Food subscription boxes, local suppliers, and even restaurant meal kits have become popular options during lockdown. What meals-in-a-box have you been ordering?
Popping out to the supermarket can still prove to be an enduring challenge, even as lockdown restrictions begin to ease.
Stores have upgraded their safety measures against the virus, which is better for your health, but may make it more difficult shopping for your next meal.
Having your groceries delivered seems even harder, with so many community members sharing their experiences of waiting weeks for a single delivery, staying up late to book a slot, and even then not getting all of the groceries they had hoped for.
Local deliveries
When supermarkets haven’t been able to deliver, some of you have told us how you’re looking to more local suppliers:
…Our greengrocer has taken on extra vans and drivers and supplies an excellent veg or fruit box. He also supplies bread, dairy, deli, alcohol. Everything of the highest quality. Am a hugely grateful customer. Our 2 butchers will also provide deliveries for phone orders. In addition our farm shop provides everything. All of these suppliers are easy to book and have never had a problem with 2 or 3 day delivery.
Peter Matthews
We get deliveries from the butchers, greengrocers, delicatessen, health food shop, fishmonger, local gourmet restaurant doing frozen take-aways and local Indian restaurant, and our regular milkman delivers eggs, bread, butter, potatoes etc.
Gordon
Or even turned to online marketplaces:
If you have Amazon Prime Now in your area, they can do same day grocery deliveries. Their bandwidth seems to be quite high because I’ve not struggled to get slots through the whole lockdown, where every other store – Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury, Morrisons (with slots), Ocado, Waitrose etc – has failed me.
Rick
Food by subscription
Subscription boxes go one step further by both helping you plan meals, and delivering all of the ingredients you need to your doorstep.
Other options for subscription boxes include cheeses, gin, chocolate, coffee, and more.
Some of our colleagues around Which? have weighed in on which food subscription boxes are worth trying.
Restaurant meal kits
With dine-in service not a possibility, some restaurants had started to offer a meal kit service enabling you to get the taste you’re after – so as long as you’re happy to cook it yourself.
One business idea created during lockdown is ‘Lockdown Lobsters‘ – created so that people could support the fishing industry. It’s been such a success that it’s going to continue.
They deliver the lobster to your home and you can prepare and cook it yourself. This gives people the opportunity to try lobster for a lower price at home rather than an expensive restaurant.
For me, lockdown afforded me the chance for my only Michelin-starred takeaway, delivered directly from Mayfair anywhere inside the M25 within an hour.
Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t the cheapest takeaway I’ve ordered by far. Equally though, when else will I get to enjoy that level of cooking at my own dining table?
Share your experiences
If you’ve been having food deliveries apart from supermarkets, how has the experience been?
Has it given you a chance to explore new types of food, or maybe new recipes or styles of cooking?
Has it raised any other concerns or issues for you, such as the quality of the food you’re getting, amounts of packaging, keeping the food fresh, cost, or something else?
Has lockdown changed how you feel you might shop for food in the future at all?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
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