Does anyone here use them, and what do you think.

Looking at the veggie option of three recipes for two people a week.
Our eating in days are random. And the veg we buy is either unripe, manky, force grown or about to expire.

We use it. Have had it for the last couple of years. Three meals a week. It’s been a boon for those nights when we both get in after 7pm knackered and stressed. When the kids (19 and 22) are at home it is a good way of getting them to cook tea for the family and our son in particular has gone to uni with a decent set of stock recipes he can knock up, but also it’s given him more experience of cooking and given him a bit of confidence to experiment. Also meant we didn’t need to worry about getting food in during the early empty shelves stages of lock down.
Virtually no food waste as even if they send more than the recipe dictates we throw it all in or reuse the spare. Also easy to make a three person recipe feed four by adding a bit more of the main protein.

Down sides- yeah it’s pricey. And often seems to be low on protein high on carb for bulk. Packaging is stupid. All those little plastic pots with one meals worth of spice in.

Now both our kids have left home (if only for a few weeks) we’ve reduced to 2 persons but upped to 4 meals a week. Easy to change and you can choose what recipes you want or let them surprise you.

Edit to say- we have a few times been caught out with short date fish or chicken, and the greens can be a bit limp even on the day they arrive but stuff like carrots potatoes lemons limes etc is all generally fresh and good quality.

Can’t speak for hello fresh, but we use gousto, which basically the same, I think.
Upsides – good range of interesting recipes, kinda makes us eat different things. (almost) all ingredients are supplied for more easiness. I don’t think it’s too expensive (ymmv). Very convenient to get it just delivered to your door on a convenient day.
Downsides – whilst they’ve made good inroads into the waste, there’s still some plastic in the packaging; most is cardboard though. You probably could buy cheaper if you shopped around.

We moved from HF to Gousto and think its better value for money (at least when we changed over).

We get HF from time to time. ‘A meal for 2’ for us is 4 at least. They’re easy to cook and the recipe cards are quite useful. There tends to be little or no waste. Haven’t tried Gousto but will look at that.

Just paused Gousto as they use Yodel, really unreliable. Box either left on somebody else’s doorstep, turns up at 10pm, or doesn’t arrive at all and you have to go food shopping anyway. Recipes are quite good though – I’ve now got a bunch of favorites that I’m using myself.

We use Guosto to get four meals for a week every three or four weeks. When we used it at first it was every fortnight. Zero food waste but there is still some plastic waste. Discount codes for Guosto make it pretty cheap to try for a few weeks. Cost wise I think it comes in around £4ish per meal per person so it’s not expensive given how tasty it is.

We did try Hello Fresh but found the recipe choices to be pretty unexciting, whereas Guosto has made us absolute converts to some new cooking and using ingredients we’d previously not have used. The thing I like is that the ingredients are largely available in any decent supermarket so you don’t need to keep buying from Guosto if you want to make the dish again some time.

Each to their own though, I know that there are a lot of fans of HF and similar services. I’d suggest getting discount codes from your friends, trying them all and then deciding which works well for you.

We did a trial week on HF for free and received 5 meals, all meals except 1 were okay, the one was more a starter than a main in portion size.

We ended the trial as the stuff available for the next few weeks wasnt a million miles away from what we actually cook at the moment, when we next hit a rut on what we are cooking will look to sign up for a week or so.

Until recently I used Hello Fresh then Gousto after DPD kept delivering my Hello fresh to a different village than the one I lived in and got fed up with chasing it up.

My personal preference was Hello Fresh was better, but Gousto seemed to have more choice in the menu but the size of the portions was smaller. Also, a couple of times, which won’t bother you having veggie recipes when I opened the chicken is smelt that bad it went straight into the bin. It was, for this reason, I ended up cancelling the delivery.

Once you have had them a few times keep the recipe cards and then just buy the spices and other ingredients.

I used them for a little while (until the promos ran out)

I couldn’t fault the quality of the ingredients, the recipes or the convenience of it. But at full price I thought it was quite expensive so I stopped and went back to just ordering supermarket deliveries instead

We’ve used Gousto and Hello Fresh on and off – reckon Gousto are better than Hello Fresh, although both are OK.

We’ve used HF for the last year or so.  Really like it, and the convenience is, well convenient.  Some of the recipes / options that I look at are a bit meh, but once bought and cooked we’ve not been disappointed.  Takes the aggravation out of “what shall we cook tonight?” and then the subsequent argy bargy around ” I like that / I don’t like that” which usually  ends up with one of us suggesting a take away (yum!).

On that basis, we’ve saved a fortune and have zero food waste as you get exactly the right amount.  We do 5 or 6 meals PW now, 2 adults, usually the rapid menus.

Another vote for gousto over hello fresh. I keep the best recipe cards for remaking. Only a few hello fresh meals made the cut.

Gousto works out a little bit cheaper too.

We use both hello fresh and Gousto, we switch between them whenever the other one has an offer. Our last HF box just came tonight and the promo has run out, Gousto has emailed to say I can have 20% off for the next month.

We don’t use it all the time but it’s great for either quick hassle free meals (choose the quick ones) or to try some different interesting things.

Also I hate shopping, so it’s good for that.

If your average meal is a super noodle or supermarket microwave meal it’s great.

If you can half manage in the kitchen, follow a recipe and have a supermarket nearby or access to a reliable delivery co, IMO it’s a waste of time and overpriced. After a month everything kind of tastes the same and they rely on paprika way too much.

In America / rural areas I get why these co’s are massive. Basically where people don’t have a car or live near a supermarket…

We’ve been using hello fresh for the last 4 years – and it’s me that cooks in our house – so I’ve probably cooked almost 1,500 HF dishes. My reflections are:

Menu variety:
The argument of little variety is complete nonsense. In the app you can choose which dishes you get delivered. Doing this has meant that we get very few “repeats” – even over the course of 4 years. There are (of course) “themes”….. but the variety of dishes that you get from hello fresh far exceeds the variety that you would achieve if you were doing your own menu planning. I would caveat this by saying that if you DON’T manage what dishes you get through the app, I think the algorythm probably sends you the cheapest/most popular ones….. so you might end up with more repeats. There is usually a burger option each week, which we tend not to select – but you would probably get sent that by default as it’s quite popular.

Cooking it:
Depends on you. If you are the type of person who just wants to heat things up for tea….. this is not for you. Equally, if you are the type of person who really enjoys cooking, and creating dishes, then this probably isn’t for you either. I fit in between these – so it works well for me. I quite enjoy spending the 30-40 minutes cooking the dishes. HF are weeknight dinners for us – and the balance between quick/easy and how “fancy” (sorry, couldn’t think of a better word) the dish is, is spot-on.

Waste:
There is zero food waste – zero. Packaging is a slightly different question – there is more than I would like, but I suspect that there is still less than you would have by buying the equivalent ingredients in a supermarket. I suspect that people will disagree with me on that – and it’s difficult to quantify, but that’s my assessment.

Portion Size:
We get the box for two, and we split it between us and our two (young) children. Sometimes the kids get some extra veg, or beans or something – but usually they just eat what we eat. I’m sure this will change in time. Very occasionally you’ll get short-changed on something – and it’s usually potatoes: you might get 2 smaller-than-average ones for mash. This might cause a bit of an issue as we are feeding the kids with it too, but if there are just two of you, it’s fine.

Reliability:
Haven’t had a missed delivery in 4 years. Occasionally (once every couple of months?) we get an email saying that they couldn’t source x, so have sent you some y instead. And during lockdown their QC had a bit of a wobble with a few bits and pieces getting left out (usually a stock cube or a sachet of seasoning or something minor). Seems fine again now.

Cost:
For reasons too boring to explain, we did a couple of weeks following the menus, but buying the ingredients ourselves. It was significantly more expensive to buy the ingredients ourselves. It wasn’t even close. Important to note that we live in Australia – pricing may be different in the UK. You could definitely cook cheaper, but you can’t cook the same meals for cheaper – unless you commit to a huge amount of complex menu planning that will allow you to buy in bulk and manage expiry dates etc.

Convenience:
This is by FAR the biggest upside for us. We spend zero time planning what we are going to eat for 5/7 days a week, zero time writing the shopping list/checking what’s already in the cupboard, managing expiry dates etc. I go to the supermarket about once every 2 weeks for basics, but it’s a quick in/out. I have come to the conclusion that I quite like cooking, it’s the menu-planning/shopping that I don’t like.

I’m a pragmatist about it, if we weren’t using Hello Fresh we would probably be cycling through a limited number of reliable recipes, changing one occasionally. We would probably default to whatever was easiest when it come to the kids food.

Yes, technically you could achieve better, cheaper, healthier meals with more variety and less packaging, by doing it all yourself……. but would you? And how much time/effort would it take to achieve that? I wouldn’t be able to, and certainly not keep doing that for 4 years.

It’s really worked for us – but we know plenty of people for whom it hasn’t.

We use Mindful Chef – we get 4 vegan meals every fortnight. We cook a lot anyway but it makes us try things we’d not usually cook. Generally they’ve been very tasty and the portions are pretty generous. Think we’ve had one that wasn’t particularly great (some jack fruit concoction – was pretty bland) and some which were fantastic and we’ve made again (you get a recipe book each week). And we get to choose exactly what meals we have sent to us or we can skip a week or 2 if we want.

Packaging is mostly recycled but there are a few too many little plastic sachets and pots for my liking. We drop off the ice packs and insulation (in one of their cardboard boxes) every so often and this gets collected and reused.

Delivery is spot on – except once we had a different driver and he delivered to the wrong address. But, he realised what he’d done and sorted it all out pretty sharpish.

Just thought I’d pop back and add a review. After reading this thread we decided to give Gousto a try. Really, really impressed. Had 4 weeks of meals, haven’t had a duff one yet. I’ve cooked more proper meals personally in that time than I’ve done in 10 years. We’ve eaten more healthily than we’ve done in years.

It’s getting more expensive now but if it stops one takeaway a month it’s more than paid for itself. Food quality is good and the recipes easy to follow. Wont be stopping any time soon.

I’ve cooked more proper meals personally in that time than I’ve done in 10 years.

Brilliant. Now dump the expensive way to but ingredients but continue to cook homemade, should be easier now you’re in the habit.

Yep that’s already starting to happen as well, the recipe cards are building up.

However I’m happy to pay the extra for the convenience at the moment cos we have limited will power and in the grand scheme of thing we’re eating better and avoiding takeaways so actually spending less. Little steps towards a healthy lifestyle.

Much prefer Gusto over Hello Fresh. If you download the Gusto app it gvives you the ingredients list, recipe and instructions for every meal you’ve ever purchased. Mmmm, love the chilli chicken ramen.

We used hello fresh for a wee while a year or so ago, but felt the quantity of waste packaging, particularly landfill after cooking was obscene.

Yep signed up to Gousto on the back of this thread, echo what @stumpyjon has written 100%. Can’t recommend it enough. Even the mrs has knocked up some cracking meals and she could burn water 🤣

ceept vast majority seems to be paper, even the meat seems to be packaged in film without the plastic tray. Lots of packaging but very recyclable.

I’ve been using Hello Fresh and have been very satisfied. There have been two issues where wrong ingredients were sent (Redcurrant jelly rather than Onion marmalade – not the end of the world but did affect the taste) and recently where the diced chicken thighs were largely inedible (excess gristle). Mentioned it and got credit applied to my account immediately. Just about to pause them and try Gousto.

We’ve tried both Hello Fresh and Gousto in the past and they did give us more variety for less effort. You pay for the convenience though, as others have said.

Riverford are worth a look too – all organic and not as much waste packaging as the others when we last used them.

Did Gousto for a while when the kids were very little – it was great for a couple of meals a week that we didn’t need to think about with everything going on.

Mostly it’s good for trying some new recipes, it’s easy when you have all the ingredients right there rather than find a recipe, remember to buy the things on your next shop and then do it before anything expires.

Veggie stuff got very samey (lots of halloumi) so stopped after 6 months or so but there’s a few recipes we still make regularly.

Convenience:
This is by FAR the biggest upside for us. We spend zero time planning what we are going to eat for 5/7 days a week, zero time writing the shopping list/checking what’s already in the cupboard, managing expiry dates etc. I go to the supermarket about once every 2 weeks for basics, but it’s a quick in/out. I have come to the conclusion that I quite like cooking, it’s the menu-planning/shopping that I don’t like.

this is exactly the reason why I flit between HF and gousto. If you reckon you can easily keep stock of things like rice win vinegar, ginger puree, mango chutney, puodre de colombo and teriyaki sauce (this week’s random ingredients for me, none of which I’ve used in recent memory), while keeping individual shopping trips cheap, and without chucking 85% of each random, barely used item away when it’s too old, and still eat a different meal every day in a month, then fair play. you’re doing better than me! I CBA doing long, complex shopping trips, personally…

Cash rich time poor, Hello Fresh converts here.

Mind; if we used the qys of garlic they supply our farts would have stripped the wallpaper by now!! If the day of reckoning involves vampires, we’re well sorted.

I wonder if whoever came up with the concept of meal kits was thinking:

Making these ready meals is a PITA. Once I’ve sourced the ingredients I’ve got to pay people to cook the meals, package them, brand for each supermarket who all negotiate super hard and pay 90 days later. Why don’t I just try being lazy and see if I can get away with bunging the ingredients in a box and sending them direct to the customers without bothering to cook. They will pay more, upfront, for less. What’s more, all parties seem happy. Win win / Absolute genius…

Sillysilly, the added bonus is the ingredients are fresh and the meals are not full of additives and preservatives to make them last a week knce cooked.

I was very cynical before we started, now also realised I can cook to some degree after 30 years of generally letting some one else (my wife) do it so another positive to offset the cost. If I could get her to clean the cars and put the bins out it really would be win win.

We’re about to eat our 3rd hello fresh meal. We got some kinda offer so took it up. We have already cancelled…for a number of reasons.

We usually spend £30/£40 on a full weeks shopping, so find it quite expensive (there’s only 2 of us and we plan all our meals). We’ve found flavour to be lacking. This is may be down to the simplicity of the recipes.
Huge amounts of waste packaging, even if it’s recyclable its still a lot.

I think it may work better for those who are maybe not big cookers or are extremely tight for time. We plan all of our meals (takes 5min on a Sunday night, cuts cost, cuts waste) we cook everything from scratch and LOVE our food.

If you eat beige and are very busy then it’s probably a very good way to get some fresh ingredients in you and try some new meals. But if you cook, then it’s not for you.

Also got any big bit of bone in my diced chicken in meal 1…

One positive, its highlighted just how massive my portions are.!

Have a look at the amount of packaging you use with your normal shop and I don’t think hello fresh is that bad. Meat and fish has less packaging and there is zero food waste. I wish they could take the boxes, padding and frozen thingys back and then it would be a lot better. Meals for two are usually fine for 2 adults and a 10 year old.
For us both working full time and busy, it works very well and the vast majority of the meals have been good.
Perhaps not for those who fancy themselves as proper chefs or have loads of time, but it works well for us.

We drop off the ice packs and insulation (in one of their cardboard boxes) every so often and this gets collected and reused.

I will bet my house it is not reused – it will be recycled possibly but even that I bet its not 100% recycled

The Gousto stuff has plenty of flavour, even for a family used to spicy or several garlic cloves. In fact it’s the rich tastes we like.

Still not getting the issue around the packaging, our general waste bin is definitely has less waste. I’d rather see more paper packaging that does get recycled vs slightly less plastic that gets theoretically recycled. As for the ice packs, normal water in a plastic bag, can reuse them yourself if you want, minimal waste if you dont.