Delivery Review: Vegan Essentials

There is a magical store in Wisconsin that sells vegan food and will ship it to you anywhere in the U.S., even using a cold pack if you want chilled or frozen stuff: Vegan Essentials. I didn't get anything that needed the cold pack this time, in part because they were out of a lot of popular staples like Violife cheeses and Gardein everything when I placed my order. But this was primarily a "treat" order for my birthday in isolation (not that I would dream of eating this all at once, mind you!).

I've noticed I eat more chocolate when the world seems to be going down the drain, and I was running low, so when they restocked with Go Max Go candy bars, I jumped on them. There is a discount if you order a dozen, which I did order, though I left duplicates out of these photographs. I also got some cookie butter bark, almond butter-covered almonds, soy curls, butterscotch sauce, and an assortment of other chocolaty treats.

If you're unfamiliar with Go Max Go, they're basically a company that makes vegan versions of popular American candy bars. These are, as follows:

Snap! = Nestle Crunch
Jokerz = Snickers
Thumbs Up = Butterfinger
Cleo's = Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (This one is white chocolate, but they also sell the more traditional milk chocolate kind.)
2-fer = Twix (in one giant bar rather than a pair)
Mahalo = Almond Joy
Buccaneer = 3 Musketeers
Twilight = Milky Way

All in all, I ordered what will be months worth of chocolate for me, but I did that in part because I knew the shipping costs are about equivalent no matter what you buy, and it will definitely keep for a while.

They are good about communicating with you and you can easily track the status of your order. It took about a week for things to get to me, because there are delays in packing due to demand, but the cost for 2-day shipping to me was reasonable (they recommend that if you're shipping something sensitive to temperature variations, like chocolate). Shipping on the total order was about $15, but would have been about $13 for the "standard shipping" option that takes a week, so I spent the extra $2. I wouldn't order from them every week, but every so often, it is a good option. There are hardly any ways to get non-dairy cheese and meat substitutes delivered to me, so I'm really glad they exist, and will be looking forward to placing an order for that in the future. (But also: They have chocolate! So many kinds!)

They shipped to me in a recycled Gardein box. Though I'm sad that I didn't get a Gardein order, and that only drove the point home even harder about it, I appreciated the recycling. I'd also note that in most cases, if something was in plastic, it was in a zip-top plastic bag that could be reused at home, which feels better to me than the kind that is sealed in such a way that opening it destroys the bag (side eye to Target). I wash plastic bags anyway to reuse, so it's no problem for me to wash the ones they sent. The jar of butterscotch sauce was wrapped in bubble wrap, which I don't think is avoidable in this scenario.

One thing turned out to be on back order, but I'll get it when they have it. That was likely just a glitch. Their website is helpfully designed to show you in-stock things first, and you can usually avoid not-in-stock things altogether. It's a lot less frustrating than a lot of the websites I've been seeing lately.

In the future, I will likely order again from Vegan Essentials, this time to get things like cheese. Meanwhile, I look forward to actually trying soy curls for the first time! Be sure to tell me what your favorite way to use them is.

Total score: 4.5 out of 5 for pandemic, 4 out of 5 for the imaginary normal times

Comments

  1. Yay! Vegan Essentials is legendary!
    Also, cookie butter bark? Ummm.... tell me more!

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    Replies
    1. It's made from Speculous butter, but I think the closest thing you might have seen would be Biscoff spread.

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  2. I just bought soy curls for the first time too. I saw a recipe by Jaroudi family for a Guiness soy curl stew and then just recently a pasta that looks intriguing.. https://www.thefullhelping.com/soy-curl-cacciatore Look forward to see what you come up with!

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  3. YAASSS i love go max bars! I wish we could get soy curls in the UK, they seem like a fun ingredient! We can get soy chunks, I've always wondered if they're the same thing but a different shape!

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    1. Probably? It seems like it's just larger chunks of TVP.

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  4. Awesome Vegan Essentials order! I used to love Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, so I'll have to try Cleo's sometime, especially the white chocolate! If you haven't made Sarah's chicken noodle soup yet, that's one of my favorite ways to use soy curls! http://longislandvegan.blogspot.com/2018/11/recipe-vegan-no-chicken-noodle-soup.html

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    Replies
    1. That's a fantastic recipe and I've made it before, but not with soy curls, which are the most obvious thing to use as it's what Sarah used, but of course, I do not always see obvious things. Thanks for the reminder! I'm going to make that soon.

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