Green Chef Review – What You Need To Know Before You Buy

If you've heard much about meal subscription boxes, you've likely heard of Green Chef. In this Green Chef review, our goal is to explain what you get with their subscription, what we and other people think about them, and how to try it for yourself in the most frugal ways possible using coupon codes and free trials.

Meal boxes are delivered with detailed instructions helpful pictures (not ambiguous illustrations), and food packets are color to make assembly faster.

Green Chef is ideal for the health-conscious who are willing to pay just a couple dollars more to make the healthy choice.

Even though their meal prices are a tad higher than the competition, it's because their meals are healthier, and they use organic ingredients. For the health-conscious, it's a great value.

However, there are numerous complaints about customer service not properly resolving important issues (mostly billing-related).

All in all, we say it's worth the money, but only if you get lucky and don't run into billing issues with the company.

Green Chef is a meal delivery subscription service through which you can select fresh, organic meals with recipes to be delivered to your doorstep. What makes this particular service unique (we'll go over even more unique attributes later) is that in addition to traditional meat-based meals, they also offer meals that are vegan, vegetarian, paleo, or gluten-free.

And if you're a little wary of all the food subscription box companies popping up all over the place, here's a little info about the company to help put your mind at ease…

​The "Green Chef Corporation" was founded on September 12, 2014 in Denver, CO (Colorado) by Michael Joseph, who is now both Founder and CEO. Their Executive Chef Dana Murrell, who has an associates degree in culinary arts, has been with the company since it was founded in 2014 (sources: BBB Profile and Green Chef Team page).

The company has a Better Business Bureau (BBB) rating of "A" (at the time of this writing), which is very good. The rating is based on how long the company has been in business, how transparent their business practices are, and a number of other factors.​

One more note about their BBB profile. You may notice that the company is technically not "BBB Accredited," but that is not necessarily a negative indication. It simply means the company hasn't requested accreditation (which requires a fee), and a lot of companies either don't care to do so or don't know about the BBB.​

There are four main steps to getting your own Green Chef box:

While doing research to write this Green Chef review, we discovered a lot of billing related complaints, so we thought we'd include a special section on how to cancel your subscription.

​You can either skip an order, change your selection, or cancel your entire subscription plan up to 7 days before your delivery date (you can get your exact delivery date when you're logged into your account under the "Delivery Schedule" section). Skipping or changing your order is easy, and you can do it simply by logging into your account at greenchef.com. If you want to cancel, email cancel@greenchef.com and you'll get an automated response with instructions on how to cancel. At the time of this writing, the following link takes you directly to a page where you can cancel your subscription, as long as you're logged in: https://greenchef.com/#/cancel

If you need help with an order or just want to interact with a human being about account-related concerns, you can get in touch with the Green Chef customer service team by email at help@greenchef.com, by phone at (888) 236-7295 (hours are Monday-Friday, 7am - 5pm PT), or through their online contact form here.

Green Chef meals come in various sizes and options. Pricing is included below.

*Price Per Week includes a $9 shipping/delivery fee (deliveries arrive once per week)

The three main things that make Green Chef unique compared to its competitors are the diet friendly options, the organic ingredients, and the eco-friendly packaging.

The most unique thing about Green Chef, in my opinion, is the variety of diet-friendly options they offer. Whether you're vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, paleo, or a meat-lover, there's a special meal option just for you. Something important to note (I didn't notice this till I began the sign-up process) is that that the family plans (2 meals for 4 people) only have "omnivore" and "carnivore" options (no options for vegan, paleo, etc).

So if you're a family of 4, you'll either have to make do with 1.5 meals on the "2 Person" plan, or sign up for two of the "2 Person" plans and get the equivalent of 3 meals for 4 people each week.

Green Chef's speciality diet options are a little pricier than their competitors such as Hello Fresh, Blue Apron, Home Chef, and others. So while these meals may not technically be the most frugal option, it's not all that more expensive for those who are more health conscious and/or with dietary restrictions.

All of the meal options I've seen at Green Chef are labeled "organic," and numerous places on their website they make reference to their "healthy organic meals," which leads me to believe that being "organic" is intentional. They also include a list of ingredients on each recipe on their website, and most of the ingredients are labeled "organic."

For the environmentally conscious, you'll be glad to know that Green Chef's packaging is eco-friendly.

The shipping box is cardboard, which of course is recyclable (I know, nothing unique there).

The insulation is partially plant-based and is also recyclable.

The ice packs contain non-toxic gel so you can drain it out into the trash can and recycle the plastic film wherever #4 plastic film is accepted, or better yet just keep the ice packs in the freezer and reuse them or give them to others who can use them.​

​The paper bags are made of 100% post-consumer recycled paper, so you can recycle them or even put them in the compost for your garden!

The plastic bags can be recycled wherever #4 plastic film is accepted.​

The paperboard boxes that carry some of the vegetables are made of 100% recycled paperboard and are also recyclable wherever wet strength paperboard is accepted.​

The plastic jars that carry sauces and salad dressings can be reused (although they are not microwave safe) and can be recycled wherever #5 plastics are accepted.

The plastic packets that carry other sauces can be recycled wherever #4 plastic film is accepted.

We've not only come up with our own opinions of Green Chef for this review; we've also read other people's reviews and feedback too, and our goal here is to give you a birds-eye view of what other people think about the company, the food, and the service.​

In a nutshell, most people are happy with the food and the ease of preparation, but there is numerous complaints about customer service.

​ConsumerReports gives Green Chef and overall rating of "Excellent" and says it's ideal for those who "follow a certain diet style." They were also quick to point out that all of the meal options are organic, which is very appealing to those who are health-conscious. But scroll below the review and there are plenty of reader-submitted comments complaining about billing issues.

Numerous comments about Green Chef on Yelp are favorable (although a couple are negative), speaking well of the freshness and quality of the food, and once again praising the various diet-friendly meal options. But also once again, a handful of complaints about billing issues.​

There are plenty of complaints on the Green Chef BBB profile (Better Business Bureau), most about billing related issues.​

So let's talk about these billing complaints...

Some customers have complained about being billed earlier than expected. While it wouldn't erk me much to be billed a couple days before planned, I can understand how this could be problematic. If you go into this being aware of this potential issue and make sure you have enough money in your checking account to pay your subscription, I wouldn't expect to run into any problems.

​Others have expressed frustration with the amount of advanced notice required to change or cancel upcoming orders. According to this official support article, a minimum of 7 days advance notice is required to change or cancel an upcoming order, or to cancel the subscription altogether. So please be sure you understand what terms you are agreeing to before signing up for a subscription. Be particularly careful if you sign up through a free trial offer, because you will get billed unless you cancel first. Tip: mark the day on your calendar that you need to cancel to avoid being charged, and set a reminder for the day before to make sure you're covered.

That said, there are still a couple complaints from people who claim they were billed even after they requested to cancel their subscription and that after reaching out to customer service they were still unable to get their money refunded and had to resort to getting the bill taken care of through their credit card company.

While we are technically unable to verify or deny these complaints, we searched extensively and couldn't find any place where Green Chef has acknowledged these issues and addressed them in anyway. It's complaints like these (specifically the lack of support form customer service) that lead us to give Green Chef a lower "Customer Service" rating (3/5). It's unfortunate because the food itself has so much praise!​

What are your experiences with Green Chef? Please take a moment to share your feedback below this article to help other readers (and us, too!).

Compared to other meal subscription box subscriptions like Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, Plated, etc., Green Chef pricing is a little bit more expensive. However, it's arguably justifiable because the ingredients are truly organic.

Green Chef only provides entries for either lunch or dinner, while Blue Apron has breakfast meal options plus add-ons like fruits or smoothies.​

Also compared to other meal boxes, Green Chef has a stronger reputation of having poor customer service and frustrating billing issues.​

On a positive note, Green Chef offers a wider variety of meal options for those with dietary restrictions (gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian, etc).

If you're looking for a great deal, we've compiled a couple for you here!

Disclaimer: deals change quickly and we try our best to keep the latest deals up to date on this page, but some deals listed below might not be available anymore.

​You can get 2 meals free on your first order by using this link (no promo code required). Previous promotions offered 4 months free.

At this time, we were not able to find any promo codes, but we did find this page which allows you to redeem a coupon (promo code) if you happen to find one.​

In the past, Groupon has featured a Green Chef deal starting at 50% off the order. At the time of this writing, the deal is not active, but you can check the current Green Chef Groupon offer here.​

Already a Green Chef subscriber? Get $25 off a future order by referring a friend (credit comes after they're billed for their second delivery). More details here.

Have a birthday or special occasion coming up? You can ask for the gift of Green Chef. Gift cards aren't available, but it is possible to send someone a meal box as a gift.

If you're like me, you like to know exactly what you're getting into before you enter you email and begin registering somewhere. That's why I've taken screenshots of each step of the sign up process for Green Chef, so you don't have to face any annoying surprises (spoiler alert: the process is simple and straightforward with no surprises to worry about)

On the first page of the sign up process, all you have to enter is your email address and zip code, then click Continue.

Next, choose either the "2-Person Plan" or "Family Plan" option.

As with most meal subscription boxes, Green Chef does not have a "single person" plan, but singles could try the 2-person plan and just eat left-overs the next day or the next meal. Likewise families of more than 4 could make both dinners in one night.

Here's where you get to chose a diet-friendly meal, such as vegan, paleo, gluten-free, etc.

Also, choose when you want your delivery to arrive. To keep the food as fresh as possible, you may want to consider timing the delivery for the same day you plan to prepare your first meal.

Here's where you enter your payment method and look over the order before placing it. We recommend taking note of the phone number in the fine print below the "Complete Order" button so you can cancel your order if/when you need to.

So, what's the final verdict? Is Green Chef worth it? Are they a scam or are they legit?​

No, they're not a scam. But it it's not worth it for everyone.

If you're health conscious or have dietary restrictions, we say go for it, but proceed with caution. But if you take away anything from reading this Green Chef review, take our advice and use a credit card to sign up so you can get help from your credit card company if you run into any billing issues.​

If you're new to getting meals through subscription box services, or you don't care so much about whether your food is organic, we recommend alternative options, such as Blue Apron or Home Chef, which offer slightly less expensive meal options and have a better reputation than Green Chef for providing excellent customer support.

But if you want to give them a try anyway, here's a link to get started with Green Chef.