I came across a coupon for Dream Dinners to have the meals prepared for me for no additional fee, so I placed an order which I picked up this afternoon.
My first thought is: wow, my world is small. My food was available for pickup between 3 and 6 and since Trajan was supposed to have swimming (Hurricane Dolly changed that) and I needed to pick up Jack, I decided to run over at 3, pick the stuff up, take it to the house and go back to work. I was back in front of my computer in under 20 minutes. This is my office to car in the garage to Dream Dinners to the house to the freezer to unpack back to the car to the office to park in the garage and then back to my office. And that 20 minutes includes one light and the fact that it was raining.
Back on topic: I was immediately greeted when I got there. The employee took my name and came back quickly with all of my meals. While my meals had already been packaged together to allow for quick pickup, she took the time to go through my order list and the food to make sure everything was there as she loaded my meals into the cooler I'd brought. I was given a couple minor tips on some of the entrees and I was on my way!
While in the store, I discovered that when you package your food yourself it's really just combining things. Everything is already chopped or diced or otherwise prepared except for the combination step. Since all the meals are basically just assorted mush combined in a sack, I worry that this limits the food they can offer since it doesn't allow for incremental cooking or sautéing components. What I got all looks good though, so we'll see.
When I got the food to the house, I started to put it into the deep freeze, but I decided that I should make things as easy on myself as possible and so I put it into the freezer in the kitchen. Since I cleaned the freezer out a few weeks ago, there was plenty of room to put everything in in an organized, easy-to-access fashion.
We're going out of town this weekend, so I placed everything but the Hawaiian Chicken into the freezer.
So far, Dream Dinners has been a simple, reliable, clean method to get food. I'll obviously have to reflect more once I've actually prepared the meals and we've eaten them, but no complaints to date.
For those of you who are cost-focused, I ordered 14 3-serving dishes and 1 6-serving dish as well as three side dishes and the total out-the-door cost was $193.35. To give a comparative baseline, the food for the sample week of The Scramble that I did was just over $100 or so.
Showing posts with label meal planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meal planning. Show all posts
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Freezer Cooking
I haven't really looked into the "do-it-yourself" freezer cooking method, but one of the books that I looked at in the lunch section made me think about this. The book was from the 30 Meals in One Day system. This sounds very interesting, but I'm having trouble turning up specific information or reviews of these products. Particularly, I'd like to read people's thoughts about the software component of the system.
I found "A Beginner's Guide to Once a Month Cooking" which looks pretty informative, but I'm a little intimidated by the whole idea. I made all Trajan's food from the time he started eating to 9 months because of his food sensitivities and I did this in very large bulk sessions with freezing, but somehow I don't think that could have prepared me for this endeavor.
From what I've seen so far, these books seem to contain recipes as stand-alone items. I think I'd feel better if I'd find one that belongs more to the "planning school of thought" that specifies what recipes I'm making, a master shopping list and a moment-by-moment guide to what I should be doing in terms of prep and cooking to move through the recipes. I know some people might have problems with being told what to eat, and that's probably why I can't find a set version, but we eat anything and I really think a step-by-step guide would be so much easier for an initial try.
What's the cost difference of preparing meals this way versus through something like Dream Dinners? There's obviously more flexibility as to the size of the recipe you make and what recipes you cook, but does Dream Dinners use their bulk purchasing to get a cost advantage?
What's a good option as a resource for someone approaching this once-a-month cook and freeze approach? Any that should particularly be shied away from? Any of them provide planning assistance in terms of recommending side dishes?
I found "A Beginner's Guide to Once a Month Cooking" which looks pretty informative, but I'm a little intimidated by the whole idea. I made all Trajan's food from the time he started eating to 9 months because of his food sensitivities and I did this in very large bulk sessions with freezing, but somehow I don't think that could have prepared me for this endeavor.
From what I've seen so far, these books seem to contain recipes as stand-alone items. I think I'd feel better if I'd find one that belongs more to the "planning school of thought" that specifies what recipes I'm making, a master shopping list and a moment-by-moment guide to what I should be doing in terms of prep and cooking to move through the recipes. I know some people might have problems with being told what to eat, and that's probably why I can't find a set version, but we eat anything and I really think a step-by-step guide would be so much easier for an initial try.
What's the cost difference of preparing meals this way versus through something like Dream Dinners? There's obviously more flexibility as to the size of the recipe you make and what recipes you cook, but does Dream Dinners use their bulk purchasing to get a cost advantage?
What's a good option as a resource for someone approaching this once-a-month cook and freeze approach? Any that should particularly be shied away from? Any of them provide planning assistance in terms of recommending side dishes?
Lunch Planning
With the increase in people brown-bagging their lunch, it seems like there would be a definite market for a product like the dinner meal planners that specializes in lunches. Meals for the week, a complete grocery list and steps for preparing it including what can be done the night before. It would be particularly cool if this was tied in with one of the dinner planners to minimize ingredients and steps, but that's a bonus in my mind.
I for one would definitely pay a dollar a week (this seems to be the typical price of the dinner planners) for something that took the decision making out of planning lunches, provided a combined shopping list and included packing/prepping/eating tips.
This service should include some of the features that I look for in the dinner planners such as allowing you to change out or remove meals if you desire. Also, it would be nice if it included information about what recipes required refrigeration (ie can not be unrefrigeratored for 4-6 hours), whether they are "brown-bag" friendly or require more of a box or laptop-type case, if they can be prepared the night before and whether they require any tools/equipment for at-time-of-eating preparation. It might be nice if there were checkboxs where you could indicate your preferences for these issues before you began your customization, but just being able to remove/add recipes would be sufficient.
I haven't searched a lot yet, but so far I haven't turned up something that provides this service. There are recipes and advice, but no site seems to offer a "we'll tell you what to eat each day and you just have to follow our instructions" program.
A company called Laptop Lunches that makes a lunch packing system has a pdf that provides some basic ideas for things to go into a lunch. They provide this same list along with a lot of other information and tips on their website and have a photo gallery of lunches packed if you are a visual person. If you order their system, it includes a guide (which reviews well on Amazon)containing recipes and tips and they have a couple books (even a vegan one) and a dvd available on their site with more information about lunch preparation. In addition to the basic set ($35), they have a larger, fancier one called the Lunch Date ($115). That's pretty pricey, but I could see someone who had been using the basic system consistently deciding to take the plunge though I think you could definitely build a similar enhanced system yourself for less. Get a bag that you like (bonus: it's personal), a thermos and a soup type thermos and you're there. One final nice thing about the system is that you can get additional inner containers so you don't have to wait until the previous days are clean to prepare it.
Another fun site I turned up is Lunch in a Box. This site has a ton of information about preparing bento style lunches to the point that it's actually pretty overwhelming. Unfortunately, there is no "starting from the beginning" sequential section or book, so I think implementing this would be a little difficult.
There are some books that look like they would be good tools for someone to generate their own plans, so this might be the best course of action to take. Identifying a book that balances taste, variety and nutrition with quick, simple and convenience is a real challenge, but some books worth looking at:
Lunch Box: Creative Recipes for Everyday Lunches - this looks like it might be good at helping to expand our minds about what can be a packed lunch. Review complains that they're too healthy and not tasty enough.
The Brown Bag Lunch Cookbook - has an intentional adult focus, includes general lunch prep tips. Not currently in stock as new. Many of the recipes seem like they would take a while and this is a complaint within the reviews.
Brown Bag Success: Making Healthy Lunches Your Kids Won't Trade - kidcentric, but includes a monthly planning cycle approach which might ease the planning burden. Reviews complain about extensive use of peanut butter (many schools are peanut free) and lack of health-value/poor nutrition.
The Healthy Lunchbox - focuses on healthy, nutritional meals written under American Diabetic Association. Provides logistical information about preparing and packaging lunches. Reviews indicate that recipes appeal to adults as well as kids. Has a unique interview to ask kids (though I imagine you could do it yourself) to get lunches they actually like.
The Top 100 Recipes for a Healthy Lunchbox - this is another kid-centric cookbook, but does not limit itself to traditional kid ingredients and does emphasis healthy recipes. A review notes that adults enjoy the recipes as well. Appears to be just recipes without any instructional content.
The Lunchbox Book: Nutritional and Creative Ideas - provides flexibility and information for altering recipes for food allergies and some other health conditions. Only 30 meals included and focused exclusively on kids.
Lunch is Ready: 30 Meals in 1 Day - bulk preparing and freezing, but for lunch! A different approach, but one that I could see working well. Contains over 200 recipes, so more content variety than many of the books and all are freezable. Currently unavailable though.
Lunchbox Menus for You - Contains 40 5-day menus each with a shopping list! Claims good nutritional basis, but I worry that the meals are too basic/simple. Reviews say it is well-formatted and easy to use, even making the shopping lists removable. Only 86 pages and I'm a little worried how they fit all that information in there and it seems like it may be too kid-based.
Lunch Boxes and Snacks: Over 120 Healthy Recipes - in addition the recipes, it includes information on how to pack lunches and what can be made the night before. Reviews indicate that the recipes are varied, tasty and suitable to adults as well as kids.
The Brown Bag Lunch - Not too much information available, but very positive reviews lauding the taste and appeal of the recipes. Every recipe includes information on how it should be packaged and when it needs to be prepared.
My final thought on this issue is if you decide that you can create this system and fill this gap, please don't just make a kid-centric, bland program. I'm pretty convinced that if you feed kids flavorful, diverse meals, they will eat them. I'm not saying you can't recognize the existence of some picky kids and provide some options or functionality to handle plain-jane eaters, but there are so many working adults and kids who eat all kinds of food who will really enjoy the broader menu.
I for one would definitely pay a dollar a week (this seems to be the typical price of the dinner planners) for something that took the decision making out of planning lunches, provided a combined shopping list and included packing/prepping/eating tips.
This service should include some of the features that I look for in the dinner planners such as allowing you to change out or remove meals if you desire. Also, it would be nice if it included information about what recipes required refrigeration (ie can not be unrefrigeratored for 4-6 hours), whether they are "brown-bag" friendly or require more of a box or laptop-type case, if they can be prepared the night before and whether they require any tools/equipment for at-time-of-eating preparation. It might be nice if there were checkboxs where you could indicate your preferences for these issues before you began your customization, but just being able to remove/add recipes would be sufficient.
I haven't searched a lot yet, but so far I haven't turned up something that provides this service. There are recipes and advice, but no site seems to offer a "we'll tell you what to eat each day and you just have to follow our instructions" program.
A company called Laptop Lunches that makes a lunch packing system has a pdf that provides some basic ideas for things to go into a lunch. They provide this same list along with a lot of other information and tips on their website and have a photo gallery of lunches packed if you are a visual person. If you order their system, it includes a guide (which reviews well on Amazon)containing recipes and tips and they have a couple books (even a vegan one) and a dvd available on their site with more information about lunch preparation. In addition to the basic set ($35), they have a larger, fancier one called the Lunch Date ($115). That's pretty pricey, but I could see someone who had been using the basic system consistently deciding to take the plunge though I think you could definitely build a similar enhanced system yourself for less. Get a bag that you like (bonus: it's personal), a thermos and a soup type thermos and you're there. One final nice thing about the system is that you can get additional inner containers so you don't have to wait until the previous days are clean to prepare it.
Another fun site I turned up is Lunch in a Box. This site has a ton of information about preparing bento style lunches to the point that it's actually pretty overwhelming. Unfortunately, there is no "starting from the beginning" sequential section or book, so I think implementing this would be a little difficult.
There are some books that look like they would be good tools for someone to generate their own plans, so this might be the best course of action to take. Identifying a book that balances taste, variety and nutrition with quick, simple and convenience is a real challenge, but some books worth looking at:
Lunch Box: Creative Recipes for Everyday Lunches - this looks like it might be good at helping to expand our minds about what can be a packed lunch. Review complains that they're too healthy and not tasty enough.
The Brown Bag Lunch Cookbook - has an intentional adult focus, includes general lunch prep tips. Not currently in stock as new. Many of the recipes seem like they would take a while and this is a complaint within the reviews.
Brown Bag Success: Making Healthy Lunches Your Kids Won't Trade - kidcentric, but includes a monthly planning cycle approach which might ease the planning burden. Reviews complain about extensive use of peanut butter (many schools are peanut free) and lack of health-value/poor nutrition.
The Healthy Lunchbox - focuses on healthy, nutritional meals written under American Diabetic Association. Provides logistical information about preparing and packaging lunches. Reviews indicate that recipes appeal to adults as well as kids. Has a unique interview to ask kids (though I imagine you could do it yourself) to get lunches they actually like.
The Top 100 Recipes for a Healthy Lunchbox - this is another kid-centric cookbook, but does not limit itself to traditional kid ingredients and does emphasis healthy recipes. A review notes that adults enjoy the recipes as well. Appears to be just recipes without any instructional content.
The Lunchbox Book: Nutritional and Creative Ideas - provides flexibility and information for altering recipes for food allergies and some other health conditions. Only 30 meals included and focused exclusively on kids.
Lunch is Ready: 30 Meals in 1 Day - bulk preparing and freezing, but for lunch! A different approach, but one that I could see working well. Contains over 200 recipes, so more content variety than many of the books and all are freezable. Currently unavailable though.
Lunchbox Menus for You - Contains 40 5-day menus each with a shopping list! Claims good nutritional basis, but I worry that the meals are too basic/simple. Reviews say it is well-formatted and easy to use, even making the shopping lists removable. Only 86 pages and I'm a little worried how they fit all that information in there and it seems like it may be too kid-based.
Lunch Boxes and Snacks: Over 120 Healthy Recipes - in addition the recipes, it includes information on how to pack lunches and what can be made the night before. Reviews indicate that the recipes are varied, tasty and suitable to adults as well as kids.
The Brown Bag Lunch - Not too much information available, but very positive reviews lauding the taste and appeal of the recipes. Every recipe includes information on how it should be packaged and when it needs to be prepared.
My final thought on this issue is if you decide that you can create this system and fill this gap, please don't just make a kid-centric, bland program. I'm pretty convinced that if you feed kids flavorful, diverse meals, they will eat them. I'm not saying you can't recognize the existence of some picky kids and provide some options or functionality to handle plain-jane eaters, but there are so many working adults and kids who eat all kinds of food who will really enjoy the broader menu.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Meal Planning Software
I completed the Scramble sample and overall was very happy with it. I'm picking up some Dream Dinner meals tomorrow and will evaluate that, but if I decide I want to take the meal planning route, I think I will probably just go ahead and join the Scramble. It seems like the best degree of specialization of the programs on the market now; it incorporates side dishes, and updates your shopping list based on the meals you pick.
Despite my selecting them as the best options, there are definitely areas in which they could improve and areas of this genre that are untapped. I have examined both the areas in which a product could be distinguished within the industry first and then things that are specific to The Scramble.
Areas for Differentiation in the Industry
With all this thinking about meal planning websites, I have had some ideas of ways that either one of the existing meal planners could distinguish their product and increase market share or a newcomer could even enter the field and do well.
Allow other additions to shopping list. All of the current products that I've looked at provide a shopping list and some alter this list to match your customized meal plan, but none allows you to enter in other extraneous products. Being able to stick your need for cereal and Ziploc bags would be of value. Ideally, the site would place as many of these added products as possible in the correct section, but it could just put them all in one lump and perhaps allow the user to drag them to the correct sections before printing.
This is an area that a company could distinguish themselves to an even greater degree by adding some additional functionality. By allowing email or SMS submissions (look at I Want Sandy for the functionality idea) or even an iPhone app, they could provide full grocery store list support. There are tons of options, such as Jott, that could be used to make this as easy as possible. Any company looking at this should be careful that adding this ability just adds flexibility and does not add burdensome, mandatory maintenance, but done carefully, I think this could be a great may to make a product distinct.
Include relevant skill tutorials. I actually got this idea from an NPR story on yarn. This story discussed a store called Jimmy Beans Wool that has established a strong market share by unique features such as video reviews and project support. I think a meal planning site could see a similar result if they added tutorials, possibly even video ones.
In my mind, there should be general tutorials, i.e. how to dice an onion, that can be accessed from the website, preferably with a clearly labeled, easy-to-find section of their own. I do think they need to have a stand-alone area, but I think their best value would come from each recipe containing links to tutorials applicable to it. In the case of a program like The Scramble that already has a system set up to customize what you print, the system should allow you to select any or all of the applicable written tutorials to include within your weekly printout.
Ideally, there would be both written tutorials and video tutorials, as this would facilitate transfer of knowledge and successful mastery of the contained skills by a variety of types of learners.
Allow Addition of Subscriber's own Recipes. Allowing easy, stress-free customization of a weekly plan is a big selling point of any of these programs. Allowing the subscriber to import his or her own recipes could enhance this feature. As far as I know, only Meal Mixer currently supports this functionality and it is much more time-intensive than what I believe most people are looking for in this market. A company considering this should review some of the many desktop recipe tools in order to implement this as best as possible. There is a good review of 10 Mac-based products including the popular Mac Gourmet to look at as a starting point.
Implementing this functionality would not allow subscribers to add their favorite dinner meals, but also additional side dishes to add to the program as well as information for meals such as brunch that are outside of the normal scope of most of these programs.
Features such as allowing importing of recipes from other websites, discussed in detail in the review above, should be considered, but I think it's important that the company make its first priority keeping the website as straightforward and effortless as possible. Include a feature if it can be blended in, and particularly if it's an option that members can just ignore with no ill effects if they so desire, but consider it very carefully if it will add required time requirements to the subscribers.
Add-on Support of "Other" Meals. I think it is critical for the majority of programs in this genre to stick to the core area of 5-7 weekly dinners by default. However, add-on options that provide assistance for other meals would enhance the appeal of a program. Allowing members to opt-in to adding other meals to their planning and their shopping list would make the product make more closely with the needs of most members throughout a week.
As discussed, the ability to add your own recipes should include these meals, but I think a strong program should include recipes of their own. If the member wants to incorporate them, they should just have to customize their plan and then the recipes will be included in the weekly plan and all the ingredients will be added to the shopping list.
Planned Lunches/Leftovers. This one was actually my husband's idea and I think it's a great one. Contained either within the normal recipes themselves or perhaps as options you can select through the customization process, recipes using related ingredients, leftovers or byproducts could be provided. So, if you're making a meatloaf, a tip for how to combine this meatloaf with bread and some greens to create a sandwich. If you're already baking potatoes, a recipe to make one into a twice-baked potato while you're eating dinner that you can then take for lunch the next day. If you are making pesto for a baked pasta, a recipe for a sandwich incorporating pesto along with directions on how much additional pesto to make.
Calendar Interface. The most basic implementation of this would be to provide a calendar each week that contained all the meals that you'd added for the week. I would like to see this calendar include slots for all the meals that are not included in the planning program as well that you could fill in. Adding some drag and drop ability to move meals around would be nice, but if a company had the technical savvy to get this done, I'd actually advocate developing an interface with products such as Google Calendar, iCal and Outlook. For the sake of simplicity, the company could just develop an interface with Google Calendar as members could then use Google Calendar to update one of the other products if they so desired.
I would like to see the ingredient details and even the entire recipe appear in the detail part of the entry for each meal if this interface with Google was achieved.
Panic Week. A final feature that I believe could be used to distinguish a meal planning site from all the others would be providing what I'm dubbing a Panic Week. This would be similar to the normal weekly plans, but would emphasis quick and easy to the extreme. This would exist so that a member could select it instead of the normal weekly plan if they were feeling very overwhelmed or had a very crazy schedule that week. In my mind, this would consist of quick, simple, low-prep meals, ingredients that are easy to locate and perhaps even some attempt to minimize the number of ingredients needed.
Membership Expiration. This is more of a general issue than a suggestion for a site in the genre. I think these sites, particularly if they are incorporating some of my ideas above, should carefully consider and clearly communicate their policies for memberships and expiration. If your membership lapses, do you immediately lose all of your saved calendar history, menus, recipes and more? Do you have an inactive period in which all your account information will be saved such as one year? Do you commit to maintaining the information for all your members regardless of active or inactive status for as long as you are in business?
General Evaluation. If you are considering starting a site in this genre or have one now that you are reviewing, I think my list of issues to be considered in evaluating a meal planning site are a good think to make sure you consider.
The Scramble-Specific Areas for Improvement
Website Improvements. This is the area needing attention. Overall, the site is quite useable and not bad to look at, but there are some specific areas where it's not performing at it's best.
The FAQ needs to be changed. Tomorrow. Even today would not be unjustified. There are many FAQ products and tools that have been developed including many free and shareware products. If researching and choosing one of these does not make sense either for the short-term or at all, a reasonable alternative would be just to create a list, perhaps divided by the current categories, of questions and answers. It's almost bad enough to advocate removing it entirely if that's the only option, but since a lot of this information is quite valuable to potential subscribers, if they can get into it that is, this isn't actually a good idea.
Links to the sample menu need to be available throughout the website in much the same fashion that the subscribe links are. This kind of product is very personal and since the shortest subscription is 3-months, I think they would get more subscribers if they facilitated more people knowing about and trying the sample menu. This attitude should expand beyond the basic site. For example, there should be a visible, colorful button saying something to the effect of "free Scramble sample menu" placed on the owner's blog that takes the reader directly to the sample menu. Ideally, this will be a page written for this purpose that provides some of the traditional basic info/links as are on the homepage, but the first priority should be to ensure that getting the sample is almost mindless for the person who clicked the link even if this means just linking to the normal sample page.
The "buzz" area, consisting of subscriber reviews, could be improved. Adding the ability to do a search or view by topic would make these more useful. Ideally, the company would go through and tag these with key words when they come in prior to posting to facilitate this. If the company were willing to set up tags, I would highly recommend they then add a tag cloud (example shown). This would not only help people find the comments that are relevant to them, it would also be a visual way of communicating information from the large number of comments that most visitors will never review.
Communication. Despite sending an automatic response to comments stating, "we value your input and will respond to your comment/request within the next 24-48 hours," I have received no response after 14 days. I hope that there won't be much need to contact them as a subscriber, but knowing that they are available if there is a problem, including billing, would be a plus. If they can't manage responses due to volume and time constraints, they should at least get rid of the email promising reply.
Cost Information. There is currently little cost information on the site unless you dig into some of the articles or fight your way into the FAQ (I don't recommend this). As this is actually a strength of the program, I think they should make this more visible.
Articles. Adding links at the top of the articles page to each subject would enhance the value of this resource. In addition, providing the weekly Scramble tips, such as the previous sample one about how to adapt the plan for smaller families, would make absolute sense. This is possibly available now for subscribers, but I have found nothing to indicate that this is so.
General Appearance. This relates to the first topic of website improvements, but while those ideas were specific, this is a general, vague feeling. I don't like the website. I noted that from the onset as The Scramble's biggest problem. I have had trouble identifying what I don't like about the site, but it's blatant enough that I think they should spend some time with a website designer and see if they can figure out what they could do to improve the appearance. This was the best of the five programs that I looked at, but the appearance is such that it has made me hesitant to make a commitment to them.
It might be the huge font on page such as the "buzz", the odd blank spaces between things, maybe the color scheme, or the odd positioning, but something is very aggravating. Why is the quote on the home page positioned at the absolute top of its framing box with large space below and quotation marks that seem out of line with anything escaping the frame? Why is there a huge space under the title of the main page? Why is the font used in basic narrative sections larger than any header or button anywhere else on the webpage? Why is there text in a green font that's very light?
In an interesting irony, the webpage given for the webpage designer just loads a red "x".
For fairness, the website is definitely useable, possibly excluding the FAQ. It's just not at the level that I would expect. Possibly, since the site has been around for five years, they just haven't updated it in which case it is actually nice for 2003. If this is the case, then they really need to suck it up, defy inertia and decide to make a change.
Conclusion
There are a plethora of companies in the meal planning software industry: Meal Designer, Daily Home Planner, e-Mealz, Meal Mixer, eMealsforyou, menus4moms, Menu Planning Central, Dinner Planner and more. Reviewing their sites, much less preparing a sample week, for each is a daunting task. The Scramble seems to meet our purposes, so rather than dedicating the next six months to trying others a week at a time, I am most likely just going to try The Scramble for a quarter. However, if there is a product that someone particularly likes and recommends, please let me know because I will take the time to try any recommended products.
Despite this plethora, I do believe that these is a position for someone to enter the market with a new subscription product and be highly successful by distinguishing themselves from the field and having a well-conceived web product. If you decide this person is you, let me know and I'll be happy to be a beta tester.
If you are lookingn for some more general information, reviews, Real Simple published an article in 2006 looking at 6 of the sites.
Bonus: I just saw that the sample menu for the Scramble has changed! Five different meals, five new sides and a new article. I don't know if they routinely change their sample meal, but if so, it's a brilliant idea to get more people to decide to subscribe. Provide a free sample one week out of each month and send notification of this update to opted in people and they could be golden.
Despite my selecting them as the best options, there are definitely areas in which they could improve and areas of this genre that are untapped. I have examined both the areas in which a product could be distinguished within the industry first and then things that are specific to The Scramble.
Areas for Differentiation in the Industry
With all this thinking about meal planning websites, I have had some ideas of ways that either one of the existing meal planners could distinguish their product and increase market share or a newcomer could even enter the field and do well.
Allow other additions to shopping list. All of the current products that I've looked at provide a shopping list and some alter this list to match your customized meal plan, but none allows you to enter in other extraneous products. Being able to stick your need for cereal and Ziploc bags would be of value. Ideally, the site would place as many of these added products as possible in the correct section, but it could just put them all in one lump and perhaps allow the user to drag them to the correct sections before printing.
This is an area that a company could distinguish themselves to an even greater degree by adding some additional functionality. By allowing email or SMS submissions (look at I Want Sandy for the functionality idea) or even an iPhone app, they could provide full grocery store list support. There are tons of options, such as Jott, that could be used to make this as easy as possible. Any company looking at this should be careful that adding this ability just adds flexibility and does not add burdensome, mandatory maintenance, but done carefully, I think this could be a great may to make a product distinct.
Include relevant skill tutorials. I actually got this idea from an NPR story on yarn. This story discussed a store called Jimmy Beans Wool that has established a strong market share by unique features such as video reviews and project support. I think a meal planning site could see a similar result if they added tutorials, possibly even video ones.
In my mind, there should be general tutorials, i.e. how to dice an onion, that can be accessed from the website, preferably with a clearly labeled, easy-to-find section of their own. I do think they need to have a stand-alone area, but I think their best value would come from each recipe containing links to tutorials applicable to it. In the case of a program like The Scramble that already has a system set up to customize what you print, the system should allow you to select any or all of the applicable written tutorials to include within your weekly printout.
Ideally, there would be both written tutorials and video tutorials, as this would facilitate transfer of knowledge and successful mastery of the contained skills by a variety of types of learners.
Allow Addition of Subscriber's own Recipes. Allowing easy, stress-free customization of a weekly plan is a big selling point of any of these programs. Allowing the subscriber to import his or her own recipes could enhance this feature. As far as I know, only Meal Mixer currently supports this functionality and it is much more time-intensive than what I believe most people are looking for in this market. A company considering this should review some of the many desktop recipe tools in order to implement this as best as possible. There is a good review of 10 Mac-based products including the popular Mac Gourmet to look at as a starting point.
Implementing this functionality would not allow subscribers to add their favorite dinner meals, but also additional side dishes to add to the program as well as information for meals such as brunch that are outside of the normal scope of most of these programs.
Features such as allowing importing of recipes from other websites, discussed in detail in the review above, should be considered, but I think it's important that the company make its first priority keeping the website as straightforward and effortless as possible. Include a feature if it can be blended in, and particularly if it's an option that members can just ignore with no ill effects if they so desire, but consider it very carefully if it will add required time requirements to the subscribers.
Add-on Support of "Other" Meals. I think it is critical for the majority of programs in this genre to stick to the core area of 5-7 weekly dinners by default. However, add-on options that provide assistance for other meals would enhance the appeal of a program. Allowing members to opt-in to adding other meals to their planning and their shopping list would make the product make more closely with the needs of most members throughout a week.
As discussed, the ability to add your own recipes should include these meals, but I think a strong program should include recipes of their own. If the member wants to incorporate them, they should just have to customize their plan and then the recipes will be included in the weekly plan and all the ingredients will be added to the shopping list.
Planned Lunches/Leftovers. This one was actually my husband's idea and I think it's a great one. Contained either within the normal recipes themselves or perhaps as options you can select through the customization process, recipes using related ingredients, leftovers or byproducts could be provided. So, if you're making a meatloaf, a tip for how to combine this meatloaf with bread and some greens to create a sandwich. If you're already baking potatoes, a recipe to make one into a twice-baked potato while you're eating dinner that you can then take for lunch the next day. If you are making pesto for a baked pasta, a recipe for a sandwich incorporating pesto along with directions on how much additional pesto to make.
Calendar Interface. The most basic implementation of this would be to provide a calendar each week that contained all the meals that you'd added for the week. I would like to see this calendar include slots for all the meals that are not included in the planning program as well that you could fill in. Adding some drag and drop ability to move meals around would be nice, but if a company had the technical savvy to get this done, I'd actually advocate developing an interface with products such as Google Calendar, iCal and Outlook. For the sake of simplicity, the company could just develop an interface with Google Calendar as members could then use Google Calendar to update one of the other products if they so desired.
I would like to see the ingredient details and even the entire recipe appear in the detail part of the entry for each meal if this interface with Google was achieved.
Panic Week. A final feature that I believe could be used to distinguish a meal planning site from all the others would be providing what I'm dubbing a Panic Week. This would be similar to the normal weekly plans, but would emphasis quick and easy to the extreme. This would exist so that a member could select it instead of the normal weekly plan if they were feeling very overwhelmed or had a very crazy schedule that week. In my mind, this would consist of quick, simple, low-prep meals, ingredients that are easy to locate and perhaps even some attempt to minimize the number of ingredients needed.
Membership Expiration. This is more of a general issue than a suggestion for a site in the genre. I think these sites, particularly if they are incorporating some of my ideas above, should carefully consider and clearly communicate their policies for memberships and expiration. If your membership lapses, do you immediately lose all of your saved calendar history, menus, recipes and more? Do you have an inactive period in which all your account information will be saved such as one year? Do you commit to maintaining the information for all your members regardless of active or inactive status for as long as you are in business?
General Evaluation. If you are considering starting a site in this genre or have one now that you are reviewing, I think my list of issues to be considered in evaluating a meal planning site are a good think to make sure you consider.
The Scramble-Specific Areas for Improvement
Website Improvements. This is the area needing attention. Overall, the site is quite useable and not bad to look at, but there are some specific areas where it's not performing at it's best.
The FAQ needs to be changed. Tomorrow. Even today would not be unjustified. There are many FAQ products and tools that have been developed including many free and shareware products. If researching and choosing one of these does not make sense either for the short-term or at all, a reasonable alternative would be just to create a list, perhaps divided by the current categories, of questions and answers. It's almost bad enough to advocate removing it entirely if that's the only option, but since a lot of this information is quite valuable to potential subscribers, if they can get into it that is, this isn't actually a good idea.
Links to the sample menu need to be available throughout the website in much the same fashion that the subscribe links are. This kind of product is very personal and since the shortest subscription is 3-months, I think they would get more subscribers if they facilitated more people knowing about and trying the sample menu. This attitude should expand beyond the basic site. For example, there should be a visible, colorful button saying something to the effect of "free Scramble sample menu" placed on the owner's blog that takes the reader directly to the sample menu. Ideally, this will be a page written for this purpose that provides some of the traditional basic info/links as are on the homepage, but the first priority should be to ensure that getting the sample is almost mindless for the person who clicked the link even if this means just linking to the normal sample page.
The "buzz" area, consisting of subscriber reviews, could be improved. Adding the ability to do a search or view by topic would make these more useful. Ideally, the company would go through and tag these with key words when they come in prior to posting to facilitate this. If the company were willing to set up tags, I would highly recommend they then add a tag cloud (example shown). This would not only help people find the comments that are relevant to them, it would also be a visual way of communicating information from the large number of comments that most visitors will never review.
Communication. Despite sending an automatic response to comments stating, "we value your input and will respond to your comment/request within the next 24-48 hours," I have received no response after 14 days. I hope that there won't be much need to contact them as a subscriber, but knowing that they are available if there is a problem, including billing, would be a plus. If they can't manage responses due to volume and time constraints, they should at least get rid of the email promising reply.
Cost Information. There is currently little cost information on the site unless you dig into some of the articles or fight your way into the FAQ (I don't recommend this). As this is actually a strength of the program, I think they should make this more visible.
Articles. Adding links at the top of the articles page to each subject would enhance the value of this resource. In addition, providing the weekly Scramble tips, such as the previous sample one about how to adapt the plan for smaller families, would make absolute sense. This is possibly available now for subscribers, but I have found nothing to indicate that this is so.
General Appearance. This relates to the first topic of website improvements, but while those ideas were specific, this is a general, vague feeling. I don't like the website. I noted that from the onset as The Scramble's biggest problem. I have had trouble identifying what I don't like about the site, but it's blatant enough that I think they should spend some time with a website designer and see if they can figure out what they could do to improve the appearance. This was the best of the five programs that I looked at, but the appearance is such that it has made me hesitant to make a commitment to them.
It might be the huge font on page such as the "buzz", the odd blank spaces between things, maybe the color scheme, or the odd positioning, but something is very aggravating. Why is the quote on the home page positioned at the absolute top of its framing box with large space below and quotation marks that seem out of line with anything escaping the frame? Why is there a huge space under the title of the main page? Why is the font used in basic narrative sections larger than any header or button anywhere else on the webpage? Why is there text in a green font that's very light?
In an interesting irony, the webpage given for the webpage designer just loads a red "x".
For fairness, the website is definitely useable, possibly excluding the FAQ. It's just not at the level that I would expect. Possibly, since the site has been around for five years, they just haven't updated it in which case it is actually nice for 2003. If this is the case, then they really need to suck it up, defy inertia and decide to make a change.
Conclusion
There are a plethora of companies in the meal planning software industry: Meal Designer, Daily Home Planner, e-Mealz, Meal Mixer, eMealsforyou, menus4moms, Menu Planning Central, Dinner Planner and more. Reviewing their sites, much less preparing a sample week, for each is a daunting task. The Scramble seems to meet our purposes, so rather than dedicating the next six months to trying others a week at a time, I am most likely just going to try The Scramble for a quarter. However, if there is a product that someone particularly likes and recommends, please let me know because I will take the time to try any recommended products.
Despite this plethora, I do believe that these is a position for someone to enter the market with a new subscription product and be highly successful by distinguishing themselves from the field and having a well-conceived web product. If you decide this person is you, let me know and I'll be happy to be a beta tester.
If you are lookingn for some more general information, reviews, Real Simple published an article in 2006 looking at 6 of the sites.
Bonus: I just saw that the sample menu for the Scramble has changed! Five different meals, five new sides and a new article. I don't know if they routinely change their sample meal, but if so, it's a brilliant idea to get more people to decide to subscribe. Provide a free sample one week out of each month and send notification of this update to opted in people and they could be golden.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
0 for 0 in 0 (for now!)
Note: don’t start what’s hoped to be a new habit or project on a Monday. Just doesn’t work. Flat out and it will work better if I accept the limits of my current commitments. Paul and I go out together each Monday night while Rebecca babysits and between that and Trajan’s ISR lessons, I end up with negative time.
You might have deduced from this introduction that I have not made progress in the 10 in 10 for 10. Not only did Monday not work, but I ended up having to go back to the office for several hours the next couple of nights. However, this is not me giving up on the idea, but I’m going to delay the start of it until a time that I’m in better shape to actually meet this goal.
This will not be immediate, because I have my hands full with a different project for the next few days. Between my frustration with Vista, my “affair of the heart” with the iPhone and discovering that my Dell laptop is one of the models that people have worked to adapt to Ubuntu, we decided to go ahead and order a MacBook Pro for me. It’s on a Fedex plane somewhere between here and California. The tracking says it will be here tomorrow, but based on the rate other parts of my order shipped, I’m expecting Monday. So, I’m busy going through the Dell machine (it’s under a year old) and backing everything up to our NAS drives because Paul can’t really go to work at converting the hardware to Linux until I’m sure I have everything off of it.
Also, I expect to be near hopelessly distracted over the next few days beginning as soon as I can download the iPhone 2.0 software. I have iTunes 7.7 and so I’m in the ready position and am just waiting for the 2.0 software. I know I could get a copy through other means, but I think I’ll just wait till it’s done in the automated fashion. I’m a sissy as evidenced by the fact that I’ve never jailbroken my phone.
On a final note, first night of the Scramble was a happy success. Not too many dishes, tasty and really hit the spot. Trajan LOVED the green beans. It was actually kind of scary the degree to which he liked them. They were pretty basic. Steamed in a skillet with oil, garlic and some lemon juice.
You might have deduced from this introduction that I have not made progress in the 10 in 10 for 10. Not only did Monday not work, but I ended up having to go back to the office for several hours the next couple of nights. However, this is not me giving up on the idea, but I’m going to delay the start of it until a time that I’m in better shape to actually meet this goal.
This will not be immediate, because I have my hands full with a different project for the next few days. Between my frustration with Vista, my “affair of the heart” with the iPhone and discovering that my Dell laptop is one of the models that people have worked to adapt to Ubuntu, we decided to go ahead and order a MacBook Pro for me. It’s on a Fedex plane somewhere between here and California. The tracking says it will be here tomorrow, but based on the rate other parts of my order shipped, I’m expecting Monday. So, I’m busy going through the Dell machine (it’s under a year old) and backing everything up to our NAS drives because Paul can’t really go to work at converting the hardware to Linux until I’m sure I have everything off of it.
Also, I expect to be near hopelessly distracted over the next few days beginning as soon as I can download the iPhone 2.0 software. I have iTunes 7.7 and so I’m in the ready position and am just waiting for the 2.0 software. I know I could get a copy through other means, but I think I’ll just wait till it’s done in the automated fashion. I’m a sissy as evidenced by the fact that I’ve never jailbroken my phone.
On a final note, first night of the Scramble was a happy success. Not too many dishes, tasty and really hit the spot. Trajan LOVED the green beans. It was actually kind of scary the degree to which he liked them. They were pretty basic. Steamed in a skillet with oil, garlic and some lemon juice.
Meal Planner Software/Website Evaluation Criterion
I've had a couple more meal planner programs added to my list and I will be working my way through their samples, but I wanted to take a moment and outline some of the criterion that I will be using to evaluate them and decide which one will work best for us.
First, issues that can be evaluated outside of their trial:
Access: can I get the information with just a browser or do I need installed software? Will the plans load on the iphone? If so, just the shopping lists and menus or can I do their customization?
Cost: fundamentally, what is the cost of the program? And, does it automatically renew? Give you an option to renew? Send a reminder email before it renews? And for what period of time do you have to make a commitment?
Usability: I know I'm a little fussy, but the ease of use of the site and its presentation really matters to me. Both in terms of being able to do the "meal planning" as quickly as possible and just not being annoyed by a messy site.
Flexibility: Can I customize our plan for the week? Is this done easily? Can I make alterations to the grocery list? Is the flexibility that they offer not offset by an unjustifiable accompanying increase in complexity and time demands?
Responsiveness: I am going to try to come up with a question for each company to see the rate and thoroughness of their response. Hopefully, it won't matter how quickly I can get in touch with them, but it's nice to know just in case.
Additional information: what articles, advice, etc. do they make available, if any? Do I value this or is it just clutter and more to weed through?
Record-keeping: does the site allow me to keep information about specific recipes? Can I rank them with stars? Keep recipes that I liked? Are the recipes only available during their week or do I have access to any recipe that I've received as long as I keep my subscription active?
Other meals: do they have any resources to help with potential needs for other meals? Breakfasts, sack lunches, weekend brunches, etc.?
Issues to be evaluted during their trial period:
Quantity: how does the quantity of food mesh with our lives? Does it seem to lend itself to easily being taken to work for lunches?
Cost: what is the actual cost of the food to prepare the meal?
Variety: good variety of food? This will be a little hard to evaluate with just one week, but it's definitely worth noting even if it's an incomplete reflection.
Composition: does the food style reflect what we like?
Taste: are the meals tasty? Do we like them? Will Trajan eat them?
Side-dishes: I pull this out because I've noticed a different degree of emphasis. Do they include side dishes with each meal that are good selections to be paired with the entree? Do the side dishes help to balance the nutrition out well?
Time: how long do the meals take to prepare? Are they feasible options for preparing after work and still having dinner early enough for Trajan?
Difficulty: how arduous are the recipes? Do they require extensive, specialized kitchen gadgets?
This is a very subjective kind of decision, so I'm not going to set a rubric or anything to use to make the final decision, but I think that identifying specific areas to think about will help to ease the difficulty of the final decision.
First, issues that can be evaluated outside of their trial:
Access: can I get the information with just a browser or do I need installed software? Will the plans load on the iphone? If so, just the shopping lists and menus or can I do their customization?
Cost: fundamentally, what is the cost of the program? And, does it automatically renew? Give you an option to renew? Send a reminder email before it renews? And for what period of time do you have to make a commitment?
Usability: I know I'm a little fussy, but the ease of use of the site and its presentation really matters to me. Both in terms of being able to do the "meal planning" as quickly as possible and just not being annoyed by a messy site.
Flexibility: Can I customize our plan for the week? Is this done easily? Can I make alterations to the grocery list? Is the flexibility that they offer not offset by an unjustifiable accompanying increase in complexity and time demands?
Responsiveness: I am going to try to come up with a question for each company to see the rate and thoroughness of their response. Hopefully, it won't matter how quickly I can get in touch with them, but it's nice to know just in case.
Additional information: what articles, advice, etc. do they make available, if any? Do I value this or is it just clutter and more to weed through?
Record-keeping: does the site allow me to keep information about specific recipes? Can I rank them with stars? Keep recipes that I liked? Are the recipes only available during their week or do I have access to any recipe that I've received as long as I keep my subscription active?
Other meals: do they have any resources to help with potential needs for other meals? Breakfasts, sack lunches, weekend brunches, etc.?
Issues to be evaluted during their trial period:
Quantity: how does the quantity of food mesh with our lives? Does it seem to lend itself to easily being taken to work for lunches?
Cost: what is the actual cost of the food to prepare the meal?
Variety: good variety of food? This will be a little hard to evaluate with just one week, but it's definitely worth noting even if it's an incomplete reflection.
Composition: does the food style reflect what we like?
Taste: are the meals tasty? Do we like them? Will Trajan eat them?
Side-dishes: I pull this out because I've noticed a different degree of emphasis. Do they include side dishes with each meal that are good selections to be paired with the entree? Do the side dishes help to balance the nutrition out well?
Time: how long do the meals take to prepare? Are they feasible options for preparing after work and still having dinner early enough for Trajan?
Difficulty: how arduous are the recipes? Do they require extensive, specialized kitchen gadgets?
This is a very subjective kind of decision, so I'm not going to set a rubric or anything to use to make the final decision, but I think that identifying specific areas to think about will help to ease the difficulty of the final decision.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Meal Planner Update
Found another: www.mealmixer.com
This one is more personalized in terms of what goes on your meals. It also looks like it has more nutrition information if that's important to you. It also has other meals.
This actually looks like they may have gone too far. By making it completely customizable and having all the other meals in the week, I could see this taking a substantial amount of time. One of the benefits that I'm looking for in using a meal planner is having them decide what's to eat and not having to deal with the time and stress of making those decisions.
I think the scramble giving you the option of removing and adding meals as necessary is a plus over e-mealz which doesn't offer this, but I really think that having to completely set the meal plan from beginning to end is too much for me. If I wanted to do that, I'd just use cookbooks or a free online recipe site.
This one is more personalized in terms of what goes on your meals. It also looks like it has more nutrition information if that's important to you. It also has other meals.
This actually looks like they may have gone too far. By making it completely customizable and having all the other meals in the week, I could see this taking a substantial amount of time. One of the benefits that I'm looking for in using a meal planner is having them decide what's to eat and not having to deal with the time and stress of making those decisions.
I think the scramble giving you the option of removing and adding meals as necessary is a plus over e-mealz which doesn't offer this, but I really think that having to completely set the meal plan from beginning to end is too much for me. If I wanted to do that, I'd just use cookbooks or a free online recipe site.
Presentation Matters - Web Products
I previously had written about the layout of a site really mattering particularly when you're in the productivity-esque field. I am finding this to be absolutely true and perhaps the first concept that those preparing productivity services/sites should consider even ahead of whatever their content is.
This was brought up again because I was wanting to find a meal planner that provided the whole week's meals along with a single shopping list.
The first one I found, e-Mealz , was pretty and looked like it could possibly work. However, it didn't seem very concerned about meal preparation time and the way they tell you to modify the plan if you don't like one of the meals is to just eliminate it from the shopping list. It doesn't provide any way to drop in one of your family's favorite meals from another week or any other way to customize the meals. They are one-size-fits-all. A potential plus is that they have plans based on the sales at various grocery stores each week. However, none of the store options exist near our house, so this wasn't a boost for me. If they added Randalls, HEB, Whole Foods or Sun Horizon, I might be more interested.
I went ahead and printed out a couple sample meals and will try them, but I was not at all convinced that this site was the right one for me. It packs the whole week's menus onto one page of paper which requires them sacrificing some of the detail and help that I think I'd appreciate having as a not particularly experienced chef.
So, the site was pretty and clean and made me want to love them, but the content just wasn't what I was looking for.
I then found thescramble.com. This looks like a better fit for us as it has explicit references to all meals taking short periods of time and it includes information that tells you what recipes can be cut in half (four of the five from this week) and ideas about how to use the leftovers. As these mealplans have 4-6 servings in mind and we only have 3 people, this is a definite plus. From an initial evaluation, this site looks like it really could be the system that I'm looking for. And, you're able to add in other meals, remove meals you don't like and even include more meals than then normal 5 if you need to for a week.
However, thescramble's site makes me unhappy. It feels cluttered and messy and even overwhelming. And since you have to interact with the site to customize your plans, I'd have to keep seeing it. A definite negative.
My decision?
I decided to print out sample menus for each program and will try them both. Then I'll evaluate the options available at each site, my feelings about the site itself with my reflections on the difficulty and time requirements of the sample menus as well as how the food tastes and if one seems to fit our tastes better than the other.
I'm sure there are other sites providing similar services, and I would love to look at them as well before I make a commitment and hand over money to one company or another, so if you know of a similar company, let me know.
This was brought up again because I was wanting to find a meal planner that provided the whole week's meals along with a single shopping list.
The first one I found, e-Mealz , was pretty and looked like it could possibly work. However, it didn't seem very concerned about meal preparation time and the way they tell you to modify the plan if you don't like one of the meals is to just eliminate it from the shopping list. It doesn't provide any way to drop in one of your family's favorite meals from another week or any other way to customize the meals. They are one-size-fits-all. A potential plus is that they have plans based on the sales at various grocery stores each week. However, none of the store options exist near our house, so this wasn't a boost for me. If they added Randalls, HEB, Whole Foods or Sun Horizon, I might be more interested.
I went ahead and printed out a couple sample meals and will try them, but I was not at all convinced that this site was the right one for me. It packs the whole week's menus onto one page of paper which requires them sacrificing some of the detail and help that I think I'd appreciate having as a not particularly experienced chef.
So, the site was pretty and clean and made me want to love them, but the content just wasn't what I was looking for.
I then found thescramble.com. This looks like a better fit for us as it has explicit references to all meals taking short periods of time and it includes information that tells you what recipes can be cut in half (four of the five from this week) and ideas about how to use the leftovers. As these mealplans have 4-6 servings in mind and we only have 3 people, this is a definite plus. From an initial evaluation, this site looks like it really could be the system that I'm looking for. And, you're able to add in other meals, remove meals you don't like and even include more meals than then normal 5 if you need to for a week.
However, thescramble's site makes me unhappy. It feels cluttered and messy and even overwhelming. And since you have to interact with the site to customize your plans, I'd have to keep seeing it. A definite negative.
My decision?
I decided to print out sample menus for each program and will try them both. Then I'll evaluate the options available at each site, my feelings about the site itself with my reflections on the difficulty and time requirements of the sample menus as well as how the food tastes and if one seems to fit our tastes better than the other.
I'm sure there are other sites providing similar services, and I would love to look at them as well before I make a commitment and hand over money to one company or another, so if you know of a similar company, let me know.
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