Companies offer meal-kit delivery for university students

Students sick of dining-hall diets may soon find solace in a new meal-delivery service catered specifically to them.

Chef’d, a national delivery company, and the college food publication Spoon University collaborated to create ready-to-eat meals, which students can receive by mail once a week. They began to deliver them to the 48 lower U.S. states in February.

The kits, which include ready-to-eat meals, snacks and fresh produce, are designed as an alternative to universities’ traditional dining plans, wrote Robert Jones, the Chef’d senior vice president of business development, in an email.

The kits, packaged in temperature-controlled boxes, will include two double-portioned meals, six grab-and-go meals and 10 snacks and beverages, he said. It costs $99 a week.

“These kits are designed to fulfill about 80 to 85% of a student’s weekly food necessities, as students will still go out to eat with friends,” he said.

He said the kits will give busy college students easy ways to eat healthier meals and navigate their kitchens for what may be the first time.

Jimmy Laurin, a UF Spanish freshman, said he hadn’t heard of the meal kits but thinks it would be more convenient than UF’s meal plans, especially because students wouldn’t have to leave their residence hall to eat.

“It’s got everything included,” the 19-year-old said. “I definitely think that’s more convenient.”

Laurin said he enjoys UF’s dining plan, despite recent cockroach sightings in UF’s two on-campus dining halls.

“I haven’t personally experienced any of the controversy about the dining hall,” he said.

On Feb. 9, Zach Isler, a UF pharmacology freshman, posted a video of what appear to be 10 baby cockroaches crawling inside Fresh Food Company to Facebook groups.

Carly Patterson, 19, said while the meal kits would allow her to prepare food however she likes, it would be a waste of money because she already has a meal plan.

“Broward Dining is, like, on campus and is literally, like, a three-minute walk, and I would feel kind of lazy,” the UF animal sciences freshman said.