WECO - meal deliveries in the greater Boston area

A friend mentioned hearing about them. I ordered 3 meals but won’t be a repeat customer. They post the menu for the next week on Thursday. There are adult and kid’s meal options, with different items depending on category. Delivery is $6 but pickup in West Concord is available, and they are opening a Randolph location. Here’s where it gets odd. Your meal is delivered in a brown bag, with elaborate printed suggestions about how to heat it up, using multiple pans and procedures, apparently oblivious to the likelihood that it will either get tossed in one pan and oven-warmed, or nuked. That evening, they send an email announcing the cost of the ingredients, not broken down. You are supposed to then decide what to pay, in addition to ingredients, tip, tax, and delivery, in order to cover labor, utilities, etc. The suggested options start at $10. $8+ for the ingredients in a pint of mushroom/truffle oil/parmesan soup and a mini- baguette of garlic bread. $14+ for a palm-sized slice of pork loin, a portion of baby carrots, about 10oz of tabbouleh, and a scant pint of pilaf. Plus 2oz each of rhubarb chutney and saffron yogurt.

CookUnity can ship me a dinner of short ribs, Brussels sprouts, and sweet potatoes for $12 total. So I can’t imagine WECO’s ingredient costs are accurate. Furthermore, the taste is okay, but if I were still able to cook as much as I’d like, I would have put some chicken broth and onion into thst soup, and not used twice as much pepper as needed! The beef enchilada kid’s meal, with plain rice and plain black beans, was okay, and a generous portion.

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I hadn’t heard of this service. How utterly disappointing for you. But thanks for the report.

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I have a feeling that one of the worst possible omens for a business is customers looking at their bill and saying “I don’t know, something just doesn’t seem right”.

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Reviving this old thread to add a more updated experience report. I remember a short segment on them on Chronicle within the last 2 years and found their model intriguing. They came into my line of sight because they are trying to pitch themselves to corporations as a benefit/wellness benefit for employees.

With that, I was allowed to try a few dishes and give feedback. I was pleasantly surprised by the experience. Similar to @greygarious’ experience, the menu is still released about 3-4 days before, and they warn that some foods sell out quickly. The food does come in the morning and they suggest if you have a cooler to leave that out, or add text to describe where they should put your food. It’s the same brown bag with instructions and a QR code in case you want online instructions. The menu’s I saw had an estimate of the ingredient price, and most ranged from $8-13, so you know before you select. It’s a limited menu each day (and each day has a small rotation of items) and you can see that some items are likely breakfast items, 1 kid sized meal, and then also a bigger family of 4 sized meal (that option usually was low 20s in ‘price’).

The actual food was better than I expected. Sauces and sides are all in their own containers. It’s up to the eater to reheat the food properly, based on the instructions (or whatever you have available). I found the portions to be larger than expected, especially the condiments and sauces. Most items tasted pretty good, but it’s certainly not the same as getting direct take out from a restaurant. There is a modicum of control you have to season the dishes accordingly, which I prefer. The next day, I saw a ‘bill’ with the same breakdown of the price of ingredients. My salmon that came with a sauce, a small side of cucumber salad, and a small side of fried rice. was approx $14 total by their breakdown, which I thought was fair. Yes, if I were to shop for individual ingredients alone, I might be able to get everything for less if I were really calculating out the portion used, but $14 for a salmon entree is not expensive, even if not a true restaurant tier dish. The food tasted healthy and fresh, which is not always what you get with restaurant dishes (you know it’s tasty because of a lot of butter, oil, etc.). My second meal was a vegetarian bowl with mushrooms, vegetables and farro and an add-on of duck. That was delicious! The bowl itself was estimated at $11 (again a super generous portion) while the bits of duck were $4. The duck was the one piece I thought was higher than what I would have priced - It’s probably $1.50-$2 top worth of duck, that I think they should have priced at $3.

So all in all, I actually really liked this as an option, and really appreciate this not being a subscription service. They state that their goal is to take the stress out of the dinner task for those who need it, and I can see that being the case. The food felt more home made like and cleaner than restaurant food, and all for a fairly reasonable price based on their portions. I actually liked it enough to put in an order next week, on my own dime this time. :laughing:

Overall the food was good, but I could quibble about the cucumber salad (too sweet for my taste, but others might have liked it, and I would probably season the fried rice with a tad of soy sauce). Their gingerbread cookies, were more bready but loved the flavor and not being too sweet. This will vary for the eater. This will be up to the eater, but I am playing part-time caretaker for an ill parent right now, and not having to cook and worry about 2 meals a day is something I could really use.

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Ooof, that is tough - yes, outsourcing the tasks you can is an investment in your well-being, for sure. Best wishes to you all.

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Coincidentally, I had WeCo for dinner last night while visiting friends.

I thought the meal was tasty, closer to homemade than similar options.

They having been using the service every so often as busy parents of a 5yo with little other help, and making a concerted effort to eat healthy.

What we ate and pricing are below. Each of us enjoyed different parts: I thought the crabcakes were surprisingly good (packed with crab, not much filler, good size), someone else loved the kale salad, another the mezze plate (I will say that the roasted butternut squash hummus was fantastic, and I don’t even like hummus much, but I’m still thinking about it).

The $6 delivery fee doesn’t seem crazy if one were ordering several dishes, because each seems reasonably priced so another $2 tacked on for eg isn’t crazy (the crab cake meal at $15 would still be well-priced).

The weak spot to me was the kids meal - they don’t seem balanced the way the adult meals described on the menu mostly are. For eg the kid last night had no vegetable because the meal was breakfast for dinner - there was a tiny waffle with a giant amount of dulce de leche dip, 2 small sausages, and fruit. But for parents in a pinch on a busy night, maybe that was ok.

——

Mezze Plate: $12 (serves 2-3)
A spread of falafel, charred cucumber, quinoa tabouleh, roasted butternut squash hummus, baba ganoush, dolmas and pita chips

Lump Crab Cakes Entree: ~$13
panko-crusted + seared lump crab cakes; red cabbage + corn slaw with shaved fennel + radishes; mustard dressing; steak fries; Old Bay aioli; lemon wedge

Kale Apple Salad: ~$10
baby kale, honey crisp apple, shaved fennel, citrus macerated cranberries, candied pecans and clover honey vinaigrette

Kids Breakfast for Dinner. ~$7
Belgian Pearl sugar waffle with dulce de leche
maple syrup, maple breakfast sausage and a
berry + melon salad

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Those prices do seem quite reasonable.

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For sure, if you are ordering for more than one. Honestly, when I don’t want to cook, the fees attached to an Uber Eats or Door dash app, is probably going to be similar, and I often add a decent tip. Even though I’m ordering for myself, the pricing and delivery doesn’t feel that crazy. Their facilities are in Acton and Burlington, so for those lucky enough to live close enough, pick up could save the fees too.

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I recommended it to someone today, and suggested that another way to approach the delivery fee was to find a day with a couple of interesting options and order mutliple entrees on a single day instead of paying the delivery fee for a single entree on multiple days. I just noticed the “cheapo” option on the menu too, which looks pretty good to me for next week!

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BUT: those are what they consider to be the ingredient cost. They want you to additionally pay what you think is appropriate for labor.

That may be true, @greygarious. Funny thing is that they added in the welcome email that most people just pay the cost of the meal, so they certainly put it right out there that it’s the norm. With this economy, and the high cost of labor, I had been thinking a lot about how this operation would be able to scale effectively. At some point do the food prices have to go up, or the delivery fees? I have a lot of questions on how they operate (especially since this started as a solicitation for a corporate program). I like what they’re trying to do, which is a ‘feed the community healthy meals mentality’, and I do hope that they can grow and work through whatever challenges that will bring. For now, I’m enjoying it while I can. :slightly_smiling_face:

@Saregama - I’ve thought about that very thing too, ordering multiple entrees that I like for another day. Some dishes would easily survive a day or two in the fridge. The forager bowl that I loved didn’t even need reheating. If that ever comes back, I can easily order and eat 3 of them!

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If they’re not suggesting an amount beyond the ingredient costs they specify, they must have modified their business plan in the last 20 months. It did strike me as unrealistic at the time.

i order from them every few weeks. their eggplant parm is outstanding. and i’m still waiting to see fried chicken on the menu again — first time i’ve had white meat that’s not dry and tasteless. i find the portions generous — sometimes get two meals.

re pricing: as noted below, they do suggest that customers double the food to cover their overhead — rent, salaries, utilities, insurance — but how much is is up to you.

from their website:

“ When you receive your bill, it will show the cost of ingredients. We do this to educate customers about just how much food costs, which is often hidden when you’re out in the world. #Education!

In addition to the ingredient costs, we ask you to add a “contribution.” Your contribution covers our overhead (like kitchen rent and utilities), labor (like the wages for our chefs and kitchen staff) and love. Most happy customers simply double the ingredient cost and set that as their grand total per order, but it’s up to you.

Said differently, you choose your price! We provide contribution suggestions each night to help.”

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I’ve seen a lot of their ads across social media over the past year but haven’t pulled the trigger simply because I don’t find these services as convenient as advertised. I can easily make myself dinner in 15-30 minutes and enjoy the process and being in control of what I cook, what I eat and what I shop for etc…

With that said I totally get why there’s appeal for others. Sad to see that it’s not working out as intended.

I did try Blue Apron pre-pandemic and absolutely hated the waste involved with everything being individually packaged…

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