Fresh Prep (Cook it) — Restaurant in Montreal

• UPDATE jul 17: Apparently you have to publicly address issues with Cook It as you can see from their response below. I had previously reached out to the email multiple times and they did not actually address any of my concerns as they do in this PUBLIC response below. They offered me a 15$ "credit" for the disgusting turkey and i had to insist on them actually crediting my credit card the full value of my meal. Every single other point in this Google review was in my email to them and they willfully chose to ignore me. Shame on you Cook It. Do better. You have my contact information if you actually want to talk and get client feedback.

We have been clients of Cook It for two solid years, and had used their services for a while back in 2016/2017. The menus were always very original, fresh and seasonal. The quality was fantastic.

However, ever since they got acquired by Fresh Prep in February 2024, the quality and service has dramatically gone down.

There are less recipe options than ever now and the ones available are boring and carb heavy. It's the peak of summer and they have no salads on the menu - strange for a company that says at least 50% of produce is local. They keep changing the web platform and menu configuration. They stopped delivering on Monday's which is our preferred day of the week to get our meals.

Plastic packaging has dramatically increased - the most glaring thing is they stopped sending fresh lemons and limes and started sending lemon/lime juice in plastic bags.

We kept getting rotten produce and lower quality products, deliveries were increasingly late or delayed.

The cost cutting measures by the new owners are blatant and lack respect for long term clients.

Yesterday, we received a package of ground turkey that repulsed us so much we had to throw it out. It looks like chicken liver pâté. See photo attached.

When i wrote to Cook It to complain and explain my general dissatisfaction, I got a stock response giving me a 15$ credit that doesn't even cover the price of the entire meal.

So we have now paused our subscription and will be trying out one of their competitors.

Very sad that this formerly locally owned and operated company is now just an outpost for Fresh Prep - they might as well be honest and fully rebrand. Their menus offered in Montreal are exactly the same they offer on...

UPDATE JUNE 2021: I hesitate to still recommend, but definitely only to Montreal and people who value an interesting menu. Dropping by only one star as I suspect this service is excellent in Montreal and because the supply chain issues aren't their fault. We've seen the quality decline over the last 11 months; Perhaps just due to Covid-19. Started to run into a lot of repeat meals. Vegetables started to arrive bad regularly and things like that.

They have pre-made butter chicken pictured orange, but arrived bland and entirely yellow every time. When I inquired about them sending me the wrong meal (for calorie counting), Customer Support was awful to work with. They insisted the tomatoes were blended in; That's nonsense with how yellow it is. At least they admitted the calories listed as 200 on the site, when it should actually be 800.

Most addons are impractical overpriced vegan snacks, but even the prepackaged carrots don't last a week in the fridge. With all that said though, the meals you cook yourself were never ever bland.

ORIGINAL REVIEW JULY 2020: We've tried all the meal delivery boxes available to Ontario in Summer 2020 and used another service for about a year before that and this is our favourite service that we'll be sticking with for the foreseeable future. The produce is as fresh (if not more) than what we would buy from the grocery store. The thing that really sets CookIT apart from others is the variety of flavours and meals on the menu. Why eat out ever again when we eat like this all the time. We'll be spoiled from mediocre food forever.

Their communication is clear. I love their pantry options to stock up on produce to our door. I love that the photos on the direction cards are taken from someone actually cooking the meal. I love that they support Canadian farmers.

Some things I hope to see in the future: Flexible portions per meal, like a large 6-person-meal (freezer prep), a 2-person-meal of fish and two 4-person-meals (dinner and lunch for the next day). Clarity in website design for order edits. I thought I switched all future meals back to four 4-person-meals, but it only changed it for that week. More practical pantry options. For example, glass yogurt cups are phenomenal, but impractical...

I've been using Cook It since October of 2021. The choices every week are really good, sometimes I have a hard time narrowing it down to 3 meals. The rewards program is interesting. The pantry items are pretty expensive though. There was a donation option at one point which I loved and I wish they would make it a permanent option. I would definitely use more star points for donating food.

I've had some ups and downs but overall the support team usually came through. Once I received the wrong protein for the meal so I ended up using something else from my freezer but they refunded me for the missing item after sending them an email. Recently I received the wrong ingredients bag for the recipe I ordered and had to go through customer service to figure out what the recipe was so that I don't waste the ingredients that I did receive. Again, customer service was pretty good with that. It was just mostly annoying having to deal with all that in the first place but I was satisfied in the end.

The person(s) putting the ingredients in the bags needs to pay more attention because I have had missing ingredients also in a few but those weren't anything major.

I have to agree with the other comments about the lack of seasonings. I tweak almost every recipe I get by adding spices or ingredients in general. Also some of the directions are a bit ridiculous imo so often I cook it the way I would instead of following the card.

There was one recipe I ordered for brunch, it was a french toast with cinnamon apples and I have to say I threw it out almost immediately after making it. The amount of spice mix they provided and instructed to use was absurd. It was just way way way too much.

The recipe cards are really great quality. I've saved them all and have them in a binder. However, it's 4 or 5 times that I receive my cards in the wrong language. I've opted for my cards to be in English and I've gotten them in French. I think that is one of the things that frustrated me the most. Yes you can print them yourself but that's not the option I chose...

With all that said, overall it's a very decent...