MagicKitchen.com 877-516-2442 174 Frederick Court Los Altos, CA 94022 www.MagicKitchen.com info@MagicKitchen.com

About MagicKitchen.com

MagicKitchen.com is a way for busy families and seniors to have delicious, wholesome meals without shopping, cooking, or clean up. The meals are prepared by chefs using quality California-fresh produce and ingredients to ensure customers receive delicious, nutritious meals that are quick to prepare. The meals arrive on the doorstep already frozen. All someone has to do is defrost, heat and serve.

MagicKitchen's special packaging goes from freezer into microwave or oven, to the dinner table and then straight to the trash - no pots and pans to clean. The menu has great variety and the choices are updated quarterly, so there are always new meals to try.

MagicKitchen will also produce variations on their dishes for people with specific dietary requirements, so don't hesitate to call or email them to discuss your needs.

About our research

Members of our community and editorial board have told us how time-challenged they are, and that getting healthy, nutritious and great-tasting food on the table - and actually having children eat it - can be a major problem. We asked our board and other CEOs of homes and their children to test-drive a MagicKitchen experience, and give us their opinions on what happened when the box arrived at their house. The chefs at MagicKitchen did not know they were being evaluated by our community, and only one person on the panel had tried any other kind of prepared meals delivery service.

Interesting side note

During the course of the research, one of our editorial board members sent us this message about MagicKitchen.com:

"I did some research, and some of the things in the Magic Kitchen dishes contain additives and flavor enhancers, and at least one dish has a preservative. Several of the dishes are made with chicken stock that contains Disodium Inosinate and Disodium Guanalyte. I found out that these are flavor enhancers that bind with glutamic acid and act like MSG without being listed as MSG.

The Beef Teriyaki does contain a preservative (potassium metabisulphite), and it's noted in the ingredient list. Page: http://www.magickitchen.com/menu//healthy_choices/7114.html

It's each person's choice as to whether they eat this stuff, and the one good thing is that Magic Kitchen lists their ingredients so the customer can make an informed decision. I was able to find two full meals that were both lower in fat and didn't have the additives, and I'm sure I could put together others if I looked at the menu more closely."

Emily

We contacted the folks at MagicKitchen about this, and 24 hours later, this is the response we received:

"I appreciate the feedback and have tried to look into the items mentioned in the note you forwarded.

Since I got the information from you on Friday morning I had a phone conference with our chef that does the Beef Teriyaki and have gotten the rice wine vinegar changed out for the next production of product. Our future beef teriyaki will not have the potassium metabisulphite included, as that ingredient was an ingredient in the specific rice wine vinegar that was used.

The chicken stock used is one of the top stocks in commercial food production. We are looking into other options, but since this could have a significant impact in the flavor of some of our items, we will take our time to see if there are other options available that meet our requirements."

Greg
MagicKitchen.com

Our thoughts on this

Don't know about you, but that's what we call good customer service to your neighbors. We'll follow up with them in a little while and post an update on the chicken stock.

Quick summary

Susan from Palo Alto, CA

The website is fantastic: intuitive, easy to use and full of information. The ordering process was incredibly easy as well, and the overnight shipping was amazing. I got a big first-time customer meal sampler with meals that required no menu planning other than remembering to defrost things in the morning, and to work out microwave times for sides dishes so that they'd be hot when the main dish came out of the oven. The kids loved the green beans and mushroom sauce, fettucine with shrimp, and the panna cotta (they want me to reorder that), but they hated the mint carrots, which had too much cayenne. The whole experience was incredibly easy, there was alot of food for the money spent, and the best thing was the ease of putting a nutritious meal on the table. The food quality was also superior to TV dinners or any other frozen entrees.