Transcription
Refresh your routine with Factor. Chef-prepared meals delivered with a tap, ready in 2 minutes.
Let's talk about Factor, the meal delivery service that promises chef-prepared, fresh, healthy meals delivered straight to your door and asks you to microwave it like it's 2006. Looks great.
Factor claims it's the solution for busy people who want to eat clean without cooking. If you're wanting to cut calories, add some more protein to your diet, or just eat delicious, nutritious meals, Factor's got you covered.
But after spending over $100 on eight meals, the real question is, is Factor really premium, or is it just a very well-marketed TV dinner? Factor launched in 2012 as Factor 75, positioning itself as a nutrition-first, personal chef service, high-protein, low-carb, calorie-controlled meals for people who hated cooking but still wanted apps.
"This is how it is. This is what it comes. The quantities are all there. I mean, these are straight from our kitchen, you know. So, we have our menu online and you go on there and you can click over, hover over the different menu items, you see the nutritional values."
It was created by a former MMA fighter who wanted to give people an opportunity to eat healthy since he knew that 75% of getting in shape was what you eat.
"We're a healthy meal delivery service that prepares and delivers meals that are designed to optimize mind and body performance."
Then in 2020, HelloFresh actually bought Factor for $277 million, folding it into its growing meal kit empire alongside Every Plate and Green Chef. Oh my god, they even own pet delivery food services. And the pitch is simple: No grocery shopping, no cooking, no prep. Just heat and eat, which sounds great until you actually realize what you're paying for.
Well, I'm going to... Oh, I almost died. I was going to talk about this company back in 2025 because I've been using Factor for a few months and I had a lot to say about it back then. Factor, like other meal prep delivery companies, shows up in an insulated box packed with ice packs. Inside, every meal is sealed with a black plastic tray, vacuum-packaged, labeled with macros, calories, and instructions that basically say, "Poke holes in microwave." You can order anywhere from 6 to 18 meals per week with around 30 rotating options. Those options being calorie-smart, keto, high-protein, low-carb, fiber-filled. Wait, do they not have vegan options? On paper, very impressive. In reality, well, we'll get into that. And we'll also get into all the meals that I decided to buy for the purpose of this video.
"That is the most undercooked corn I've ever had."
But before I do, I want to talk about my experience when I used this company around 4 months ago. So, I used Factor for around 3 months' time and I usually got the meals off of the keto section and I had a few problems with it. Firstly, the meals were the same every single week. I ordered eight meals a week and it was the same like 8 to 10 meals every single time. It says new meals each week, but it really wasn't. I got tired of having the same meals every single week. So, I decided to incorporate a new category, calorie-smart or protein meals or something like that. And then after 2 weeks, those meals got repetitive as well.
The second problem I had was I'm lactose intolerant. And I can eat small amounts of cheese, but I tend to avoid dairy as much as I can. But every single keto option was swimming in cream. Garlic creamed grilled chicken. Keto creamy Dijon pork tenderloin. Steak bites and sour cream onion mashed potatoes. Even the keto herb-crusted salmon had cream cheese, heavy cream. You can avoid things like spicy foods and mushrooms, but you can't avoid cream, milk. There are options for low-dairy meals and options for low-calorie meals, but under keto, there's no keto, low-dairy. Like, the dietary restrictions were incredibly limited and they weren't constantly incorporating new meals. So, I had to cancel after like the three months that I used it last year. That and not to mention how quickly the meals go bad.
I got eight meals and let me tell you the names of each of them: Bacon shrimp mac and cheese, beer monte chicken with roasted potatoes and honey garlic carrots. Chicken pesto cavatappi with balsamic roasted green beans and grape tomatoes. Capray chicken pennet with pesto cream and spinach. Coconut lime curried tofu with lentil rice, spicy sweet potatoes and broccoli. Garlic cream grilled chicken with roasted vegetables. Havatapi and sugo sauce. Keto herb-crusted salmon with celery root mash. Cauliflower and tomatoes. Macaroni and turkey chili with roasted broccoli and spiced corn. These all sound pretty premium, especially the way that they're describing it.
Okay, this looks okay. The broccoli seems... Oh, well. Okay, never mind. The broccoli is a little brown. It looks like it's a little bit old. Shrimp looks fine. Can't go wrong with pasta. I have to mix up this mac and cheese a bit because it's all the cheese was in one corner. Shrimp tastes okay. Let's try this broccoli. This brown broccoli. My god, what did they burn it? I don't. Flavorless broccoli. That's good. And now the mac and cheese. What is this clump? Oh, those are pieces of shrimp inside there. You can see they sprinkled a lot of black pepper on top of it to give it flavor. It's not really translating that well. I've tasted some really good mac and cheese and this is pretty flavorless. This is okay if you're giving it to like a child for like a school dinner, but for a premium meal, it's it's not that premium. I love that there's tiny little pieces of broccoli sprinkled around here, like three or four little cloves. The sweet potatoes aren't sweet and don't have any flavor, but I can see that they sprinkled peppers all over it. The curry tofu tastes okay. Oh, there's rice under here. There's lentil rice at the bottom. There's such a little amount of lentil rice that I didn't even know it was there. I tried the sweet potatoes again. And yeah, there's really not that much flavor. Even though you can see that there's sundried tomatoes in here. You can see that there's peppers in here, but it's ultimately like pretty flavorless. We got some more browning broccoli here. Man, there's a lot of pasta dishes. I don't get to individually choose the meals. But that's what, three or four pasta dishes so far. Macaroni, pennet. Like, what is going on?
"That is the most undercooked corn I've ever had." I've never had corn taste like this. Is it because it was microwaved? I feel like if you have corn when it's... No, this doesn't make any sense. It's like dried out. The chili is the only decent part of this meal. And I do mean decent, not good. Whoa. Whatever method they used to season the broccoli, it seems like it only got on one piece because I just took a bite of one of these pieces and it was just pure salt and pepper. But then everything else tastes bland. I'm going to have to mix that up. It's looking a little grim.
The green beans are a little al dente. They're a little harder than I'm used to, but they're okay. The chicken isn't bad. The sauce isn't bad, but the pasta, I don't know if how they cook the pasta, how they boiled it. Maybe they didn't boil it with salt, but the pasta is a little flavorless. So far, this is my favorite. If I got this on a plane, I'd be very satisfied. I just had another bite of the green beans. Okay, I'd be mildly satisfied.
It looks like there was just grated cheese sprinkled on top. Well, it's melted now, you can see. But I got to mix this in to see how it is. I just thought the presentation was very odd. The chicken is okay. A little pale for my liking. The pennet tastes like it was just boiled, but not really that seasoned. I actually don't mind the spinach, but that's probably because it's soaking in all of the ingredients mixed together. I can also see red onions, and I can taste a bit of garlic. Once everything's mixed together, it tastes pretty decent.
Carrots and the peas are swimming right now. Potatoes look really sad. You can see that there's seasoning on there, but it doesn't seem like it's absorbed into the potatoes at all, just as I suspected. And it's a little undercooked. Oh, I'm going to... Oh, I almost died. Eating carrots and peas reminds me of school dinners in England. And now for the chicken. Wait, wasn't it supposed to be honey-glazed? Where is the honey? Wait, honey, garlic, carrots? In what world was this honey garlic? Chicken's actually okay. Seems like it's holding in all of its juices. It's not too dry. I love a good mashed potato, but this is not it. Salmon's decent, but I've never really had bad salmon. It's really hard to mess up. The cauliflower and the tomatoes are just whatever. There's like a sauce on the bottom, but it's really watery.
Out of all the meals I've had, this one seems like it has the most stuff in it. Pasta on this side. There's chicken on this side with a bunch of vegetables. Let's try the vegetables first. Vegetables are not bad. The pasta is just plain. It's just plain pasta with pasta sauce. This is the palest chicken I've ever seen. There's like grill marks on it. Just so, just so you know that they did cook it, but it is pale. It looks like the frozen chicken breast that I get from Trader Joe's. Like, whatever sauce they put on it, they didn't put enough. The chicken, as soon as you get past the skin, doesn't have any flavor whatsoever.
So, here's where Factor loses me. It's $88 for eight meals. That's after discounts for being a first-time subscriber, but typically it costs around $116. That's what, $20 a meal? Even though the website advertises $12 or $13 a meal, but after delivery cost, taxes, you're realistically paying $18 to $20 per serving for microwaved food. At that price, I can get four Hungry Man meals. I could eat ravioli at John & Vinnie's restaurant. No tip, though. Or I could get groceries for the week. It's supposed to be convenience pricing, but the prices really aren't that convenient anymore. It's really just laziness pricing.
Looking at their 90,000 reviews, they have a 3.5 on Trustpilot. A day ago, someone said that the chicken breast wasn't good. And this is from someone who's been a customer for 8 months. "The food was not good. First, the black plastic container that holds the meal was cracked and broken, causing the food to spill out. Uh-oh. The chicken was dry and rubbery. The vegetables were waterlogged. Oh, that is true. Carrots and the peas are swimming right now. And the salmon was just not that good. It was edible, but I would not order again. I canceled my subscription. I just feel it's not worth the money. I can just buy frozen ready meals for less money and get the same quality."
Here's another thing that I thought was funny. I forgot to pause and cancel for the upcoming week because I went away. Another box of eight meals. I obviously got charged for that week full price. And the best part was they sent it late. It's supposed to come every single Monday. It showed up 2 days later on Wednesday. But I'm not the only person who said things like they didn't get their order or they got their order late. Somebody an hour ago wrote a very lengthy review: "Failed me during post-surgery recovery. Unacceptable." I guess a lot of people are trying to not get food ordered because of the storms that have been happening recently. "5 hours ago, I have not gotten my order yet. 8 hours ago, my delivery is due every Sunday. No show and no credit. A day ago, says it's been delivered, but it hasn't."
Oh, they actually replied. "Hi Kenneth, we are very sorry to hear your order was not delivered as scheduled. This is certainly not the experience we aim to provide, and we understand how disappointing this must have been." "Didn't receive anything. Only received one ordered item." A lot of people have problems with coupons or deals that they said they were supposed to get but haven't, or false advertising. "Free breakfast for one year" but the offer was sold out when they tried to get it.
And here's something that nobody really talks about or I haven't really seen people talking about is if you go on the website and you're just curious, you want to see what kind of meals they have. In order for you to do that, you have to go through all these steps. You have to answer questions: What kind of meals that you want, how many meals you want per week. They give you prices. But before you can even get to the part where it says "choose your meals," it charges you. And that's what somebody said here: "Signed up without knowing it. I went to their website to see what they're all about. It ended up signing me up and sending a notice they would charge my account $162. I immediately canceled. My account was charged anyway. When I contacted them, they refused to return the money because I canceled my account but didn't cancel the bug." That's not honest. That's not good.
And you know what's worse? The health concerns people have. 7 days ago, someone said, "Factor has an extremely high fat content that they hide by only advertising carb and protein amounts. They make you pay before seeing this. They make it impossible to cancel and get a refund because their phone number is invalid and their AI chat isn't helpful. Putting that much fat in foods, making people pay first, deceptively hiding the fat content, and then making it impossible to cancel. Is the FTC waiting to come after you? Are you placing a chargeback? I suggest everyone else does the same." Which they replied with just a random notice saying that they're going to forward this feedback to their team.
But this comment brings up an interesting point. You don't actually get to see the ingredients, the nutrition servings until you actually are already paying. So, like the macaroni and turkey chili, 22g of fat or 4.5g of saturated fat. I wouldn't have known that unless I was already under their payment plan.
I wanted to look more into this and I found an article from a dietician and trained chef who reviewed Factor for nearly 20 meals in a week. And going into it, even she was skeptical of health concerns. Factor markets itself as a nutrition-first brand. They say their meals are designed for people who want to eat healthy but don't have the time to cook. And their website talks a lot about ingredient sourcing, nutrition balance, banned ingredients, and strict review process in each of their meals. But once the meals were analyzed, people found that it was a little more complicated.
One big problem is the fat, sodium, and sugar content. According to standard US dietary guidelines, less than 10% of daily calories should come from added sugar. Only 20 to 35% of calories should come from fat. Less than 10% of calories should come from saturated fat and ideally under 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day. The American Heart Association recommends even stricter limits, especially when it comes to saturated fats and sodium. But many of meals blow right past these limits.
The coconut pancakes: 750 calories, 39g of fat, 17g of saturated fat, 34g of sugar, 900 milligrams of sodium. That's 100% of your saturated fat limit and half the amount of daily added sugar limit. That's basically dessert. It's not breakfast. But sure, maybe you want to treat yourself a little bit with some pancakes. That's fine. How about their chicken piccata with cauliflower mash and broccoli? 680 calories, 51g of fat, 23g of saturated fat, 7g of sugar, and 900mg of... oh my god, sodium. Even meals that sound healthy are loaded with cream, butter, and cheese. Remember I was telling you about all the creams in the keto meals that I was eating last year? The vegan meals have a ton of sodium, but I guess some of the vegan meals were balanced according to this. The smoked tofu almond stir-fry has a good amount of protein, 860 milligrams of sodium, 13g of sugar, and a very low saturated fat number of 3.5. That's good. So, high in sodium, but it's better than some of the other meals.
And this is the problem that people have before they sign up. You have meals like calorie-smart, keto, high-protein, low-carb, fiber-filled, but these aren't clear definitions. Like, what does the label actually mean? It might be high in protein but also extremely high in saturated fats, or it might be high in fiber but loaded with sodium and sugar. And I just noticed while I was editing this that the box that the meal came in, the nutritional values are completely different than the website. On the box it says that it has 800mg of sodium. On the website it says it only has 640. Even the fat and the saturated fat is completely different. What about people that have heart disease or diabetes or high blood pressure? You can't really tell exactly what you're eating until you've ordered the food.
Basically, people just see an ad like either on YouTube or I've been getting a lot of ads watching Amazon Prime.
"Everything is done from scratch every single day. All our meals are easy, perfectly portioned and macro-friendly. If you're wanting to cut calories, add some more protein to your diet, or just eat delicious, nutritious meals, Factor's got you covered."
And you think, "Oh, this is a good healthy option. I don't have to go out and I don't have to buy groceries. I don't have to cook. All I got to do is warm it up and I'm good to go." The health branding is extremely good. If you don't read the nutrition labels on the back or you don't know how to find the nutrition labels on the site, then you realize that a lot of these meals are closer to takeout than clean eating.
Now that I have you here, let me see if I can cancel. Let me see how easy this is. "You can turn off your subscription at any time. Please note, we are not able to modify or cancel an order that has been processed." Okay, here we go. Want to take a break? Skip deliveries. Want to cancel? Deactivate my plan. Oh, are you sure? You sure you just don't want less meals? No thanks. You got benefits. What do you... What do you mean? Oh god, I got to go all the way down here. There's unlimited things to check. Here we go. Cancel anyway. Deactivate now. Please select a reason. Bro, I don't have time for this. Okay, I just got an email saying that it's been confirmed. It wasn't too hard to actually cancel, which is good. But then again, people aren't having problems with canceling. People are having problems not receiving their food, it being actually unhealthy and bland.
Look at this review that somebody wrote last week: "Factor Prey selects your meals for you and you cannot even see what those meals are until you enter your credit card number." That's exactly what I said. "Somehow a lot of the meals are sold out/not available. I had meals in my cart that they selected and put in my cart. When I went back a few days later to select my own meals, and Factor 75 already sent me the meals that they pre-selected. They sent me one with pork and another pasta. I don't eat either. The other four meals bland-looking chicken breast. This is the palest chicken I've ever seen. Now I'm out of money because Factor 75 shipped unwanted meals anyway without my authorization. Please be careful with Factor 75. They will try to trick you. All they want is money. Also, these meals are not healthy or fresh. Yes, they have low calories, low carbs, and keto options, but please read the ingredients. There is a long list which implies the meals are processed to stay fresh longer, which means they are loaded with sodium and other bad ingredients." That's exactly what I read earlier. Natural healthy meals should only have a few ingredients. Basically, buying from Factor is like buying a Lean Cuisine. Okay, let's not hate on Lean Cuisine. Those are some good frozen foods.
So, Factor does a few things correctly. It's convenient. It's easy to microwave. 2 to 3 minutes and you're chowing down. No planning, no effort. There is a variety of choices, even though they do repeat a lot. But obviously, there's a lot of problems like the price slash the value you're getting for that price. Obviously, Factor is a huge company now that is under the umbrella of HelloFresh, so it's being mass-produced. When it was originally created, it was somebody who was making the meals and sealing them himself and then sending them out.
"Here's how to eat healthy and also easily, conveniently as well. Kind of a cool thing. A local ex-MMA fighter wants to get you fit and healthy."
Now, it's vacuum-sealed. It's shipped across the country. So, obviously, the quality isn't there. And they want it to stay fresh longer. So, they're loading it with ingredients that keep it fresh longer, like saturated fats and sodiums. If it's in my fridge, I'll 100% eat it because I don't like wasting food. But to go out of your way to actually buy it, a lot of people are having problems. And I didn't even get into the environmental waste. Oh my goodness, it's so much plastic. Every single week they're sending these boxes and they're sending you these ice packs. But the entire meal kit industry has issues. Blue Apron collapsed after a massive churn in 2023. Freshly shut down in 2022. I think they're trying to rebrand and re-release Freshly, actually. And even HelloFresh has been losing customers left and right. The problem isn't branding. You see all these companies all over the place. The problem is value. People are starting to realize if they're going to be spending money on food to be delivered to them and it not be that great, why not just use Uber Eats? It's the... it's the same thing, isn't it?
So, for me, Factor isn't really that great. It's overpriced. A lot of people are calling it a scam because you can't see the meals that you're buying until you actually purchase your first week. It's convenient, but it's not premium. This is pretty flavorless.
But anyway, thank you everyone for watching this video. If you did enjoy it, leave me a comment down below. Oh, I'm going to... Oh, I almost died.