Meal-Kits in the United Kingdom: A Recipe for Food-Safety?

Meal-kits have grown in popularity over the last decade, promoting a healthier, less wasteful and more convenient alternative. Subsequent to meal kit delivery to consumer homes, step-by-step recipe cards and ingredients are provided for domestic meal preparation.

Given the association of the domestic kitchen with the sporadic incidence of foodborne illness, this current consumer trend may present unique food-safety challenges, offering distinctive opportunities to inform and enable consumers to implement important foodsafety practices to reduce the risk of foodborne illness associated with food prepared in the home.

Research suggests that the inclusion of food-safety information in recipes may improve consumer foodsafety practices. However, little is currently known
regarding the provision, understanding and use of foodsafety information in meal-kit recipe cards and on mealkit providers’ websites.