Prepared Meals Review: Factor Meals vs Mi BOWL Meal

Finding the Best Meal Plan for You in the Greater Toronto Area

Updated July 18, 2024

Tired of cooking and don’t want to go out? Maybe you’re tired of cleaning all your dishes after each meal prep. Meal delivery kits like Hello Fresh are nice and all, but if you want to make things more convenient and make no mess in your kitchen, look no further than meal plan companies. If you’re trying to find a meal plan bundle in Toronto, finding the right service that caters to your needs can be a game-changer. Today, we’re covering a relatively new meal plan service, Mi BOWL Meal, an alternative to Factor Meals, especially if you’re looking for Asian Fusion inspired dishes. We’ve made a comprehensive comparison to help you decide which suits your lifestyle better.

A Quick Overview of What We Found:

Factor Meals focuses on providing health-conscious, ready-to-eat meals. They emphasize fresh, nutritious ingredients and offer various dietary plans such as keto, paleo, low-carb, and vegetarian. Factor Meals aims to cater to all individuals looking for convenient meal options without the need for cooking or cleaning.

Source: Factor Meals, New Year Marketing Campaign

Mi BOWL Meal is Toronto’s best meal delivery service that caters to the Asian palate. Their weekly menus reflect the rich and diverse flavours of Asian cuisine, offering meals that remind customers of home and provide a convenient way to explore cuisines customers haven’t tried before through their weekly curated menus. Mi BOWL Meal's offerings are designed to seamlessly integrate into busy lifestyles, making them ideal for individuals who miss the taste of home or individuals looking to expand their cuisine palates conveniently and quickly. They talk about each dish and its inspiration to give people a way to explore East Asian Cuisine.

Source: Nancy Liu, Google Business Profile Review

User Experience

Accessing the Mi BOWL Meal website feels much easier and their UX makes it much easier to view all their meals before actually committing to their service, unlike Factor Meals. We noticed this as an issue with most other meal plan companies as well who force you to sign up and give up your credit card information before even placing an order! The website for Mi BOWL feels so much simpler and provides a high-quality browsing experience that Factor and many other meal plan companies have reduced into customer conversion funnels.

How Should You Choose?

There are many factors to consider when choosing which meal delivery service you want to buy from if you live in Toronto or the Greater Toronto Area. However, it all comes down to a couple of key factors:

Budget

Both Mi BOWL and Factor Meals have similar prices

Taste

Mi BOWL is friendly for people accustomed to Eastern & Asian cuisine while blending elements from other techniques from Western cooking. Due to the origins of their meals, the techniques used to cook them are much more complex and flavourful with varieties of seasonings and textures.
Factor Meals is best for people looking for Western cooking. We were able to find many reviews online stating that the taste was much more bland.

Convenience

Both provide ready-made and no-cooking-needed meals, which can be microwaved.
Mi BOWL offers two different delivery dates (Monday and Thursday), while Factor Meals only delivers once a week.
Mi BOWL offers a wide selection of order quantities, while Factor Meals has set amounts you have to order with.

Unique Qualities

Factor Meals offers many drinks from partnerships as well as snacks.
Mi BOWL has a variety of other options including fresh-made frozen meals, breakfast options, as well as desserts they make in-house.

Support

Both have excellent service staff who can help out with any concern
Based on customer reviews, Mi BOWL can accommodate more extenuating circumstances compared to Factor Meals, such as requesting a change in an order before a delivery if errors were made in the original order.

Budget & Convenience

Table of Price Comparison (Units in CAD $)

Quantity	Mi Bowl	Factor Meals
3	$16.14	X
4		X
6		$15.99
8		$14.99
9		X
10		$14.49
12		$13.99
14		$13.49
18		$12.49
24		X

The price of Mi BOWL’s meals is slightly higher, but all their ingredients are more health conscious and high quality (i.e. grapeseed oil rather than canola oil). Their ingredients are all sourced locally and you can choose however many meals you would like, it gives each person more control over how much they want to purchase.

Not all of us need to buy 6 prepared meals in a meal plan every week, since sometimes, it’s much more convenient having just a few on hand for those busy days! Mi BOWL is much more convenient since you also don’t have to choose your meals every week if you don’t want to and can rely on their subscription service to pick your weekly meals while accounting for your macros and nutrition.

Mi BOWL offers primarily East Asian-inspired cooking, with Japanese, Chinese, and Korean food as their focus. They are the best in the Greater Toronto Area when it comes to healthy, fresh Asian-styled meal prep. Their foods often use a variety of different cooking techniques from sautéing, braising, roasting, steaming, and many more. This causes the food to maintain great taste while still being extremely healthy.

Factor Meals offers primarily Western styles of cooking. The foods they serve often are made using very simple cooking techniques such as baking and boiling. Although this may be good for health purposes and retains most nutritional value, food may often end up bland and flavourless.

Factor Meals offers 3 types of add-ons to their weekly deliveries:

Juices
Granola Bites
Cocoa Truffle Bars

Mi BOWL has a much larger variety including:

Frozen Meals (i.e. Gamjangtang)
Breakfast Options (i.e. Overnight Oats)
Fresh-made Keto-friendly Sandwiches
Desserts (i.e. CocoFy Coconut Jelly)

In terms of how both companies sell their products,

Factor Meals offers 4 different packages to choose from: Keto, Chef’s Choice, Calorie Smart, and Protein Plus
Mi BOWL offers 3 bundles to choose from: Premium Weekly, Fitness, and Weightloss

Both services are very clear on their nutritional value, with their macros and nutritional content listed on their websites. They both list out their possible allergens and while Factor Meals does not accommodate those, Mi BOWL does depending on the dish.

Culinary Experience

Both Factor Meals and Mi BOWL heavily emphasize the importance of providing high-quality food for customers, however, Mi BOWL’s meals are chef-curated weekly by their Michelin-trained chef, Hank.

Mi BOWL Meal takes pride in delivering authentic Asian flavours, including Japanese, Korean, and a variety of fusion dishes. Their meals are not only about convenience but also about delivering a cultural experience through food. The use of traditional ingredients combined with modern cooking methods ensures that each meal is a culinary journey, offering customers a taste of home or a new cultural experience.

Source: Online reviews. Mi BOWL Meal.

Factor Meals, while also focusing on quality and nutrition, tends to offer more conventional Western dishes. Their menu is designed to cater to a wide audience with familiar flavours, making it a great choice for those who prefer traditional Western meals but still want the convenience of a meal delivery service.

Source: Online reviews. Factor Meals.

Sustainability

Factor Meals’s packaging has become more and more eco-friendly throughout the past couple of months, but they’re still not completely eco-friendly yet, which makes it difficult for eco-conscious customers to support buying their products.

Source: Online Food Reviews, Factor Meals

Mi BOWL has sustainable packaging that can all be recycled and they deliver in reusable delivery bags that they recollect every week.

Source: Reddit, Mi Bowl

Customer Reviews

Customer feedback for both services is generally positive, with many praising the convenience and quality of the meals. Mi BOWL Meal customers particularly appreciate the authentic flavours and the variety of dishes available each week. Almost all 100+ reviews from their Google Business Profile often highlight the excellent customer service and the company’s flexibility in accommodating special requests and dietary restrictions.

Source: Google Reviews, Mi Bowl Meal Business Profile

Factor Meals also receives high marks for their meal variety and the health-focused nature of their offerings. Customers enjoy the convenience of having meals that fit their dietary needs delivered to their doorsteps. However, we went through hundreds of reviews and found many that mentioned the meals can sometimes lack the bold flavours that are more pronounced in Mi BOWL Meal's offerings as well as the fact that their service often has issues with fulfilling or cancelling orders. Oddly enough, they don’t have a business profile, so they don’t have a publicly accessible score.

Source: Trustpilot, Factor Meals

Conclusion

Both Mi BOWL Meal and Factor Meals provide excellent options for those looking to simplify their meal prep routines while enjoying delicious and nutritious meals. Your choice between the two will ultimately depend on your taste preferences, dietary needs, and how much you value local sourcing and sustainability. With Mi BOWL’s delicious premium Asian-inspired dishes and local focus, and Factor Meals’s variety of diet-friendly options, you’re sure to find a meal plan that fits your lifestyle perfectly.

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