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Trying to decide between Purple Carrot and Green Chef?
These health-focused meal delivery services are both great options, and in this post, we’ll discuss the key differences so you can make the best choice for your tastes and goals.
We’ll kick things off with a big picture comparison and then walk through each service in more detail:
Purple Carrot vs Green Chef: Subscription Comparison
| Green Chef | Purple Carrot | |
|---|---|---|
| All Vegan? | Vegan and non-vegan eating plans | All vegan |
| Cancel anytime? | Yes | Yes |
| USDA Certified organic company? | Yes | No |
| Price | $10.99 – $12.99 per serving | $12 per serving |
| Customer reviews on Trustpilot | 9.3/10, 363 reviews. | Couldn’t find any |
| Promo Codes | Save $40 with THIS LINK. | N/A |
Green Chef — a certified organic company with a vegan plan
greenchef.com
Green Chef is the United State’s “first certified organic and gluten-free meal kit company.”
It was founded in 2014 and recently acquired by the German-based meal delivery giant Hello Fresh.
Unlike Purple Carrot, Green Chef is not an exclusively vegan company, but they do offer a fully vegan subscription plan.
Their other eating plans include:
- Vegetarian
- Gluten-Free
- Omnivore
- Carnivore
- Paleo
- Keto
Green Chef places a strong emphasis on customer satisfaction. According to the popular customer review site Trustpilot, Green Chef’s average rating is 9.3 out of 10, based on 363 reviews.
Translated to the 5-star review scale we’re so used to seeing on Amazon, that would be a 4.65 out of 5 — pretty impressive.
All Green Chef ingredients come “pre-measured, perfectly portioned, and mostly prepped.” Recipes also feature their premade signature sauces, dressings, and spices.
The service helps you save the time you would have spent figuring out what’s for dinner, making a shopping list, going to the store, and measuring out ingredients. It makes healthier eating easier to stick with and lets you discover delicious new healthy meals.
You can skip deliveries when needed or cancel your subscription at any time before the weekly cutoffs.
Green Chef Health Information
greenchef.com
Green Chef is a USDA certified organic company.
They’ve also received a gluten-free certification from the Gluten Intolerance Group’s Gluten-Free Food Service program (applies to the Gluten-Free, Keto (GF), and Paleo (GF) meal plans).
All Green Chef ingredients go through extensive screening to make sure high standards are met.
Green Chef Environmental and Sustainability Info
Like Purple Carrot, Green Chef is a very environmentally conscious company.
They balance 100% of their carbon emissions with sustainable offset programs. They’ve worked with TerraPass to save trees in the City of Arcata Community Forest. And they even invested in the construction of Oklahoma’s Big Smile Wind Farm at Dempsey Ridge.
Also like Purple Carrot, Green Chef provides detailed instructions to help customers recycle the packaging materials that come with their food shipments.
Green Chef Pricing
Green Chef’s two-person meal prices are similar to Purple Carrot’s, ranging from $11.99 – $12.99 per serving, depending on the plan you choose. Whereas Purple Carrot offers free shipping, Green Chef charges $5.99 per box.
Here’s a pricing breakdown for the various plans and menus. Shipping is included in the “price per week.”
Two-Person Plan (Three dinners per week).
| Plan | Price per serving | Price per week |
|---|---|---|
| Vegan | $11.99 | $77.93 per box |
| Vegetarian | $11.99 | $77.93 per box |
| Omnivore | $11.99 | $77.93 per box |
| Carnivore | $11.99 | $77.93 per box |
| Gluten-free | $11.99 | $77.93 per box |
| Paleo | $12.99 | $83.93 per box |
| Keto | $12.99 | $83.93 per box |
Family Plan
Green Chef’s family plan serves four people with two dinners per week. It’s a bit cheaper per serving, but only available for the following menus.
| Eating Plan | Price per serving | Price per week |
|---|---|---|
| Family Omnivore | $10.99 | $93.91 per box |
| Family Carnivore | $10.99 | $93.91 per box |
If you’re trying to feed more than two people and you don’t want the omnivore or carnivore plan, you can order multiple subscriptions for one of the two person plans.
Green Chef is available across the United States, minus Alaska, Hawaii, and parts of Louisiana.
Purple Carrot — an all vegan subscription
purplecarrot.com
Purple Carrot is a 100% plant-based meal delivery service, designed to bring the convenience of meal delivery to the vegan community.
It was founded by a pharmaceutical executive named Andy Levitt. After being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at age 40, Levitt was inspired to make healthy changes in his own life after watching the popular documentary Forks Over Knives.
In January of 2014, Levitt combined his new passion for plants with his experience in business and launched Purple Carrot.
Levitt says, “Plants don’t just have the power to heal our bodies — they have the power to delight our tastebuds and make a better world for future generations.”
Purple Carrot offers 3 different eating plans:
- Quick & Easy (Simple dishes designed to cook in 30 minutes or less)
- High protein (Protein packed meals built to energize)
- Chef’s Choice (Gourmet dishes crafted to elevate your taste buds)
(There’s also a higher-protein, gluten-free plan for athletes called TB12 Performance Meals, developed with Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady. Click here to read more.)
No matter which plan you choose, you’ll receive weekly deliveries with recipes and fresh ingredients to help you prepare delicious vegan meals in less time.
It’s a great way to avoid a trip to the grocery store, save some prep time with pre-portioned ingredients, discover tasty new vegan meals, and get access to vegan ingredients that might not be available in your area.
You can change to a different eating plan whenever you want, skip deliveries when you’re out of town, and cancel your subscription at any time (prior to weekly cutoffs).
Purple Carrot Health Information
purplecarrot.com
On average, Purple Carrot’s meals contain roughly 500 to 800 calories per serving.
The company says the carbs, fats, and proteins in their plant-based meals “combine to form the best calories to energize both body and mind!”
Not all meals are allergy-friendly, but if you reach out to them, Purple Carrot offers to suggest alternative ingredients you could purchase from your grocery store and substitute.
Whereas Green Chef is a certified organic company, Purple Carrot sometimes uses fewer organic, non-GMO ingredients.
When I reached out to their customer service team about this, they said:
“We work with a variety of farmers and vendors across the country and strive to provide a consistent experience in each box. Due to constraints with sourcing, shipping locations, and our desire to provide unique ingredients and recipes, we are sometimes limited in our options for organic (and non-GMO) products.
Please know, this is an important issue to us and we understand it is for you and many of our customers as well! We will continue to look into the avenues we could take to increase the number of organic products used in our kits.”
Purple Carrot Environmental and Sustainability Info
As an all vegan company, Purple Carrot doesn’t use animal products in its recipes.
Their packaging is almost completely reusable, recyclable, biodegradable, or compostable.
Shipping boxes are made from recycled materials for a lower carbon footprint, and the company encourages you to break down and recycle these cardboard boxes after you use them.
Food is kept fresh in transit using non-toxic ice packs. After melting, you can cut the packs open, dispose of the non-toxic gel in your trash, and recycle the leftover plastic. You can also freeze the packs and re-use them in lunchboxes for work, ice chests on a camping trip, etc. Similar products cost roughly $10, so this is a smart strategy.
Each shipping box is made using recycled material to reduce the company’s carbon footprint. These cardboard boxes can be broken down and recycled after use.
Here is Purple Carrot’s full tip sheet for recycling or upcycling their shipping materials.
Purple Carrot Pricing
For each of its three standard plans (Quick & Easy, High protein, Chef’s Choice), Purple Carrot’s weekly subscription comes with three dinners that each serve two people. Like Green Chef, if you have more than two people to feed, you simply order multiple subscriptions.
The price is $12 per plate, and shipping is free. That makes for a weekly total of $72 (roughly $6 cheaper per week than Green Chef).
(TB12 Meals come with 2 servings of 3 meals per week for $78 — $13 per plate.)
Purple Carrot does not delivery to Alaska and Hawaii, but it is available in the 48 contiguous United States.
Green Chef vs Purple Carrot: Which is right for you?
Let’s summarize the key differences between Green Chef and Purple Carrot.
Green Chef is is a certified organic company with vegan and non-vegan eating plans. The company balances 100% of its carbon emissions and has excellent customer reviews on Trustpilot.
Purple Carrot is a fully vegan company with several vegan eating plans to choose from. It is roughly $6 cheaper per week than Green Chef’s vegan plan.
Whether you’re vegan, vegetarian, or simply looking for ways to eat better, these two services can help you eat tasty meals with less stress. We hope this head-to-head review will help you make the decision that’s best for your tastes and health goals.