Food box services are a type of subscription model service in which companies sends subscribers food ingredients and recipes so that they can prepare a meal in their homes. The amount of ingredients are per-portioned for a specific number of people and in some cases may have been pre-cooked to some extent to help with cooking the meal (not to be confused with services that send completely pre-cooked meals which are called meal delivery services).
These type of food boxes are an example of the trend to personalizing the food experiences for the consumer and are becoming more popular. The idea originated in Sweden and quickly spread to other European countries. It has also spawned a large number of competitors in the US with over 150 meal kit companies operating today the first of which were Blue Apron, Plated and HelloFresh. The market is estimated to be worth over $2 billion globally or just under 1% of the estimated $1.3 trillion overall food market.