Long review but feels necessary. This is for the option to have the meals shipped, not the in store…read moreprocess.
The checkout process: It was confusing. Checkout said "2 day shipping- Wednesday" when I ordered on Saturday 11/8. Wednesday came and went so I reached out via email for info, to which I was met with a fairly defensive series of replies saying that any order placed after Thursday will get shipped the following Sunday. And then in the mail Monday... and then arrive approximately Wednesday. I pointed out that it was a bit confusing and just including "2 day shipping - Wednesday" at checkout no matter when you place the order may be misleading, but I understand and will wait for my order. I got another defensive reply saying they have an FAQ page and that's just an estimate. FYI: it doesn't even say estimate. It just says 2 day shipping. Which, is an additional fee. I finally got the order 11/18. So, 10 days for an order that on check out looked like I was paying 2 days for shipping, and the company got defensive when I pointed it out. In fairness, it does say on the home page that orders need to be placed by Thursday to be shipped the following Sunday. Checkout was just misleading and very unclear.
Well, arrival: it was packed pretty decently from the outside. Wrapped in foam, some ice packs (in ziplock bags with a lot of packing tape, lol). Once I started removing the meals, I noticed two big issues: about 4 out of the 10 I ordered were NOT vacuum sealed properly and had a lot of air in the packages, and at least 3 of the meals had the black plastic container they came in cracked with little shards of plastic in and around the meals. One even was cracked at the bottom with all the tablespoon or so of sauce leaking out.
The food: One of the steak meals was completely raw- which is fine enough since they were meant to be microwaved, but the packing said "fully cooked". Another issue is most of the vegetable options were random and inconsistent- I got two of the same meal, and they had different vegetables in each meal. Another issue is all of the vegetables were floppy, soggy, and maybe steamed or boiled. Every meal had water sitting at the bottom of the container, and all of the vegetables were unseasoned and quite frankly, a little gross- and that's someone who'll eat those steam in a bag frozen broccoli things as is. The salmon keto one was just a couple chunks of salmon and like 2 cups of mushy green beans. The meatballs are massive and always cold in the center no longer how long you microwave them. Every single meal was dry and if it came with a sauce, it was barely noticeable. Honestly, a couple of the chicken ones were decent enough for the price, but for about 3 out of 10 to be "decent enough", I would have rather just got Chipotle or something for about the same price a meal. In fairness, most of them were pretty filling if you could stomach soggy mushy vegetables, dry meat, and plain rice.
And to top it off, I reached out with these concerns the day the order arrived 11/18, and they did not reply at all. Not about the broken trays, not about the raw meat, not about the poorly vacuum sealed products. I included pictures and everything. So, with no attempt from Swolehouse to offer any sort of remedy or even acknowledgement, I feel that I need to make this public review. Buyer beware.