Once upon a time DinnerWorks had a beautiful store located in sunny Kitsilano; our customers came from near and far to assemble delicious meals made from quality ingredients. But as time progressed we noticed that fewer customers wanted to make the meals themselves and they began to utilize our assembly and delivery services. Thus, in the face of rising property taxes; lease rates and food costs we decided to shift the focus of our company and bring the food directly to our valued customers for the ultimate in service.

As our company shifts into this new service we will be changing a few things, some of these will appear seamless to our regular customers while other changes our customers will find challenging. Many of the changes have been made with the following factors in mind; food safety, order accuracy and keeping costs down for our customers.

We have divided the Lower Mainland into several different geographic areas and each area will have at least two deliveries per month. Delivered food will be packaged in Rubbermaid Totes and kept cold with Cryopak inserts.

As well all meals will continue to be six servings but will be packaged “split” that is to say two packages of three servings each; these will be able to be cooked separately for small families or combined for larger gatherings. Meals will also be delivered frozen; so please do not plan on enjoying these the day of your delivery.

For those of you who have not ordered from DinnerWorks before here is what we do in a nutshell: DinnerWorks provides you with homemade ready to cook meals; all our meals have varying degrees of preparation that ranges from straight to oven, to sautéing, braising, simmering etc. All our meals are either packaged in Ziploc bags or aluminum pans and are labeled with cooking instructions.

As far as cooking times these are not drastically reduced as you are cooking these meals from raw; these are not supermarket reheat and serve meals. What you are getting from DinnerWorks is time savings, convenience, menu variety and knowing that you are buying the whole entrée and at the end of meal preparation there are no orphaned leftover ingredients in your fridge or pantry.

Pricing: The news has been filled lately with the reports of rising food costs due to fuel and feed prices this has definitely affected us, so you will notice a modest price increase.

Delivery fee: There is a delivery fee of $15 per location; however you can lessen this cost by ordering at the same time as a friend, neighbor or co-worker as we will only charge the fee once per location no matter how many orders go there. As well in September we have introduced a complimentary delivery for orders exceeding $200.

Totes: DinnerWorks will now be using reusable totes and Cryopaks for the deliveries; this is for food safety reasons. You will now have to select how many bins your order will come in and how many you are returning. The deposit on these bins is $10. If you do not wish to use this deposit system you may leave a cooler with ice out if you are not home or if you are home you can empty your bin on the spot.

Delivery Times: Please see our calendar for delivery schedule and note that the deadline for ordering is Tuesday 3PM on the week of your delivery day. You can expect an email the day before delivery to remind you of your delivery and let you know an approximate time that you can expect your delivery.

The order process:

• Register a new account or login to your existing account
• Select your delivery day based on your location
• Select your meals, be sure to include your Tote deposit and returns
• Enter your delivery information
• Receive order confirmation and follow payment instructions