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BIG Changes at The Scramble

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I am thrilled to announce The Scramble’s partnership with Prepear for all your meal planning needs!

See below for details about this exciting new chapter in The Scramble’s journey, why it is happening how, and what it means for you.

When I first became a health coach and was working with families and individuals who wanted to change their lifestyle, I knew that cooking was at the core. As the years have gone by and through my work at The Scramble, I have come to believe even more strongly that the secret to a healthy and happy relationship with food is cooking for yourself.

In 2017, when I took over The Scramble, I did so because I saw it as a unique opportunity to share my belief that cooking doesn’t have to be a scary, stressful, or overwhelming process, and that making simple delicious meals is something that anyone can do. Our rebrand in 2019 was a further realization of my dream to create a place on the web where people could find practical cooking resources and delicious, satisfying, and healthy recipes that are perfect for daily life.

Jessica CookingNow, as The Scramble is in its 17th year of existence, I have found that it is time to look closely at the meal planning service that we offer. There is no doubt that our recipes are some of the most family-friendly, delicious, and healthy recipes out there. But the reality is that while our recipes have stayed top notch, our user experience has become dated.

The feedback from our member surveys has been consistent: keep the great recipes, add a native mobile app, include online grocery delivery (something that is even more important in these times), and give members the ability to see only recipes that work for their dietary needs or restrictions.

Spicy Sriracha Spaghetti with BroccoliThese are all features that I have wanted to offer to our members since the moment I took over and have striven to do so. The reality, however, is that given the scale of the business, the only way to deliver on these enhancements would be to significantly increase the subscription fees. As our mission is to help as many families as possible, we have been looking to decrease the cost of participation, not increase it.

So, after years of searching for the perfect solution, I am thrilled to announce that we have partnered with Prepear to provide our members with a meal planning solution that will continue to provide them with healthy meal plans full of delicious family-friendly recipes.

PrepearI am so excited for this next step in The Scramble’s mission to help people to discover the pleasures of easy cooking and joyful eating, and I am certain that Prepear is going to provide families with all that we could and more. Please see below for a list of answers to what I anticipate will be your burning questions.

More than anything, though, I want to express my deep gratitude for your belief in and support of The Scramble over all of these years. You have been a part of our family, and I like to think that The Scramble has been (and will continue to be) a part of yours.

Answers to All Your Questions

What does this mean?

Starting on May 31, 2020 all members of The Scramble will be welcomed into the Prepear family for their meal planning needs. Most importantly, Prepear has agreed to honor all remaining time on Scramble memberships.

Will The Scramble still create meal plans?

While The Scramble will no longer send out weekly menus, we will post meal plans on Prepear that you can use, or you can build your own. In addition, we will continue to sell our immensely popular one-off meal plans. We will also continue to send out our weekly newsletter including our blog posts, cooking tips, dinner conversation starters, and more (if you don’t already get it, sign up here and get our Pantry Staples List for free at the same time!)

What about The Scramble’s recipes?

All Scramble recipes will be available on Prepear (along with thousands more!), as well as in the recipe section of our website.

What new features will I be excited about on Prepear?

So many! Here are just a few:

  • Online grocery delivery options
  • The ability to establish settings so that only recipes that apply to your dietary needs are shown
  • The ability to create and save your own meal plans, including breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks!
  • A personalized grocery list
  • A native mobile app
  • Access to all Scramble recipes as well thousands of recipes from other top food bloggers
  • The ability to add your own favorite recipes (from your mother’s special brisket recipe to your favorites on other sites)
  • Screen lock when shopping and cooking (no need to wake up the screen!)
  • Access to hundreds of meal plans and ecookbooks (some from The Scramble and some from other prestigious food bloggers)
  • Friend connection and recipe sharing
  • A lower cost for membership than The Scramble!

Prepear sounds amazing! How can I sign up if I’m not already a member of The Scramble?

We think so, too! You can sign up here.

What will The Scramble be doing?

We will focus on helping families and individuals to integrate home cooking into their lives through educational content such as group coaching, workshops and webinars, and cooking demonstrations (both online and in person). And, of course, we will keep developing new recipes, all of which will be added to Prepear so you won’t miss them! Sign up for our newsletter (plus get our Pantry Staples List for free) so you don’t miss a thing!

Maria Tyszkiewicz

Tuesday 28th of July 2020

I would like a refund. Can you please return my money. I do not want to use prepear.com.

Jessica Braider

Tuesday 28th of July 2020

Hi Maria, We will have someone look into your account and get back to you.

Sandy H.

Friday 3rd of July 2020

I echo the comment above about the challenges with the tool, and wanted to specifically ask how to print the recipes in the plan. Having printed recipes with side dishes was enormously helpful for our family; In our home, whoever is home first is responsible for picking a recipe and starting dinner. I can’t figure out how to print all the recipes in a plan, without printing them individually. Is that possible in the new tool?

Jessica Braider

Monday 6th of July 2020

Hi Sandy, I am actually not sure if that is possible. Please email help@prepear.com to see. They are incredibly helpful and responsive. They are also very open to feedback and eager to make improvements to the platform.

Katie

Sunday 21st of June 2020

Hi Jessica, I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out PrePear. I was a scramble subscriber since the beginning and it just worked for me. I liked that the side dishes were part of the work flow so I knew when to start things while cooking the entree. That looks like it's gone, which I'll miss a lot.

I spent 3 hours trying to get together recipes and a shopping list for the coming weeks and I haven't succeeded. I sent a message to PrePear for help, but wanted to let you know, as well.

I started from the Scramble and created a meal plan based on the recipes I wanted from the Scramble plan for this month. I tried adding new recipes from PrePear but could not really figure out how to do this. I tried for a while.

With just the Scramble recipes, I tried to do a shopping list and it works on my phone app but I had to categorize about half the items myself and I can't get it to print. It simply prints everything, not just the items I need.

When I go back to the desktop version, it doesn't seem to save the items that I saved into the meal plan so it was not easier to do there. It included items in the meal plan that I'd removed.

Then I could not figure out how to print out all the recipes (other than clicking on each recipe separately and printing it). When I tried printing the meal plan, it just printed recipe titles.

This was something I really liked about the scramble that saved me a lot of time. It gave me all the entrees and side dish recipes day by day plus the shopping list which I could customize and then print it all with one click. This took me very little time each week and I could print it double sided to save paper, as well. I really don't want to shop or cook off my phone screen and my laptop is not an option in my kitchen.

This is not a seamless transition to the new platform. I'll give it more time, but I'm disappointed, as for 17 years this really worked for me.

Jessica Braider

Monday 22nd of June 2020

Hi Katie, Thank you for your message. I am really sorry to hear that the transition has not gone smoothly for you. In trying to find the best possible replacement for The Scramble's platform there were many factors to take into account and I tried my best to find a solution that would not only allow for at much continuity as possible, but also would offer some of the features that Scramble members had been asking for for a long time. I hear you on the side dish issues and am working to figure out the best way to handle that as I build July's meal plans. In terms of the grocery list issues, I know that Prepear is aware of it and is working hard to find a solution. I have also found them to be incredibly helpful and responsive, so hopefully they will be able to help you with the issues you are having. I appreciate that you are willing to stick it out to keep trying and I hope that as you get the know the platform better you find that it offers you what The Scramble did and more. Thanks, again!

Sean O

Saturday 6th of June 2020

Hi, I'm a pretty computer literate person and have spent the past hour trying to understand how to navigate the prepear website, create a weekly plan, delete and add recipes, add side dishes, create a shopping list, remove items I already have and printing the final list. I've succeeded- but it was tough. I've found this process much more time consuming on the prepear website than it was with the scramble. I joined the scramble to save me time picking quick/healthy recipes and this is no longer the case. At this point, I don't think I'd like to continue with prepear so I have two questions: 1. Will I get reimbursed the balance of my subscription (ends June 2021) if I decide to cancel now? 2. besides prepear, is there another meal planning service you recommend that simplifies things for me? Thanks!

Jessica Braider

Monday 8th of June 2020

Hi Sean, I am so sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Somehow my response to your concerns that I wrote on Saturday didn't get posted... I am so sorry to hear that the process was not smooth for you this week. I don't know you if you found it, but Prepear has a pretty extensive set of tips on how to use their platform, which you can find here: https://help.prepear.com/hc/en-us/categories/360001977552-Getting-Started. I don't know if you are building your own meal plans from scratch or using The Scramble meal plan as a starting off point, but if you aren't using The Scramble meal plan that might make the process a little quicker for you. To find that go to Discover, Meal Plans, and then it should show up towards the top since your account should be following The Scramble. I would also encourage you to email help@prepear.com if you have any specific questions or feedback. They are very responsive and helpful! In terms of other platforms, I actually did A LOT of research when I was trying to find the best platform for Scramble members and landed on Prepear because they allowed for the sort of editing of meal plans that it sounds like you value. The other platforms out there mostly don't do that, their meal plans are much more static. So while I totally understand your frustration, if you are open to it, it might make sense to give Prepear another shot for at least a week or two (and definitely check out the Getting Started tips or email them with questions!). In terms of your account, if Prepear doesn't work for you please contact service@thescramble.com and we will look into your account details to see what options there might be. Thanks!

Ann

Saturday 6th of June 2020

The grocery list does not categorize items! I just pulled from the Scramble June plan to customize my weekly menu and looked at my list. It's one long list, in alphabetical order! Not helpful. At this point, I could have printed my scramble recipes and made my own list faster!

I'm also having issue with some side dishes. I see some as separate items but others have none.

It's hard to learn new things and this is definitely challenging me this morning. I've emailed prepear about both of these issues and hoping a solution comes soon. I'm hoping once I completely figure out how to use this, I will love it, but now, in a rush to get to the store and not having so much fun.

Jessica Braider

Monday 8th of June 2020

Hi Ann, For some reason my original response on Saturday didn't post. So sorry about that! I am so sorry to hear that the transition hasn't been as smooth for you as I would have hoped! In terms of the side dishes, there are side dishes for every dinner. Some are within the main dish (for instance, the Sizzling Korean Beef recipe now includes the rice and broccoli sides). We are still trying to figure out which method is best on the new platform (as separate recipe or included in the recipe itself), but there are sides for each meal! In terms of the grocery list issues and any other concerns you have about the Prepear platform, I would encourage you to reach out to help@prepear.com. They are incredibly responsive and very open to feedback! Thanks for your patience as we make this transition!

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