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About Schwan’s Food Service
Schwan’s food delivery service provides family caretakers with some options over a senior prepared meal delivery that only sells cooked food. Schwan’s is more like a supermarket that delivers nationwide, with about 300 food items. We based our purchases on the most likely needs of a family caretaker.
Price Per Serving
We found pricing overall, as it applies to “price per serving” to be much smaller than the average meal delivery service, including the diet delivery services. Most meals do not come as balanced meals, meaning there will be additional costs for vegetables and sides.
Very Limited Selection of Single Serving Meals
Meal delivery services specialize in single-serving trayed meals. Schwan’s food service offers very little of that option. What we tried from that category was well below the quality level we would feel comfortable serving our senior and elderly loved ones. In our food delivery, we received broken seals and cracked trays which are not only food quality issues, but a food safety issues. We found cracked pieces of plastic from the tray hidden in the food we purchased. When cheap plastic trays are packaged and shipped on dry ice, the dry ice freezes the tray so much it cracks the tray. This is something every meal delivery service knows and packs their coolers accordingly. We were surprised to see this carelessness from Schwan’s.
A Limited Selection of Microwave Reheating
No doubt a family caretaker, and especially a remote family caretaker, will appreciate the convenience of reheating a single-serving meal in the microwave. Meal delivery services understand the convenience of microwave reheating. Family Caretakers are not likely to consider Schwan’s prepared food convenient to reheat. Some foods are reheated on the stovetop, some are reheated in the oven, and some are a blend of both. Schwan’s calls this micro-baking, which means the food item starts in the microwave and finishes in the oven. We didn’t find it clever or convenient, and we didn’t think it reheated the food particularly well.
Unusually Small Portion Sizes Limited Selection of Balanced Meals
Schwan’s does not have standard portion sizes for most of their food, and we found the “recommended” portion size to be smaller than what the average person eats. To family caretakers, this makes senior meal planning much more difficult with managing leftovers and inconsistent amounts.
Most family caretakers will be providing their loved ones with balanced meals. Many seniors will be on low sodium, or diabetic diet, so ample servings of vegetables are an important part of the senior and elderly diet. You will have to buy your frozen vegetables with Schwan’s separately to provide your loved balanced meals.
More Food for Your Dollar, But How Good Is It?
Schwan’s does have value for the family caretaker struggling to care for a loved one and on a limited budget. You can get more prepared food in the house for less money than a single serving senior meal delivery service, but we discovered you have to work harder and spend more time to reheat and portion balanced meals. Also, we found the food to be very rich and probably not something to serve daily.
It took us about four hours to reheat everything in our order and bag it for future meals. Something a remote family caretaker on a limited budget might consider doing on a Sunday is to have ready-made meals during the week, especially if they work or travel long distances to care for their loved ones.