Cheef: a dietitian’s opinion after 1 week of testing (2025)

Introduction to Cheef

The brand

Cheef is a young French brand created in 2020 by Guillaume Vidal Soler in the Lille metropolitan area. The meals are prepared on site.

The Cheef weight-loss program offers a comprehensive, personalized approach to change its clients’ eating habits.

It consists of:

• Meal delivery every week (breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner) or only dishes with the “dishes-only” plan
• Dietary follow-up with a dietitian every 2 weeks 
• A fitness program and exercise classes included in the program
• Access to a community of over 8,300 members, the Cheef Club

This program is intended for people who want to lose weight, who don’t have the time or don’t like to cook, and who want to eat healthily.

The different meals for the day are delivered directly to your home every week, every two weeks, or every month depending on the chosen plan. Only a few groceries are needed to complete the program. 

The weight-loss program

Cheef offers nutritional rebalancing programs whose duration varies according to each person’s weight-loss goals.

It ranges from 2 weeks for a loss of 1 to 2 kilograms up to 8 months for an estimated weight loss of more than 25 kg in the best-case scenario.

Healthy, balanced dishes ready to be enjoyed are delivered in packages and cover all meals of the day: breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner, or only the lunch and dinner dishes for the “meals only” plan.

You can choose from more than 150 recipes.

However, it is necessary to add foods (fruits, vegetables, and dairy products) to complete the program and ensure optimal nutritional intake.

To adapt the program to your professional and social life, several options are offered allowing 0, 1, or 2 days of freedom per week. 

2 types of dishes are offered:

• Catered dishes are approved and elevated by Marc Meurin, a two-star chef since 1998, and cooked on site. Cheef also offers Premium dishes, available in a catered option. The recipes are more elaborate and the ingredients are of superior quality. (For example: Cod fillet in a cider and truffle sauce with green asparagus or sea bream fillet and scallops with pesto rosso)
• Shelf-stable prepared dishes delivered every month. There are more than 100 different dishes. They can be stored at room temperature for several months. 

All offered dishes are cooked in France; they are not always organic but are guaranteed free of GMOs, preservatives, and artificial coloring.

Their Nutri-Score rating is A or B. The catering dishes are approved and elevated by Marc Meurin, a two-Michelin-star chef since 1998, and are prepared on site.

The program also includes sports coaching and nutritional follow-up with a dietitian.

Focus on the weight-loss assessment 

Before ordering, you can take your weight-loss assessment. This allows you to determine your goal and define the duration of the selected program. 

You will just need to specify your age, your weight, your height and answer a few questions about your physical condition and lifestyle.

You still need to determine the menu frequency, the program duration, and choose your meals from the around one hundred dishes offered. The dishes are varied and can accommodate all tastes and all kinds of dietary requirements. 

There are vegetarian dishes, with or without pork, and without certain allergens such as gluten, eggs, or tree nuts.

You can make an appointment directly with a dietitian who will help you balance the program according to your needs.

Indeed, the four meals offered (breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack and  dinner) provide around 1300 kcal. It is necessary to supplement these intakes to meet your body’s natural needs. 

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Our review

Products ★★★★☆

I was able to test a week of the Cheef “caterer” program with 5 days of menus.

I received my package 11 days after choosing the contents of my program by refrigerated carrier. This is a minimum timeframe because the dishes are prepared on demand and are planned a week in advance. 

My package was properly sealed, the dishes protected with bubble wrap. The breakfasts and snacks were in a nice box in the brand’s colors.

The package contained: 

• 10 prepared dishes: Beef lasagna, seafood paella, Greek-style zucchini timbale…
• 5 breakfasts (2 organic mueslis, 1 packet of protein bread and 2 cereal bars) 
• 5 snacks (2 small cakes and 3 packs of 5 cookies) 
• 1 Cheef booklet, including tips for the program

The meals 

The dishes are packaged in recycled cardboard trays laminated with a plastic film. This technique allows a reduction of more than 85% of plastic compared with the plastic trays offered by other brands. 

The dishes are meant to be quickly reheated in the microwave. Personally, not having one, I chose to reheat my dishes in the oven after removing them from their trays.

The dishes are between 350 and 400 kcal, provide 15 to 30 g of protein and are low in fat, about 12 g per serving. It should be noted that vegetables make up at least 50% of the recipes.

The list of ingredients is simple, the meats are of French origin. I really liked the variety of dishes offered.

What about the taste? The dishes are flavorful and well-seasoned. You can clearly tell that the ingredients used are fresh.

One small drawback: in every recipe the vegetables are very finely sliced, I would have preferred larger pieces to encourage chewing, preserve their crunch, and vary the visual appearance. The brand informed me that other customers had given the same feedback and that it has now changed this aspect.

Breakfasts provide about 150 to 180 kcal. 

Some are organic (muesli and bread). They should be paired with a fruit and a dairy product to complete this first meal of the day.

While the mueslis have an interesting composition, the cereal bars are, a bit too processed despite their high protein content. The presence of sucralose, a chemical sweetener, is regrettable.

The planned snacks provide between 150 and 200 kcal, I tried the small organic cakes and the cookies. 

Personally I enjoyed the cookie but liked the small cakes much less, too dry for my taste.

From an energy standpoint, the Cheef programs provide about 1200 to 1300 kcal per day, which is extremely low. It’s impossible to cover all nutritional needs with so little.

That is why it is important to supplement the program with other foods according to gender, age, and lifestyle. 

I received my package on March 17 and the dishes’ use-by date was March 30. I was surprised at such a shelf life even though there are no preservatives and that the website displayed a maximum shelf life of 8 days.

Dietary follow-up 

An appointment can be made directly through your Cheef account with a state-certified dietitian at the start of the program.

A team of dietitians, each with a specialty (phytotherapy, micronutrition, sports…), is available to help you with your approach.

After several questions about my lifestyle, the frequency of my physical activity, and my health status, the dietitian took the time to explain the content of the program.

In my case, given my exercise routine and lifestyle, to reach 1900 to 2000 kcal/day, she advised me to supplement my daily program with: 

• 3 fruits
• 3 dairy products
• 1 to 2 slices of non-white bread 
•  An additional source of protein 

I also received advice on promoting good hydration and how to organize my days off from a dietary perspective. At the end of the appointment, I received a summary email.

Dietary follow-up takes place every two weeks, and I can send an email at any time if I have a question. 

I found the dietitian appointment very interesting and tailored to my needs. The fact that I was advised to add many foods reassured me greatly about the quality of the follow-up. 

Not being a fan of low-calorie diets often ineffective in the long term, I agreed with the dietitian’s advice. 

Because the programs are the same for everyone, it is normal to have to personalize them by adding different foods. 

Fitness coaching

A complete 12-week fitness program and à la carte workout classes are included in the program. There’s something for everyone: gym, pilates, yoga, cardio, abs… plenty to make you sweat!

There is also a support community “Le club Cheef”. It’s a Facebook group of more than 8,300 members, open to everyone where you can ask questions, share your successes and feel supported by people on the same journey as us. 

In short the Cheef Program is very comprehensive but for it to be effective in the long term it needs to be adapted to your individual body type. Fortunately, the dietitians ensure that nutritional needs are covered.

The downside of such a program is that it doesn’t anchor changes in eating habits over the long term because no effort is required to prepare the meals.

Price ★★★★☆

The price of the Cheef program is reduced depending on the length of the commitment.

When you commit for several months, be careful not to make a mistake, the price of the first month is lower than that of the following months for the classic program.

And the price of the first week is (much) cheaper than that of the following weeks for the catered program.

Cheef is quite competitive compared to competitors such as Qilibri and Diet Bon.

Note that the price only covers the foods you will receive in your program. It does not include the additional foods you need to add to the program for a proper balance. 

The delivery of Cheef programs is to your home or to a pick-up point. It is free for mainland France, Switzerland, and Belgium and is carried out by a refrigerated carrier for the “traiteur” option. 

If you go on vacation or are unable to receive deliveries for a few weeks you can suspend the delivery of your program for the duration of your absence.

The brand offers a referral program, each referred person receives a 30 euro discount on their first order and you will receive the same discount on your next order.

A connected scale is offered if you commit to a period of more than 6 months.

Transparency ★★★★☆

Cheef is part of EOL Group founded in 2003 by Guillaume Vidal Soler.

The company comprises around thirty people, including 6 to 8 in the kitchen depending on the season. It is located in the suburbs of Lille in Roncq. Little is known about its leader, who remains rather discreet in the media. 

Fresh dishes are cooked directly in the company, unfortunately the origin of the raw materials is not always known.

Meats are sourced in France (for the dishes I tested) but the origin of the fish is not known. The company’s marketing department stated during our discussions that it aims to favor short supply chains in the near future.

The long-shelf-life dishes from the classic program come from various French suppliers, as do the breakfasts and snacks. There is a lack of transparency at this level, we would like to know more. 

You can see before/after photos of Cheef customers on the website, but it would be interesting to see where they are a few months after their program.

Indeed, very-low-calorie diets are very effective but rarely sustainable in the long term if there is no personalized follow-up to ensure weight stabilization.

Expertise ★★★★☆

Cheef benefits from over 20 years of experience in dietetics thanks to EOL Group, of which it is a part.

The recipes are created by a team of dietitians and chefs to ensure nutritional and taste quality.

All the recipes of the dishes in the catering program are validated and enhanced by Marc Meurin, 2-star Chef since 1998. Some dishes in the classic plan are also approved by the chef (identifiable by the “Chef” icon).

The dietitians who support clients are company-employed salaried health professionals. Some of them are authors of books on nutrition, such as Fabienne Lemaître, who published “Let’s Save Our Gut, a Chance for Life” with Geai Bleu editions.

Cheef has a blog with various articles on nutrition written by the dietitians of the weight-loss program. The content is interesting and full of good tips for better eating. 

On its Cheef account, you can access 49 light recipes to learn how to cook differently. 

Popularity ★★★★☆

On social networks, the company has over 2,700 followers on Facebook and 2,150 followers on Instagram; this is not very significant compared to other home meal delivery services.

The Facebook support group “le club Cheef” includes more than 3,900 people.

On the TRUSTPILOT website, Cheef receives an excellent rating of 4.9/5 with over 7,900 reviews, making the brand the top-ranked in weight-loss programs. The reviews are mostly positive and highlight the good taste of the meals offered and their effectiveness for weight loss.

Trust ★★★☆☆

Cheef has a customer service reachable by phone or by email. 

I sent an email to get some information about: 

• the origin of raw materials such as meat and vegetables
• the best way to reheat the dishes without a microwave

After not receiving a reply by email after a week, I called customer service directly.

The answers given were clear, although not very specific about the origin of the raw materials: 

• The raw materials come from France or Europe. 
• The best way to reheat the dishes is the microwave, reheating in a bain-marie or in the oven is possible provided you remove them from their container.  

Our review