A trend of the modern world is that quality home-cooked meals are being sacrificed because of long hours at work, inconvenient grocery stores, and the stress of planning what to eat. This trend has meant we are spending less time cooking and less time sharing kitchen experiences with with our family or friends.
We believe there is not need to sacrifice the pleasure and taste of a quality home-cooked dinner and have identified 3 benefits of cooking a “quality meal” at home:

1.Better relationship with family and friends
According to research conducted by Smart Beginnings, “Family is the single most important influence in a child’s life. Parents and family form a child’s first relationships”. It is in our family that our values and principles get nurtured and developed. Regular family meals provide opportunities for the family to develop better communication (Lyttle & Baugh, 2008). Therefore, it’s natural that a quality meal helps to build stronger family ties.

For couples, doing an activity with your partner can help you both feel more connected and happier. You may even be surprised with your partner for helping to cook a healthy dish and share a new experience together. (Young, 2015).

We shorten the preparation time in cooking delicious and healthy recipes because we portion ingredients and provide everything you need. With 20-35 minutes, your family can enjoy a quality meal while catching up after a long day at work or school.

 
2. Keep us driven to try new recipes
We love that feeling of excitement you get when serving a new and interesting meal at your dinner table. With different recipes each week, we help people to be motivated and try something new for their family or partner. We gather the freshest local ingredients from local suppliers and farmers. We provide unique ingredients that you haven’t tried before, and introduce new styles of cooking.

 
3. Releases stress
Cooking is a very calming ritual. It’s a different kind of stress relief, but one that helps to take the mind away from the pressures of the day. Unfortunately, however, because of the stress involved with shopping and deciding what to cook, many simply never start. We know, from experience, that it is a stress when you have to think about what to cook or where to shop after work. Picking up ingredients at the grocery store will eat-up your time for cooking or relaxing. We have worked hard to build a product that will reduce stress by delivering everything at your doorstep and lessen the burden of thinking about your meal plan. When the barriers to cooking are removed, you can enjoy the natural stress relief of cooking.

 
For almost 2 years now, we’ve been designing and delivering easy and delicious recipe kits. It is our passion for sharing a quality meal pushed us to build a service that helps make cooking meals at home more convenient. We think you deserve a rest from grocery shopping, long queues and the hassle of meal planning.

 
So you see, cooking at home can be easy, convenient and beneficial. All you need is the right tools, motivation, and of course You Plate It.

1. They save you money

Sure, the weekly price tag might seem a little steep at first, but when you consider how much buying everything for a new recipe would cost, the price is justified. We estimate a recipe subscription service like ours can save you 20% on your weekly shop (and that doesn’t include all the unnecessary purchases we make when shopping). You Plate It buys ingredients directly from farmers and in bulk from wholesalers and artisans, so we’re able to pass on savings to our customers. Plus, with each plate costing as little as $10.94, the price is less than even the most basic restaurant.

2. They save you time

A recipe kit service will save you time in three key areas: Firstly, in the time and effort it takes to research and plan meals; secondly, by reducing trips to the supermarket; and finally, packaging the ingredients required for a recipe will save time searching your pantry and fridge for ingredients. This makes a recipe kit service perfect for busy people, or people who value their time. Although a recipe kit meals still requires cooking, even a kitchen novice can prepare a restaurant quality meal with fresh local ingredients in less than an hour.

3. They teach you something new

We all love to try new things right? A recipe kit is the perfect way to try a new recipe or a new ingredient. Because we source our ingredients from a depth of suppliers and farmers, we are able to provide unique ingredients – things you can’t find at Woolworths. The recipes are carefully designed to allow home cooks to use and combine ingredients in delicious and new ways.

4. They cut down on food waste

In a You Plate It recipe kit, you get the exact amount of an ingredient you need – no more jars of sauce going bad or spinach going limp in the fridge. This substantially reduces food waste as well as reducing packaging waste. Read here about how our compostable packaging is helping to reduce the plastic waste generated from a typical household grocery visit.

5. They connect you with better ingredients

We believe WA is home to the best fresh produce in the world, so we work hard with our suppliers to provide fresh local ingredients made or grown right here in Western Australia. We work closely with some of Perth’s finest fresh produce providers, like Mondo’s and Partridges, to ensure we supply a top quality product. Our commitment to working with WA farmers means you’ll be supporting local producers while getting a one-of-a-kind culinary experience!

 

Protecting the environment is something we take very seriously.

Scroll to the bottom for the CliffsNotes 🙂

According to Foodwise, the average Australian household bins 20% of all the food they purchase. This equates to more than 4 million tonnes of food waste each year! Our innovative, Perth built technology, allows us to purchase only what we need. By supplying ingredients in the exact quantity, and by avoiding retail packaging, we have created a solution to reduce food and packaging waste.

We avoid plastics

The plastic typically used in food packaging & grocery shopping can take 500 years to breakdown, and it will never return to natural products – instead it simply becomes smaller and smaller pieces of plastic. We don’t believe your weekly food shop should have an impact that outlives our grandchildren, so we’ve invested heavily in environmentally friendly packaging.

PLA clear containers – Polylactic acid (PLA) is a biodegradable polymer derived from carbon neutral and renewable resources (think corn or sugarcane). These carbon neutral containers are the perfect alternative to oil based plastics. All our small containers are made from this innovative product. You can recycle these hard containers in Perth’s kerbside co-mingle recycling, but remember to remove the lidding film (Perth’s recycling cannot deal with soft plastics).

Cellophane – Cellophane is a thin, transparent sheet made of cellulose regenerated from items such as wood, cotton or hemp. Made from renewable resources, it’s perfect for food packaging and is 100% biodegradable. We use cellophane to pack our spices and pantry products such as rice or quinoa. Perth co-mingled recycling can’t process soft plastics, so dispose in general waste.

Produce bags – To keep fresh produce crisp, we use an innovative soft plastic PLA. This bag is carbon neutral, home compostable, and great for collecting your cooking scraps. Place in general waste or household compost (again, soft plastics can’t be recycled in Perth’s yellow top recycling bin)

We use renewable paper and cardboard

All the paper and cardboard products we use are made from sustainable and renewable forestry products. All our cardboard and paper can be recycled and any returned boxes are either reused or locally recycled.

We manufacture our icepacks in-house to reduce carbon

Other companies use ice packs that have been shipped from overseas, or over east. The energy (carbon) used to truck what is effectively water across the plant is insane. We 3D printed an ice pack making machine and our ice packs come direct from the tap. No shipping, no unnecessary carbon footprint.

We reuse and recycle polystyrene eskies

Your food needs to be cold when it arrives at your home, so we use locally made styrofoam eskies (the same type used in broccoli farming). We encourage all our customers to return these so we can reuse them. There is no limit to the number of times an esky can be reused. We protect them with cardboard so they don’t get damaged and they can be reused indefinitely.

We reuse and recycle our icepacks

Our water-soluble gel packs are completely non-toxic and non-hazardous. We encourage our customers to return these so we can reuse them. When they can’t be reused, we dispose of the gel (it has no traceable environmental impact) and soft plastic packaging.

Cliffs Notes…

• Return your esky and ice packs with your next delivery. We clean and reuse them. There is no limit to the number of times the esky can be reused (their durability is the reason we use them). If you don’t intend to receive a delivery again, you can return to our facility (contact us for details).
• There are a number of innovative ways we reduce carbon and other waste, but the three we’re most proud of are; our dedicated use of carbon neutral bio-blastics, our almost zero food and retail packaging waste, and our in house manufacture of icepacks.
• Our small clear bags are Cellophane, which is made from tree pulp, and should go into general waste.
• Recycle paper bags and other paper products in your yellow top recycle bin.
• Recycle the clear containers used for herbs and liquids, but fist remove the soft lidding film.
• Soft plastics such as lidding film can be recycled at some supermarkets or workplaces. If you don’t have that option, place in general waste.*

*Our cities are still working on ways to effectively collect and process soft plastics so they can’t go in the yellow top bin  (they badly clog up machinery).

What is You Plate It?

We’re a meal kit delivery business based in Perth, Western Australia! We specialise in sending all the fresh, pre-portioned ingredients you need to make delicious dinners at home.

Why do we do it?

We believe there is something special about enjoying a home cooked meal, and don’t think a busy modern lifestyle should get in the way of this simple pleasure. You Plate It was started by two mates, Paul & Mark, who are passionate about food and believe cooking a delicious dinner at home should be easy.

What inspires our recipes?

We believe Western Australia has the best fresh produce in the world and we want to share the states amazing produce with our customers. We draw inspiration from ingredients that are local and seasonal. We love to combine our fresh produce with unique ingredients or a new cooking style to make your dinner restaurant quality.

How does it work?

You choose the meals from This Week’s Recipes page and we take care of the rest.

What comes in a box?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pAZwCfmpVs

We pack and send everything you need to cook a recipe. All the ingredients are pre-portioned to reduce waste and the packaging is 100% biodegradable. Our Boxes can come with enough ingredients to generously serve 2 or 4 people.

Since doing a comparison of You Plate It versus the Supermarkets, which you can read here,  we’ve been asked to explain how we are able to save our customers money as well as provide quality ingredients and service.  The answer comes down to 3 key reasons;

Firstly, we have amazing suppliers who we deal with directly to reduce handling and logistics costs;

Secondly, we don’t have the overheads of a high profile retail store and all the costs associated with staffing and running a supermarket;

Finally, we reduce food waste and supply the right amount of ingredients you need for a recipe.

These three reasons (and many more) mean we can save you 20% when compared to shopping for the same menu at your local supermarket. More important than saving money is the quality of what we provide.  We work closely with Perth’s finest fresh produce providers to ensure we supply the very best.  It costs us a little more to buy high quality ingredients, but we are passionate about our food and want to give our customers the best.  We work by the motto, “we only give our customers what we would give our mums – the very best”.  Our members save money, get high quality produce and have a team of dedicated food lovers preparing their weeks menu.  We look forward to more people joining the food revolution and enjoying the many benefits of You Plate It.