Every packaged food company is going to shake their head and utter a few choice words at this blog post. I get it. You pay a premium for pre-packaged, ‘I don’t have to think about it’ snacks and meals. But here’s the thing. I DO think about it. When I’m eating a tiny little snack, or meal, each bite equates to dollars and cents in my brain. Is that weird?
In college (Cal Poly, Nutrition B.S.), we had to calculate out the nutritional content AND price per serving of various meals. Getting the MOST nutrition for the buck was our mantra. Afterall, we were trying to make healthy eating affordable and we were young, altruistic, and headed out into the world to do good and MAKE FOOD GREAT AGAIN.
So, here we are, quite a few ticks later, and convenience foods, no…convenience MEALS delivered to your home, are now a thing. I don’t have to leave my house. I can have pretty, trendy, healthy snacks delivered to my house. All you need is my Credit Card and life is gooooooooooood.
Not to be a total meanie to Graze, but I just received their free sampler box and calculated out the cost of my next box of 8 snacks vs. me getting off my duff and packing my own cute, hip sounding snacks.
To be fair, Graze lets a user select food preferences, tastes and shun various ingredients due to allergies to just plain ol’ dislike. In my head, I can pretty much figure this out shopping by myself.
To put this on a level playing field, I’m going to compare the cost of food (similar ingredients) being delivered to my door in bulk (from a store) and pre-packed via Graze. I already know if I get in a car and drive somewhere, I can beat their cost. But what if I just want to avoid the store (like everyone else) and have it come to my door?
Here’s the breakdown.
SNACK #1
A Graze subscription starts at $13.99 per box (for 8 snacks) OR I can purchase snacks a la carte at graze.com/shop where products range from $3.99 to $8.99 on average. ERhrrrrm…..that’s a big range. So, again, being FAIR, I’ll steer towards the cheapie side of 8 snacks for $13.99. That’s $1.74 per snack box.
I received the adorable Graze Spicy Sriracha Crunch snack box with 1.3oz of savory goodness inside. Here’s a picture of it:
I can get a comparable savory mix for $2.99 – 8.5 oz, at Ralphs (delivery service).
My version comes in at .74 per HUGE serving, as I’m dividing by 2 oz and not 1.3oz to the Graze snack.
SNACK #2
I was supposed to get a trail mix combo in my Graze box, but they sent me some chocolate dip with pretzel thing instead. I’m going to go ahead and compare back to the trail mix because that’s actually what I wanted.
SNACK #3
