HelloFresh: A Delicious, Healthy Solution for a COVID-19 Struck World

Meal kit companies are not new. They’ve been around for several years at this point. Chances are good that you’ve probably checked into one or two of them at some point during that time. However, they’re finally starting to come into their own, thanks in large part to the benefits and advantages they provide in a world struggling with COVID-19, lockdowns, quarantines, and social distancing.

Meal Kits: A Perfect Solution

Despite government action, COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc around the world. Many people are still working remotely. We’ve cut down on going out, interacting with friends and family, and have canceled events large and small. All of this in the name of preventing the virus from spreading from person to person while we wait for a vaccine to be developed.

However, most of us haven’t been able to cut out those trips to the grocery store. Food is vital for life, and the only sure way to get high-quality, delicious food is to go to the store and buy it. Or is it? If you take a look at a HelloFresh Canada review, you’ll find that the service has a very high satisfaction rating, but also delivers fresh, locally-sourced, pre-portioned food right to your door.

Your Risk for COVID-19 at the Grocery Store

For many people, a trip to the grocery store doesn’t sound all that risky. After all, you’re not packed too closely with other people. You’re able to turn around and go the other way down an aisle if it’s too congested, too.

The truth is that your risk does rise in a grocery store. It increases anytime you’re out of your home or around someone who isn’t part of your regular household. Despite the fact that grocery stores have implemented safety guidelines, are requiring masks, and have turned many aisles into one-way streets, that risk remains.

Where does it come from? Here’s a quick breakdown:

• Poor Mask Wearing: While most people are wearing masks, some choose not to do so. Perhaps they take them off on entering the store. Maybe the store staff was worried about confronting them on the way into the store. It could be that they’re wearing a mask only over their mouth and not their nose. These individuals increase everyone’s risk because their exhalations aren’t filtered through a mask, meaning that virus-laden droplets are left suspended in the air and land on the very food you’re buying.

• The COVID-19 Lifespan: COVID-19 has been shown to live for a very long time after being expelled from the body. The virus can live for three to seven days on plastic and steel. It can live up to four days on paper and 24 hours on cardboard. Even wood allows the virus to survive for up to two days. So, even if you don’t come into contact with someone directly, it is still possible that they may cough on a cereal box or sneeze near the produce and the virus will still come home with you.

• The Need to Clean Things: While grocery stores are doing their best to clean high-touch surfaces, such as grocery cart handles, it takes longer to clean other things in the store that might harbor the virus. For instance, the handles on cooler and freezer doors can be sources of infection. The shelving on an endcap, the display that holds that candy that your child wants so very badly…these are just a few of the things that should be cleaned regularly.

Simply going to the grocery store is a gamble. Is the chance that you’ll contract COVID-19 while shopping as high as, say, going to a restaurant or having a drink in a bar? No, it’s not. However, it’s not negligible, either. Meal kits allow you to reduce that risk even further by limiting or even eliminating the need for frequent grocery shopping.

Social Distancing Benefits at a Glance

One of the most crucial steps to limiting the spread of COVID-19 is to reduce your contact with those outside your home. HelloFresh (and other meal kit companies, to be honest), allow you to do that in several ways. Here are the benefits at a glance:

• Most delivery companies will happily leave your food right at the door, which means you don’t have to come into contact with the driver/delivery person, either.

• Fewer trips out of the house mean less need to stop for gas, thus eliminating contact with potentially infected fuel pumps, and no need to go inside gas stations and interact with employees or customers.

• Less driving overall means limiting wear and tear on your vehicle. With less wear and tear, you need fewer oil changes, put less wear on tires, and more. All of that means fewer trips to the mechanic and less interaction with other people.

There are some important knock-on benefits to be found here, as well. For instance, if you’re going out less often, you need to use fewer disposable facemasks and gloves. Not only does that ensure there are more available for healthcare workers and essential employees, but it also mitigates your impact on the landfill.

Speaking of waste, ordering from a meal kit company also helps you reduce the number of single-use plastics out in the wild. Most grocery stores today require that you use disposable plastic shopping bags and won’t allow you to use reusable bags to prevent the virus from spreading through contact with the fabric, even though single-use plastics are dangerous to the environment.

Safety Measures to Protect Your Food

The benefits of using a meal kit company like HelloFresh don’t just extend to your contact with other people. You’ll also find that the very food you’re eating is safer thanks to the significant safety measures many of these companies are putting in place. For instance, HelloFresh guarantees that:

• All of their food goes through in-depth safety checks. That means it has been thoroughly cleaned (in the case of fresh produce) and is packaged in COVID-safe packaging for your health and peace of mind.

• Food suppliers are monitored for adherence to best-practices and essential steps for public health. For instance, all workers are required to wear masks and other safety gear, observe social distancing measures, and take additional precautions to limit their exposure, thereby reducing your exposure.

• Drivers wear masks and gloves. That helps to mitigate the chance of the virus contaminating any of the food delivery boxes on their truck, or any other surfaces they come into contact with. Drivers also change their gloves regularly (facemasks too, when disposable masks are in use).

• All vehicles are disinfected regularly. Regular disinfection helps to eradicate any potential virus within the vehicle, on surfaces like the steering wheel, gear shift, door handles, or even in the cargo area. When combined with safe handling practices and other procedures, the result is a dramatic reduction in the potential for transmitting the virus.

• No-contact delivery is an option for customers. That means you don’t have to be present to take delivery of your box – there’s not even a signature required. The driver will simply leave your box at your door (or another pre-determined place if you don’t want door delivery) and be on their way. Once they’re gone, you can retrieve the box from your porch and take whatever precautions you deem necessary.

• All employees are provided with health checks. From taking their temperature to assessing health symptoms, meal kit companies like HelloFresh are determined to help ensure that their employees are healthy and fit. It’s one of the most important ways to ensure the safety of their customers, but also plays a critical role in contact tracing.

The Advantages of Locally-Sourced Foods

As mentioned, some meal kit companies source the foods included in each kit from your local area. There are quite a few benefits here. Of course, there are the obvious ones, such as reducing carbon emissions, eliminating the need for warehousing, and the ability to enjoy fresher, healthier food.

However, there are other advantages on offer with locally-sourced foods, particularly in the age of COVID-19. Many local growers and producers have experienced a reduction in orders due in large part to COVID-19 regulations. When meal kit companies source their foods locally, that means more business for these businesses and helps prevent small family farms and ranches from failing.

A Meal Plan for Everyone

As you can see, there are plenty of reasons that meal kit companies like HelloFresh are part of the answer to COVID-19. From limiting your interaction with other people to reducing your use of PPE and other vital equipment and even helping reduce waste, you’ll reap many benefits. Not the least of these is the broad range of meal plans on offer. Whether you’ve got a small family or a large one, are vegetarian or love meat, want just a little help or a lot, you can find the perfect solution to help ensure you and your loved ones have access to delicious, healthy food.