Kroger, Home Chef Piloting 3 Meal Solutions

The Kroger Co. and its Home Chef subsidiary have rolled out a pilot to augment the selection of Home Chef meal kits already sold in more than 900 Kroger-owned stores across the country with three new options:

Home Chef Oven-Ready meals provide fresh, ready-to-cook ingredients in an oven-safe tin to make both meal preparation and cleanup quick and easy. Meals are designed to serve two people and cost about $8.50 per serving. Six complete meals will be available in-store, and the menu will rotate with new recipes introduced every month. The initial recipes are Garlic Butter Salmon, Blue Cheese-Crusted Steak, Tex-Mex Steak, Chicken Pesto al Forno, Arroz con Pollo, and Feta-Crusted Chicken

Home Chef Heat & Eat meals are the company’s first foray into fully cooked, ready-to-heat products, which can be prepared in as little as five minutes. Shoppers can choose complete meals or buy proteins and side dishes separately to mix and match. The complete meals will cost around $6.50 per serving. Heat & Eat will launch with three complete meal choices and a range of mix-and-match options. As with the Oven-Ready line, the menu will rotate, with new meals introduced every month. The initial complete meals are Chicken with Broccoli and Seasoned Mashed Potatoes, Pork al Pastor, and Bacon Macaroni and Cheese, while the first mix-and-match options are Garlic Pork Sirloin Roast, Baby Back Ribs, Smoked Turkey Breast, Sirloin Steak, Broccoli and Rice, Green Beans, Red Potatoes, and Carrots with Rosemary.

Home Chef Lunch Kits consist of salads, grain bowls, sandwiches and tacos with fully cooked proteins that can be prepared easily at home or at the office. Costing about $6 per serving, the kits, which will rotate weekly, include Guacamole Chicken Salad Sandwich, Greek Pasta Salad, Chipotle Steak and Guacamole Salad, Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad, Baja Chicken Salad, Green Chili Chicken Sandwich, Snappy Chicken Guacamole Tacos, and Mediterranean Steak & Feta Sandwich.

“Our customers’ dinnertime needs are constantly evolving,” noted Pat Vihtelic, founder and CEO of Chicago-based Home Chef. “We’re thrilled to meet more of their needs with high-quality meal options that consider different lifestyles and levels of preparation and cooking times.”

The new meal solutions will first be available at select Mariano’s locations in Illinois and Kroger stores in Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, beginning this month. Kroger anticipates expanding the three Home Chef meal solutions to additional markets this year.

“Our new meal solutions provide additional flexibility for families and individuals who want to get a delicious meal on the table whether they have time to cook one of our meal kits from scratch or need something that can be prepared more quickly,” added Vihtelic.

Home Chef is one of the largest meal kit delivery companies in the United States, with more than 3.5 million meals delivered each month. Cincinnati-based Kroger is No. 2 on Progressive Grocer’s 2018 Super 50 list of the top grocers in the United States.