meals that don’t compromise on taste! Ingredients are locally-sourced, and in-house chefs use them to create amazing recipes. Popular dishes include steak peppercorn, spiced Dukkah chicken, and tangy turmeric Turkey bowl. The prices start at $8.99 per serving. Additionally, you can choose a plan for 4, 6, 10, or 12 meals per week – perfect for busy singles and professionals.

5. Gobble

If heating up ready-made food doesn’t tickle your fancy, Gobble’s versatile meal kits come with easy-to-follow recipes. However, unlike other services, the dishes can be prepared within 10 – 15 minutes. What sorcery is this? Well, the reason behind it is quite simple. The ingredients are already prepared, from sliced meat cuts to diced veggies. All you need to do is cook! How convenient! Gobble offers plenty of options like dishes that cater to the vegan, paleo, lean, and keto diets. It even has dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free, or nut-free options for those with allergies. Prices start at $11.99 per serving plus shipping. The menus rotate weekly and are delivered to your home every week.

6. Snap Kitchen

While other services have complicated subscription models, Snap Kitchen keeps things simple. You’ll choose from one of two basic meal plans. The 6-meal plan costs $69.99 per box or $11.67 per meal, while the 12-meal plan costs $114.99 per box or $9.58 per meal. Snap Kitchen provides healthy food choices that follow basic diet plans, such as low-carb, high-protein, vegetarian, and customized paleo. Order different meals for breakfast, lunch, or dinner made from organic, hormone-free, and pasture-raised ingredients. All of Snap Kitchen’s meals are ready to eat. Just don’t forget to heat them up. What’s more amazing? The delivery is free to any state in the South!

PeachDish Unpacked | The Low Down on This Southern-Inspired Meal Delivery Service

Meal delivery services are not a new idea. Such services have been on offer for decades. However, a new generation of services has arisen to serve the needs of today’s sophisticated customers. One of the newest and most popular is PeachDish. This particular meal service offers meals from the southern part of the United States. As many travelers have discovered, the South is entirely unique part of the world. It’s also a place with deep culinary traditions that many people love. This is where you’ll find ingredients like crawfish and grits as well as innovative ideas about proteins like chicken and fish.

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Peach Dish Service

For the Southerner away from home or the cook who likes this style of cooking, PeachDish is the service for you. The basic package is fifty dollars per order. This gives you a box delivered to your home. You can opt for a weekly delivery box or just choose a single box. The single box allows you to decide if this service is right for you. Those who opt for a weekly delivery get the boxes delivered free while those who want to try it once will have to pay any shipping costs. The service delivers to every state in the United States except Alaska and Hawaii. Your box includes the ingredients for two meals that will serve two people. Along with fresh ingredients, you’ll get specific instructions on how to make the meals you have ordered.

Menu Options with PeachDish

Those who choose to order from PeachDish will have their pick of menu options. They can choose from eight different meals that are available each week. Four are based on meat and fish. The other four are entirely vegetarian. People can mix and match as they wish. The only ingredients that aren’t included are salt, pepper, oil, and water. Four of the recipes change each week. The other four changes each season so you’ll find different meals during the winter than you might see during the summer. This allows for you to change out your food style depending on the time of year.

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Preparing the Food

Once the box from PeachDish arrives at your door, it’s time to start cooking. The company has cards that include detailed instructions and a large photograph that shows you what the entire meal should look like once you’ve finished cooking. There’s also detailed nutritional information, so you know how much salt and fat is in the dish as well as a brief bio about the chef who created the meal for you. These meals do tend to require at least a little bit of cooking experience and an understanding of basic cooking techniques. While all ingredients are packed separately, you can recycle the materials if you opt to subscribe. Recent menu choices from the service use both classic Southern style cooking as well as other kinds of influences such as Italian and French. You might opt for Blackened Catfish with Peach Crema, Vidalia Onion Tart with Goat Cheese or Spicy Fish Cakes with Cucumber.

To read reviews, get answers to FAQs, or find a Peach Dish coupon for savings on your first order, check out review site BoxedMealz. Once you try out this Southern-style meal kit, we know you’ll be hooked!

Moving Company Advice on Safest Way to Move Commercial Kitchen Equipment

When you are relocating or starting a new restaurant business, you’ll probably have to transport your kitchen equipment. Because many of the units used in a commercial kitchen are big and bulky with a lot of sharp or delicate parts, they are usually difficult to move and potentially dangerous. Aside from the difficulty and potential danger, you’d not want to cause any property or equipment damage in the process.

Transporting Kitchen Equipment

The fact that soul food restaurants usually have several kitchen appliances makes moving a much bigger undertaking. As such, hiring professional movers who specialize in moving restaurant equipment might be the best course of action. Letting a licensed and insured professional handle the move helps to reduce the potential danger. But if you decide to go this route, you’ll want to ask about policies and get a few quotes. In this way, determining the best company to hire is a lot easier.

However, you can always complete the task yourself, especially if you have enough workforce. If you decide not to engage professional business moving services, you’ll want to keep the following in mind.

1. Properly Disconnect

Before any move, make sure you disconnect all your kitchen appliances properly. Because you would otherwise run the risk of electrical shock, scalds from hot food or liquid spills, radiation, burns, machine blockage, and fire, proper disconnection is arguably the most important safety measure when moving restaurant equipment.

Once disconnected, you should allow enough time for the equipment to cool down and reach room temperature. Remember, thawing your freezers is just as important as allowing your cooking equipment to cool down completely.

It goes without saying that you should not transport any of your kitchen appliances with food in them. Food left inside a disconnected equipment is likely to spoil, and this could result in a potentially huge mess.

2. Clean and Pack

Before the move, you must clean each piece of equipment thoroughly. In addition to removing all your shelves and trays, you’ll want to be sure you’ve packed them separately. For instance, you must remove all of the internal metal racks from your ovens and all the utensil racks from your dishwashers. If you fail to detach or remove these items, they can shake around, become damaged or adversely impact the unit’s functionality.

Pay special attention when packing small kitchen appliances. Wrap sharp objects such grinders and knives with care, and make sure you label each package appropriately. For blenders and mixers, deconstruct any that have multiple, movable parts and wrap each carefully.

3. Shrink-Wrap Before Transport

Before you move your kitchen appliances into a moving truck, make sure you have them shrink-wrapped with plastic moving wrap. Apart from keeping all the drawers and doors from opening, shrink wrapping helps to protect the exterior surface against scrapes and prevents dust and debris from penetrating through the featured gaps.

4. Lift Carefully

When moving large appliances, you’ll want to lift with care. Even if you have people assisting, use of specialized tools like forearm lifting straps and dollies might make the load a lot more tolerable. Make sure everyone involved lifts with their legs and not with their backs. Lifting with your back is known to cause back injuries.

Best Soul Food Restaurants in the Deep South

Soul food — traditional Southern comfort food with an African-American emphasis—takes you back to those simpler days when Grandma spent hours in the kitchen and lovingly cooked everything from scratch. The South is full of soul food restaurants, but here are some of the best. Shirley’s Sole Food Café in Toccoa, Georgia Walking in, you will see […]