farm to h-town

Totally Texan farm-to-table meal delivery service sprouts up in Houston

When Texas-based Farmhouse Delivery launched in 2009, the idea was to hit the meal service delivery sweet spot between those people who want food delivery services because they don’t have time for grocery shopping or meal prep — and those who want to support local growers and producers. Farmhouse Delivery billed itself as bringing the farmers market directly to customers’ doorsteps, with 100 percent of its products coming from Texas farms and producers.

Now the service is going one better, offering a new Quick Dinner option, providing customers with different meal options each week — all of which can be ordered within 48 hours, and don’t require a weekly subscription service.
Like other meal kit delivery services — think Blue Apron or Plated or Home Chef — Farmhouse’s meal kits tout dinners that can be prepared in less than 30 minutes. The kits arrive with prepared sauces and spice blends, which mean minimal cooking and preparation time for busy diners.

An off-shoot of that service, Quick Dinners keeps the organic and Texas-sourced ingredients customers have come to enjoy, and combined it with a farm-to-table restaurant style menu. With its new Quick Dinner option, as well as its existing concepts, Farmhouse Delivery is betting the service will appeal both to Houstonians’ desires for convenience as well as their passion for supporting Texas businesses.

Options for the Quick Dinners change seasonally, and include selections such as one-pan crispy chicken thighs with blistered tomato and garlic; fennel and orange spiced pork chops with onion jam; and Thai red curry with Gulf shrimp and zucchini. Each is priced at less than $25 and will serve between two and four people.

Houston diners can expect menu dishes such as their One-Pan Crispy Chicken Thighs with Blistered Tomato and Garlic, Fennel and Orange Spiced Pork Chops with Onion Jam, and Thai Red Curry with Gulf Shrimp and Zucchini.

In addition to those services, Farmhouse also offers services for groceries and produce boxes. With the grocery option, customers can select the items they want to stock their kitchens and have them delivered straight to their homes. (There is a minimum $50 order requirement). Those who don’t necessarily need the step-by-step instructions and already-prepped portions of a meal kit can opt for a weekly or bi-weekly delivery of a produce box, which is custom-tailored to their needs and likes.

Since its inception nearly a decade ago, Farmhouse Delivery’s roster has grown to include more than two dozen farmers and artisans, including Gunderman Acres, Animal Farm, Peaceful Pork, Texas Quail Farms, Slow Dough Bread Co., and Pure Luck Dairy, many of which will be familiar to Houstonians from the city’s farmers markets.

Farmhouse Delivery's tomato chicken.

Farmhouse Delivery Texas tomato chicken roasting skillet

Courtesy photo

Farmhouse Delivery's tomato chicken.

Jobs report

Texas clocks in as No. 7 best state to find a job, new report says

Photo by The Jopwell Collection on Unsplash

It's easier to find a job in Texas than in nearly any other state.

If you’re hunting for a job in Texas amid a tough employment market, you stand a better chance of landing it here than you might in other states.

A new ranking by personal finance website WalletHub of the best states for jobs puts Texas at No. 7. The Lone Star State lands at No. 2 in the economic environment category and No. 18 in the job market category.

Massachusetts tops the list, and West Virginia appears at the bottom.

To determine the most attractive states for employment, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 34 key indicators of economic health and job market strength. Ranking factors included employment growth, median annual income, and average commute time.

“Living in one of the best states for jobs can provide stable conditions for the long term, helping you ride out the fluctuations that the economy will experience in the future,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo says.

In September, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas led the U.S. in job creation with the addition of 195,600 jobs over the past 12 months.

While Abbott proclaimed Texas is “America’s jobs leader,” the state’s level of job creation has recently slowed. In June, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas noted that the state’s year-to-date job growth rate had dipped to 1.8 percent, and that even slower job growth was expected in the second half of this year.

The August unemployment rate in Texas stood at 4.1 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Throughout 2025, the monthly rate in Texas has been either four percent or 4.1 percent.

By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate in August was 4.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2025, the monthly rate for the U.S. has ranged from 4 percent to 4.3 percent.

Here’s a rundown of the August unemployment rates in Texas’ four biggest metro areas:

Austin — 3.9 percent
Dallas-Fort Worth — 4.4 percent
San Antonio — 4.4 percent
Houston — 5 percent

Unemployment rates have remained steady this year despite layoffs and hiring freezes driven by economic uncertainty. However, the number of U.S. workers who’ve been without a job for at least 27 weeks has risen by 385,000 this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August. That month, long-term unemployed workers accounted for about one-fourth of all unemployed workers.

An August survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed a record-low 44.9 percent of Americans were confident about finding a job if they lost their current one.

This story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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