Tovala

Tried to contact support, but got no response other than automated messages, which a very annoying trend for “customer support” when it can never deal with any actual situation. First the good. I love this service. Better quality food than pre-made meals you get in a plastic tray that you throw in the microwave and easier than the ones where you get the ingredients and have to cook it all yourself. The menu is also much larger than some other services. My only complaint is that they seem to be moving away from meals that include green beans, and fewer have broccoli. Far too many are just rice and a protein, or a burger and fries. There used to be a lot more healthy options. The bad… this app is not great. Each week I have to force quit and relaunch to get it to load new menus. Before I realized that I nearly missed putting in my order. The nutrition info also scrolls abruptly after expanding it and then beginning to scroll. It’s very jarring. Also, there’s a “Log Nutrition” menu option on the meals, but it doesn’t seem to do anything. I’ve tapped it multiple times and then looked everywhere, but couldn’t find where it would have logged. And if you want to leave any feedback on a meal, it marks it as you not liking it. I hate that. I enjoyed a meal very much but wanted to let them know the instructions weren’t very clear, but now it shows up in the app with a big thumbs down.

The latest update to the app’s UI streamlined quite a few things, but some features seem to have been sacrificed to get there. The main thing missing is the cooking overview when a meal is in the oven. Previously you could see the stage of cooking it was in, but now you only get a small timer at the bottom over the cooking icon as a notification bubble. On smaller devices I can see it being difficult to read, especially for those with vision impairments. This timer doesn’t always show up, so you have to close and reopen the app a few times to maybe have it come back. I also used to be able to tell the oven to cook at a specific temperature/setting/time as a one-off thing from the app, but now that seems to have been removed as well and you need to set up a custom recipe. The new grocery tab is also not working, when you try to browse the brands supported it immediately kicks you back to the brand list after selecting one to view the products. Last thing I noticed after the UI refresh is the meal rating prompt shows up as soon as the app opens after the barcode is scanned. Before it would seem to delay it until the cooking cycle was done but now if I try to open the app to check the remaining time it opens then dismisses the prompt. Unless you wait to open the app until it’s completely done, you’ll need to go into the order history to actually rate the meal. Overall I enjoy my oven and meal plans, but the app itself feels like it took several steps backwards

I a nurse that works long 12 hour shifts. I wanted to eat a bit healthier but not hate the process and cut down on my fast food intake. This food is good enough to drive home for, in just a few weeks I've cut down my fast food dramatically. But it's more than that, these work for me as a picky eater. I pick the meals I want. The ingredients are individually wrapped in a neat little box so I can easily leave off onions because I hate onions. I can try new foods in a low pressure setting. I don't have to learn how to cook salmon myself, or go to a restaurant to try it and risk not liking it and either going hungry or sending it back (never, I've worked that job). It's excellent and I get excited for my deliveries every week. The portions don't seem large but they are actually perfect, the food is filling and delicious. And just like that without even trying I've lost a couple pounds but I don't feel like I've sacrificed anything.