This is a comparison between two vegan, plant-based meal subscription services: Splendid Spoon and Purple Carrot. We conducted this review by looking at product reviews across multiple sites and analyzing the descriptions of each service. In this guide we compare each plan’s goal, price, food quality, taste, and recycling & waste.

Back in June, we were contacted by Splendid Spoon for a review. To read our thoughts in full, head HERE.

If you’re deciding between these two brands or looking for more information, hopefully this comparison between plant-based meal subscriptions will help!

Here are the sections to be covered in the article:

PLAN NICHES | PRICE | FOOD QUALITY & TASTE | RECYCLING & WASTE

PLAN NICHES

Let’s start off with what makes each plan different. There’s plenty of meal options out there but today we’re discussing Splendid Spoon and Purple Carrot.

If you weren’t aware, Splendid Spoon is a subscription meal delivery service that caters to a pretty specific demographic.

Their tagline does a great job explaining: “Busy can be healthy.”

And as someone who’s balancing school, a full time role, and the general necessities of life, can be quite enticing.

Splendid Spoon offers ready-to-eat, nutritious smoothies, soups, and grail bowls - all of them being plant-based. Their goal is to create healthy meals that strengthen your breakfast and lunch routines. If you’re like me and have difficulty keeping a routine due to the thing called life, Splendid Spoon can be a gamechanger.

And if you're someone who is always thinking about GMO-free ingredients or looking for gluten-free options, then Splendid Spoon is great. Each meal, like previously stated, is plant-based, gluten-free, and GMO-free. They’re also low in sugar and sodium. Plus, if you’re someone with a packed schedule or someone who prefers a quick and easy refreshment, each meal is meant to be quick, filling, and nutrient-dense!

Here’s how it works. There are currently four different plans to choose from:
1. Lunch
2. Breakfast & Lunch
3. Breakfast, Lunch & Reset (Soup)
4. Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, & Reset (Soup)

In our review we had the Lunch plan, which can be read in full here.

Purple Carrot’s Niche

When you head over to PurpleCarrot.com you’re greeted with colorful photos of plant-based meals. Like Splendid Spoon, each meal is 100 percent vegan.

They’re goal is to provide healthy, nutritious meals that can be cooked in 30 minutes or less. Purple Carrot offers three meal options: breakfast, lunch, and snacks. Rather than focusing on creating quick meals to go, Purple Carrot aims to establish healthy eating options that are filling and nutrition-dense, but most importantly, delicious.

Purple Carrot is also great for those who love meal prepping. Like myself, it’s rewarding to cook a meal’s worth of tasty food as I look forward to it every day. Plus, when I was working in the office, I would love hearing my coworkers go “Oh that looks tasty!” or “Wow, that smells really good!”

The company ships you your meal kit each week with ingredients depending on the plan you select. However, Purple Carrot choses your delivery day as its shipping is dependent on your proximity to its distribution center. I’ve read reviews that state their Purple Carrot Box arrived at 8 p.m. on a Thursday - far later than I personally would have preferred.

PRICE

Splendid Spoon:

Breakfast - $65 for 5 Smoothies

Lunch - $65 for 5 Bowls

Breakfast & Lunch - $95 for 5 Smoothies, 5 Soup & Grain Bowls

Breakfast, Lunch & Reset - $135 for 5 Smoothies, 5 Grain Bowls, and 5 Light Soups

Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner & Reset Plan (Soup) - $185 for 5 Smoothies, 5 Soup & Grain Bowls, 5 Noodles, and 5 Light Soups

Purple Carrot

2 Servings Plan (3 or 4 Dinners per week) - First Week: $52, After: $72

4 Servings Plan (2 or 3 Dinners per week) - First Week: $60, After: $80

As always, I recommend checking each website to gauge which works best for you and the variety you’d like. We loved our Splendid Spoon plan and are currently waiting on Purple Carrot’s 2 Servings Plan!

FOOD QUALITY AND TASTE

Splendid Spoon
It’s important to note the challenge in shipping food across great distances. We’ve read of users dealing with food that arrived recently-spoiled, damaged, or even inedible. Thankfully all of our meals arrived perfect with Splendid Spoon. Hats off to their logistics department!

From our single shipment, we received five smoothies and five bowls. Starting off with the smoothies, we felt that they were good and certainly tasty but lacked a strong flavor profile. Don’t get me wrong, they were good but they could be better. After thinking it over we think the flavor profile would shine through if Splendid Spoon focused on three to four main ingredients rather than the nine listed.

Another thing is to consider the price per smoothie. When Kate drank her first smoothie she mentioned how tasty it was and that she'd pay a few dollars for it. After some quick research, the cheapest Splendid Spoon option nears $9 per smoothie, clearly above our budget expectations.

However, the bowls were great and the perfect size for lunch. The portion size were just enough to feel satisfied but still have room for dinner. Plus that had sent us a wonderful variety of Indian, Moroccan, Mexican, Italian, and Chinese grain bowls! Overall we were impressed with both the taste and variety of the bowls.

But just like the smoothies, each bowl rounded up to $9 per meal. While they were good, it’s hard to justify that amount when there are less expensive options available. Again, if you’re a busy person, this plan is perfect for you.

Rating: 7/10

Purple Carrot

According to several reviews floating around online, Purple Carrot excelled in packaging ingredients to arrive intact but largely fell flat when it came to delivery times. However, we’ll be taking delivery times out of this equation and focusing on the overall quality of this plant-based meal subscription service.

Purple Carrot’s quality has left folks feeling like there’s more to be desired. As pretty as the ingredients were, the final dishes lacked flavor. One reviewer described their experience as “like a bunch of salad ingredients without anything to tie them together.”

Also some bowls didn’t include seasonings or flavor-packed ingredients like garlic. While I’m sure everyone has salt, pepper, and garlic powder tucked away in their kitchen, seasonings were not packaged nor mentioned in Purple Carrot’s recipes. Compare this to Splendid Spoon’s prepackaged flavorful bowls, it’s clear improvements should be made.

However, if you’re someone who wants to start eating a plant-based diet but is unsure where to start, then Purple Carrot is for you. Putting aside seasoning-observations, learning how to cook your own vegan meals is, literally, one of the most important steps in your plant-based journey.

Rating: 6/10

Recycling and Waste

Splendid Spoon

One thing we loved about our Splendid Spoon was that everything was recyclable. Even down to the paper-based insulation paper. The meals are frozen prior to shipping and arrived already thawing. While this was a new concept to us, we had no issues with food quality. Because of their prefrozen-focus, there’s no need for gel packs. Gel packs are filled with chemicals that help regulate temperatures but have been proven to be harmful for the environment. Overall, I loved Splendid Spoon’s approach to recycling and waste and I wish more plant-based meal subscriptions followed their lead. Rating, 10/10.

Purple Carrot

One thing I’ve read is that Purple Carrot’s packaging is carefully designed to be well insulted and easily recycled. Boxes are lined with fiber insulation encased in plastic wrap with gel packs keeping food cold. What surprised me is that the insulation is made of recycled cotton that can easily be dropped off at your county’s recycling center. The plastic wrap and gel packs are recyclable, however, it may not be possible within your area. One thing I enjoyed was breaking the cardboard down as it was a few simple folds. Compare that to some of the packages I’ve received with a wacky design made me feel like I was dealing with a package from Amazon.

Overall, we give them a 7/10 on recycling and waste.

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