Unveiling the Factor Experience: A First-time Boxed Meals Review
Disclaimer: This review is not sponsored by Factor, but it may contain affiliate links. The author may receive meal credits if readers choose to use their referral code. Referral to Rakuten may also yield a commission for those who sign up through the link at no additional cost to the reader.
What Is Factor and Why did we choose to try it?
Factor is a meal delivery service that offers freshly prepared, chef-crafted meals delivered straight to the doorstep. These meals are designed to be convenient, nutritious, and customizable to various dietary preferences and restrictions. The service aims to simplify meal planning and preparation for busy individuals and families, providing a hassle-free solution for those looking to maintain a healthy diet without sacrificing taste or convenience.
My wife and I have been struggling a bit to manage our meal planning and portion control amidst the first year of our baby’s life. Cooking and planning out what to eat while also trying to count calories for lunch and dinner every day takes up considerable time and brain power. The stacked dishes at the end of the day also start add to the endless list of cleaning tasks.
Factor just seemed like the perfect service for us struggling parents. After seeing various social media posts and advertisements on Factor and being “influenced”, I decided to bite the bullet.
Here are the results and a cost breakdown which I think would surprise many people.
The journey was quite smooth but it took quite a turn that led us to having one of the cheapest boxed meals experiences that made the experiment quite valuable and fun and I lost some weight.
The Process of Ordering from an Online meal service
We ordered the pre-made meals on January 18th. The website experience was quite smooth. The earliest delivery date was Jan 23rd which is 5 days after ordering.
We ordered a 18 meal box size which would take care of 4.5 days of eating for the both of us. We got to select from an inventory of about 35 dishes.
We narrowed down our meals to several choices among: Protein Plus, Calorie Smart, Flexitarian. We submitted the order and the total came out to be $89.02 after a 55% discount for first delivery for healthcare workers. (You don’t have to be healthcare worker to take advantage of this deal because my wife who isn’t a healthcare worker also found this as a perk from her work).
As January 23rd was approaching, I checked the tracking information and to my surprise, found that our order wasn’t even shipped yet. This was inconvenient because we had made an effort to clear out our fridge and skipped grocery shopping that week to make room for the meals.
The meals did show up on January 24th, a day later than expected. Thankfully our box arrived at 8:00AM. The delivery came in a moderately sized cardboard box with ice packs which kept the meals cold.
We were shocked when we opened the box to find 13 meals instead of the 18 we ordered. I immediately contacted customer service through a chat box on the website; I waited about 20-30 minutes for a first response and I was greeted by a representative named Dolly.
Dolly is apologetic about the mishaps of our experience and at times sounded like a robot with a script but she did propose a resolution by offering a $48 refund without replacement of the missing meals. This is understandable because their menu changes weekly and perhaps some of the meals could not be made again within a short time.
At this point I was pretty content but we wanted to see if there was anything else they could do. So I asked “is the refund based on the missing meals”. After a few moments, Dolly offered a $64 – a 33% increase in the refund amount – I am pretty satisfied with the resolution. With this refund, our 13 meals cost $1.92 each.
We tried the first set of meals and honestly they slapped (“slap” is a gen Z term to indicate when something is good). The meals tasted really good for something that cooks in the microwave for 2.5 minutes. More about what the meals are like below.
After several hours upon the meals delivery, we received two emails. It turns out Factor did know ahead of time that the order was going to be late and also that the orders would not have all the meals. However, the emails were sent only after the boxes had shipped and arrived late.
Final cost breakdown - more discounts!
Originally, the meals were going to cost $89.02 for 18 meals factoring my healthcare discount for the first box. Then through the virtual assistant who heard about our complaint, they issued a $64 refund for the missing meals. When I checked my credit card balance, there was an additional refund for $14.84 which could be additional compensation for the missing meals or late delivery.
So overall, my wife and I spent $10.18 for 13 meals = $0.78 per meal; This lasted both of us for a solid 3 days for lunch and dinner.
I don’t believe it’s possible to repeat this same price; it’s likely just a one-time fluke due to chance.
If you didn’t want to depend on a late or incomplete delivery to knock down the price, Rakuten is partnered with Factor in offering up to 45% cashback for first time users. If you don’t have Rakuten, it’s a great service to get additional cashback on online shopping. My wife was able to order her first-time box from Factor with the Rakuten cashback which will give us another 18 meals for net $48.96 ($2.72 per meal)! That’s cheaper than McDonalds; and healthier
You can sign up for Rakuten with our referral link.
What were the dishes like (With Pictures!)
I won’t bore you with the details of each and every dish. The top three dishes for me were:
1. Blackened Salmon
2. Ground Pork Chili & Mac
3. Honey Mustard Chicken with Roasted Rosemary Potatoes & Garlic Green Beans. I do want to comment that overall all the meals taste delicious and there were no dishes I hated.
There are some that are more filling than others as you will see that the range of calories for the batch we ordered ranged from the high 400s to low 700s. I personally favor more protein in my meals as I am trying to build muscle.
Day 1 Lunch (Ground Pork Cheddar Chili & Mac. + Cilantro Chicken with Brown Rice, Black Beans & Spicy Corn Esquites)
Day 1 Dinner (Blackened Salmon with Smoked Gouda Cauliflower “Grits” & Broccoli + Roasted Garlic Braised Beef with Ranch Mashed Potatoes, Broccoli & Cauliflower)
Day 2 Lunch: Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken with Zucchini Noodles + Creamy Pesto Pork Chop with Spinach Cauliflower “Rice” & Roasted Green Beans
Day 2 Dinner: Cavatappi & Italian-Style Pork Ragu with Garlic Broccoli + Blackened Salmon
Day 3 Lunch: Caribbean Spiced Tofu with Black Beans, Rice, Mango Salsa & Coconut Jerk Sauce + Spicy Poblano Beef Bowl with Roasted Broccoli “Rice” & Scallion Sour Cream
Day 3 Dinner: Jalapeño-Lime-Cheddar Chicken with Spicy Cilantro Cauliflower “Rice” + Honey Mustard Chicken with Roasted Rosemary Potatoes & Garlic Green Beans
Here are the dishes that we ordered but didn’t arrive =(
- Tomato Basil Chicken Risotto with Parmesan Broccoli
- Parmesan & Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken Penne with Roasted Green Beans & Pearl Onions
- Garlic Herb Salmon with Celery Root Mash, Cauliflower & Tomatoes
Weight Loss Results
My original goal of using Factor was to lose some weight in anticipation of my friend’s wedding.
Jan 24th (day the meals arrived): 196.8lbs
Jan 27th: 194.9lbs
I lost 1.9 lbs over the course of 3 days – while much of it was probably water due to the relatively low carb composition and not fat mass. I stuck to an estimated 1,800 calories per day. Because the meals were already prepared, fairly portion-controlled, it made dieting much easier and pleasant experience.
I’ve done juice “cleanses” before and I honestly I can say that the Factor meals yielded fair weight loss results with minimal change in how I felt (no mental fog or intense hunger pangs).
What would we do differently?
1. One thing we would change is actually order the more calorie heavy meals. At times I had a hard time getting to 1,800 calories on Factor meals alone since I ate two a day that average 600 calories. In short, it would be hard to eat only the factor meals without supplementing with some things from the pantry. They do offer a breakfast option which we didn’t purchase but that could help those who have nothing else in the fridge.
2. We would order a little further in advance if we had known about possible shipping delays. I would probably order one day earlier than I intend to eat the meals and make sure that your fridge or pantry isn’t completely empty to account for delivery time delays or even the possibility that you may be short several meals.
Who factor may not be for:
I do want to note that while the Factor meals appear to be healthy in terms of macro nutrients, they do contain some level of additives and so this meal is not devoid of processed foods. So if you subscribe only to a whole food diet, Factor meals may not be for you.
I personally have not investigated enough regarding how much processing goes into making these meals but they have listed all the ingredients per dish on their website. The ingredients do include sauce thickeners such as Tapioca starch, and a substance called Silicon Dioxide which is used in their Caribbean Spiced Tofu dish.
Would we do it again?
Absolutely! We enjoyed taking one week off of cooking (or in our case it turned out to be 3 days) since it was going to be a festive weekend for our daughter’s first birthday.
We had such a satisfying experience despite some of the mishaps and felt that Factor meals are a good value for how much we paid.
Summary (TLDR)
- Easy, tasty, and budget friendly experience. Would do it again.
- Do order ahead of time – maybe a day earlier than you intend to start just incase they run late.
- Here is a Factor referral link to get some discounts for your first box!