PeachDish vs. Sunbasket 2023: Can Sunbasket Fill the Void?

Into southern cuisine? A fan of the now-defunct PeachDish and looking for a substitute? There are a lot of meal delivery services out there, but I can give you a hand. Sunbasket is a popular meal delivery service with lots to offer.

Although its focus isn’t southern food, Sunbasket offers ten different dietary preferences from Paleo to Mediterranean and more. It has an extensive menu every week, making sure you have over 20 options to choose from. Compare that to PeachDish which only had nine total meals on its menu every week.

So, if you’re looking for a meal delivery service with a solid offering of just about anything, Sunbasket may be right for you. Check out the Sunbasket menu. You won’t be disappointed. 

At a Glance: Who Won Each Category?

Menu Variety

Winner: Sunbasket

A key component of any food delivery service is the variety offered in its menu. Sunbasket is the clear winner here due to its huge choice of meals, plans for many specialized diets, and a vast array of add-ons. 

In comparison, PeachDish offered both meat dishes and a range of vegetarian, vegan, pescatarian, and gluten-free meals – but nothing as extensive as Sunbasket.

PeachDish also had some special Superfood Recipes, featuring ingredients like collard greens, pecans, sweet potatoes, and chickpeas. Overall, approximately half the recipes PeachDish offered on any given week were either vegetarian or vegan.

However, even though PeachDish offered impressive recipes, its limited selection likely hampered its appeal to new customers. Indeed, in its prime, PeachDish only offered nine items to choose from – although it did have a “market” section with a variety of add-ons.

Still, if you compare that to Sunbasket, which offers around 20 meal kits and nine Fresh & Ready meals – there’s no contest. Sunbasket also offers an assortment of  “market” items for lunch, breakfast, snacks, etc… Yeah, it just has everything.

Sunbasket’s Fresh & Ready meals are all premade and ready to go straight in the microwave. They’ll be ready in as little as four or five minutes. So, if you’re looking for a quick meal that’ll satisfy you, they’re an easy go-to.

While open, PeachDish focused on Southern (American) cuisine for most of its meals. Sunbasket has a much wider scope. The menu changes weekly, but the one I looked at had 20 items which consisted of four Tex-Mex, six Mediterranean, one French, two Hawaiian, five American, and two Asian meals. That’s a lot of options.

Cook times among the Sunbasket recipes range from four minutes for the Fresh & Ready meals to as much as 40 minutes for a more complicated offering among its regular meal kits. However, Sunbasket doesn’t split meals into different categories of difficulty like some services do.

Neither company had very many kid-friendly options. On the Sunbasket menu I looked at, for example, there were about five items that might pass as kid-friendly. They had somewhat fancier names than most kids would take to, but the base dish was pretty straightforward and simple like meatloaf, sloppy joes, and the like.

Meal Customization

Winner: Sunbasket

Another important consideration when evaluating meal delivery services is the customizability of the meals offered. Sunbasket, for example, allows some limited customization for its meals. On occasion, it allows you to swap out different proteins in certain meals. This isn’t always the case, but I did see that option for the Buffalo Chicken Flatbreads as well as a few others.

Regardless of customization details, Sunbasket offers lots of variety. Its meals are sorted into ten different types of dietary preferences. Given that many options, you should be able to find almost any preference you’re looking for.

Truthfully, it’s hard to make a judgment here regarding PeachDish, as the company is no longer in business. However, from what I could gather from my research, PeachDish made no special efforts in terms of meal customizations.

You had to make do with whatever recipe you ordered. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you couldn’t make your own adjustment if you wanted to tailor a meal to your own personal tastes. It just meant you had to do so from your own knowledge and culinary skills.

On another point, Sunbasket menus can be tailored so that you can exclude different recipes and meals based on things like allergens and personal tastes. However, the company warns that all their meals are packed in a building that processes all major food allergens. As a result, Sunbasket recommends you go elsewhere if you have a serious allergy concern.

There’s an extensive filter that allows you to customize your menu options. Choices on the filter include: high protein, high fiber, low carb, low calorie, avoid soy, avoid lamb, avoid pork, etc… There are a total of 15 options to filter by.

Ordering, Delivery, Unboxing

Winner: Sunbasket

Sunbasket is the winner in this category, but only by default. If PeachDish were still in business then this one would have likely been a tie.

PeachDish had a minimum order of two meals of two servings apiece or four servings in total. However, unlike most other meal delivery services, PeachDish didn’t require a subscription. It allowed for guest customers. Unfortunately, though, these guest customers were required to pay extra shipping fees on their order.

Some subscribers to PeachDish, depending on location, could have their orders shipped free. At the same time, orders shipped out to the western states could expect to be charged as much as an extra $15. Those fees could really add up, especially for those one-time guest orders out West.

Handling your Sunbasket account is pretty straightforward. You can change your order, reschedule, or make cancellations online provided you do so before Noon PST on the Wednesday before your delivery.

Deliveries typically run Monday through Thursday at most locations (some zip codes may be more limited). Unfortunately, Sunbasket can’t deliver in AK, HI, MT, ND, and some parts of NM at this time.

The minimum order available at Sunbasket is identical to that from PeachDish – an order of two 2-serving meals. At the current time, there are no special apps or other special features to make the delivery process smoother. But neither are there complaints that it needs to be made smoother.

The meals arrive fresh and ready for the refrigerator. Some can go into the freezer for a later day. Don’t worry though, the information is clearly labeled on the corresponding meal.

While it was in business, PeachDish was environmentally conscious as many meal delivery services are. It used mostly recyclable and reusable materials for its packaging and it had a solid recycling program.

Sunbasket also puts a good effort in for environmental concerns constructing much of its packaging material with an eye on recycling efforts. The boxes, paper, and most other elements of its packaging can be reused or recycled. Similarly, its fiber trays and sleeves can be composted or recycled as well.

Every PeachDish box included the recipe of your chosen meal, printed on a card with explanatory photos. All the ingredients needed to cook the meals were found neatly packed and organized inside. This included such things as dry goods and spices, fresh, organic produce, and humanely raised proteins.

The only ingredients not included in the PeachDish meal kits were a handful of kitchen staples most people would have on hand anyway. These included kosher salt, black pepper, and oil.

Sunbasket makes similar efforts. It provides a cold-packed meal delivery package filled with everything you need to prepare your meal including pre-portioned organic ingredients as well as all the necessary sauces, seasonings, and protein you need to whip up a culinary masterpiece.

Meal Prep

Winner: Sunbasket

This is another category that Sunbasket wins by default.

PeachDish offered Quick Fix recipes that could be prepared quite readily. While most meal delivery services might offer up to four servings per meal, Sunbasket offers up to an impressive ten. PeachDish, on the other hand, went even further and offered as many as 12 servings on certain entrees. This made PeachDish an excellent resource for party planning.

Like most meal delivery services, Sunbasket recommends that you eat the meals containing seafood first, followed by any Fresh & Ready meals. It also suggests that you consume Pre-Prepped meal kits before Classic Meal Kits.

Sunbasket meal kits (like PeachDish before it) consist of all the necessary (pre-portioned) ingredients for a meal, so they usually require more than just adding hot water or being pulled straight from the fridge. 

However, Sunbasket also offers Pre-Prepped meals where chopping, measuring, sauce mixing, and an easy-to-follow recipe card are all provided as a complimentary service.

Additionally, Sunbasket has an extensive market menu with numerous subcategories that goes well beyond just meal kits. These subcategories include things like smoothies, yogurt, and a wide variety of other items.

So, if you’re looking for extras to go along with your meals, Sunbasket won’t disappoint. PeachDish also had market items, but again, Sunbasket is here, and PeachDish is gone.

Customer Support

Winner: Sunbasket

Customer Support is one area in which I can’t comment on with respect to PeachDish. As the company is no longer in business, I can’t test how readily the company responded to inquiries, emails, etc.

However, I’m unaware of any major issues in this regard, and I didn’t stumble upon anything while researching, so I’ll assume PeachDish’s customer support was, at the very least, adequate.

Sunbasket, on the other hand, I was able to delve into a little bit. It offers a number of avenues for the customer looking for assistance. It provides automated service 24/7 through its chatbot. 

Human assistance is also available from 6 AM to 8 PM PST via phone or text. 

It also has a community help option so you can get assistance from other Sunbasket clients. Finally, there’s an email option. Overall, I’d say, Sunbasket has a fairly formidable customer service department.

If you have questions about the company or the service it provides, getting answers is easy. I tested it out by emailing a question about how to deal with an unusual allergy. The company answered my concerns quite readily and thoroughly as the below email shows.

As you can see, Sunbasket warns people with serious allergy concerns. Their facility isn’t designed for handling allergy-free food. That’s not uncommon in the industry. They can serve people who have certain preferences, but if there’s a medical concern, customers are encouraged to go elsewhere.

Overall, I found Sunbasket Customer Service to be fairly complete. With the assistance it provides, you can manage your Sunbasket account with relative ease. This includes canceling when desired, or performing other managerial tasks. There’s a small section on the FAQ pages that’ll help guide customers through the usual gamut of situations.

Pricing

Winner: Sunbasket

Sunbasket wins this category as well because its prices are lower than the last listed prices of PeachDish.

PeachDish had a very interesting and distinctive menu focusing on Southern style meals. However, its $12.50 a plate price would be pricey even by today’s standards. Indeed, that steep price might’ve been one of the factors that led to PeachDish’s eventual collapse.

There were other fees and concerns to worry about, too. Although the standard price of a PeachDish meal kit was $12.50 per serving, you could expect to pay anywhere between $3.50 and $34 per portion. This depended entirely on whether you ordered a dessert, a side, a dinner, or a premium kit. Whatever you ordered, the minimum amount was $45 per delivery.

If you ordered as a guest, you had to pay a $12 guest fee for each delivery. This guest fee was waived for subscribers.

Fortunately, shipping was free for a significant number of states in the US. In some states, though, a $15 shipping fee per delivery had to be included. These states were AZ, CA, CO, IA, ID, KS, ME, MN, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OK, OR, SD, UT, WA, and WY. As you can see, that’s an extensive list.

In contrast, Sunbasket’s introductory price is Price: Missing Product sunbasket per serving which, even several years after PeachDish closed down, is still lower than PeachDish’s starting price of $12.50. Sunbasket also delivers to most states in the US except AK, HI, MT, ND, and parts of NM. And that’s without adding any shipping fees beyond those normally calculated.

So, although PeachDish did have a somewhat better shipping system than Sunbasket, you did have to pay extra for it. And all things considered, Sunbasket is hardly a slouch in that area. There are only a handful of places Sunbasket doesn’t ship to.

Features Comparison: PeachDish vs. Sunbasket

And The Winner Is: Sunbasket

Clearly, Sunbasket is a solid option for the former PeachDish customer to consider. Sunbasket has an enormous variety of options, high-quality food, pre-prepped meals and ingredients, and an effective customer service all available at a reasonable price.

Although Sunbasket doesn’t specifically cater to tastes from the South, it has plenty of other options on its menu. Besides, with 20+ options every week, there’s a good chance it’ll provide one or two selections of southern cuisine on its menu. 

So, don’t dawdle, take a look at what Sunbasket has to offer here.

FAQ

What happened to PeachDish?

PeachDish was a popular meal delivery service specializing in Southern cuisine. It shut down in 2019 and is no longer trading. However, its name still stirs interest among many foodies who remember it.

Many people who were fond of PeachDish may be looking for another meal delivery service to fill the void it left. In that vein, I offer Sunbasket as a potential stand-in.

Is Sunbasket Healthy?

Sunbasket provides wholesome, healthy food made from top-of-the-line ingredients. The bulk of Sunbasket’s ingredients come from organic produce and responsibly-raised proteins.

Sunbasket even goes so far as to pre-make numerous spice blends and sauces to save you time and effort and to add that extra pizzazz to your healthy meals.

How does the PeachDish Menu compare to Sunbasket?

Peachdish primarily focused on Southern cuisine and offered only around nine dishes to choose from every week. Sunbasket offers ten different dietary preferences and twenty different recipes every week – and that’s not including the Fresh & Ready or Market items.