[Closed] "Hello Fresh" and other food delivery companies.

I have used Mindful Chef, Hello Fresh and another which I forget that went bust.   All pretty good and I find Hello Fresh the better one with decent sized meals.

Not sure about the VFM as you could definitely buy all the ingredients cheaper but the advantage is that you don't need to think about it - they all just arrive.  For items where you may not have the ingredients (herbs and spices)  it would be hard to buy a small enough amount and you would spend more buying an amount you may never use.

I enjoy the cooking and have learnt a lot about cooking since using them over the last few years.  Definitely worth trying especially as there are always special offers for first bit.  If you don't rate it then just cancel your subscription.

Why not plan a menu for the week using the BBC Food website then shop/Ocado accordingly?

I've had a few hello fresh boxes and enjoyed them, but only when on offer - 6 quid a serving is a touch pricey for me. All but one of the 15 or so meals were excellent.

A friend had a mindful chef box - the 'risotto' they sent used brown rice so didn't cook at all properly- that went in that bin, and she never bothered with the other meal. Serving sizes were pretty tight too and it was pricier. I wouldn't bother with them for sure.

The other half deals with this side of things and I can't remember the names of the companies that we've tried, but here's what I do remember.

The one that advertises on the telly, who send all the ingredients, were frankly, crap. They would often use ingredients of a standard below that which we would normally go for and below what we felt they were charging for. I remember once, getting a very manky looking bay leaf (more like half a bay leaf) sealed in its own wasteful plastic bag.

However, there us one company, who do little flavour/seasoning pots and a recipe, you provide the ingredients. Now those are great, we've had a lot of very tasty dinners out of that.

Why not plan a menu for the week using the BBC Food website then shop/Ocado accordingly?

Because that takes more time, plus as I said earlier you cannot buy everything in single portions (important when you are not likely to use that ingredient again).

It is a more expensive way for most of the items but again saves time.  All depends how much time you have/value your time I suppose.  For me it is worth it as I take a few minutes picking the meals I want and that is it.  It then turns up and I can cook them and eat freshly prepared meals with taste great.  Only had one or two I didn't like out of around 50 or so.

Had the half price trial on Hello Fresh and was fairly happy with it but realistically it didn’t save any time but just meant the time was spent on cooking something of better quality.

At full price it didn’t seem particularly good value but if it had remained at half price I would’ve continued with it.

They’re for people who are oh so busy and don’t have time to cook. Buy the ingredients make your own if it makes more than one portion then freeze it.

That’s the thing though, they’re not really.  I reckon I spent more time cooking with HF than I do normally.

They took the hassle out of the decision making process though.

I wasn’t being serious.

Hassle on deciding?

Ridiculous amounts of non recyclable packaging!

<p>My local grocer sells herbs/spices by 10g measures, maybe see if anyone near you does that? That said they keep far longer than the jar tells you so hardly a buy and chuck scenario.</p><p></p><p>As for other ingredients, if you can't buy single portions you're doing it wrong. Go to a grocers and buy what you need, none of the 2.5kg bag of spuds that will be soft by the time you can be bothered using them all nonsense. We cut a LOT of food waste by doing that. Quality of teh produce is much better too. If you don't have a local grocers then disregard.</p>

Onzadog : However, there us one company, who do little flavour/seasoning pots and a recipe, you provide the ingredients. Now those are great, we’ve had a lot of very tasty dinners out of that.

Simply Cook? I tried those and they're pretty tasty and most only take about 20 minutes. They're still not cheap but you can bulk them up with extra veggies etc. to extend the portions. I still get them supplied via 'what do you you want for your birthday' donations.

Tried the Hello Fresh trial also and thought they were very decent as well, just not enough to justify the full price on an ongoing basis. All their recipes are on their site so I often use those for ideas.

My advice to the OP - try all the discounted trials and see if it fits with your routine and if you think they are VFM.

Style over substance IMO, but if you want to use them go ahead!

I’ve used one called Hungry House, they delivered all sorts, pizzas, burgers, currys. Nice n convenient!

There are so many meals that take just minutes to prepare and don't need some crappy company taking a cut.

Hassle on deciding?

I don't have much intention of using one of these services and I really enjoy cooking but deciding what to eat I really do not enjoy!

Eh? Is it really that taxing?

Eh? Is it really that taxing?

Sometimes doing it that way gives access to more interesting or varied recipes than you'd think up / find yourself.

Go to a grocers and buy what you need, none of the 2.5kg bag of spuds that will be soft by the time you can be bothered using them all nonsense. We cut a LOT of food waste by doing that. Quality of the produce is much better too. If you don’t have a local grocers then disregard

There was a really good greengrocer / deli place near me that did small measures of all manner of spices, herbs etc. Some of the packaged stuff he sold was really quite expensive but the raw fruit, veg, spices etc were very reasonable. Sadly he closed down after a couple of years so it's back to the local small supermarkets which, while they're very convenient (open 7am - 11pm, 7 days a week), they're also very limited in what you can get.

I'm not getting the comment about wanting items in small portions as it's likely they won't be used again.  It was from this forum that I learned about the BBC Food website where you can just type in whatever leftovers/random food item you have and plenty of recipes appear.  Also what's wrong with batch cooking, after all if you're cooking one Shepherd's Pie then it's hardly more work to cook six.  Or, as I do, cook half a leg of lamb, slice and freeze.

I've used hello fresh for over a year - and by used, I mean I have cooked almost every one of the dishes, 5 days a week, for a year.

I think it's fantastic.  A box of ingredients is on your doorstep at 7am on a Monday, containing everything you need for 5 quick, healthy and interesting weekday dinners.

My findings:

They take about 30-40 minutes to make (including chopping veggies), and are infinitely more varied and interesting than I would cook myself.

You can now choose what dishes get sent via the app - so you can choose 5 from 7 or 8.  You can also pick ones that are quicker/easier if you like.  This weeks recipes:  https://www.hellofresh.co.uk/menus/upcoming/classic-menu?redirectedFromAccountArea=true

There are themes certainly, but the recipes get repeated relatively rarely

Before we signed-up, we downloaded the recipes off the website for a few weeks and went to the supermarket and bought the ingredients.  Our finding was that buying the ingredients yourself is significantly more expensive, and resulted in significantly more food waste.

Portion size is good.  The 2-people kit is enough for my wife and I, plus a portion for my little girl.

The quality of the ingredients is good (we use the Australian franchise).  Buy the end of the week, the fresh herbs can have got a little limp, but thats not an issue really.

We haven't directly compared, but the packaging feels like less than you would get buying the ingredients from a supermarket.  You could probably do better if you were going to your local greengrocers/farmers market, but if you should at a supermarket, the packaging is probably less.

The main advantage though is the time/hassle it saves you in menu-planning and shopping.  I'm sure there are some cooking gods on here for whom this wouldn't be a benefit, but for us this is certainly the principal advantage

In terms of downsides:  we have had one box that didn't turn up, and probably 3 individual ingredients missing over a full year (nothing serious, just a clove of garlic or a knob of ginger or something).  Also, your amount of choice reduces over the week - by Friday, you have to cook whatever is left.

Sorry if this reads like an advertisement, but hello fresh has had a massive positive impact for us.  There is no minimum period, so no harm in giving it a whirl.  We've had friends who've not got-on with it..... but as I said, it's worked really well for us.

Sometimes doing it that way gives access to more interesting or varied recipes than you’d think up / find yourself.

I’m sorry James but I don’t agree with that either there’s endless cooking shows on TVs for ideas, google and then even here for inspiration.

To sum up.  A few posters have tried it and like it although not sure about VFM.  The rest have not tried it but have all sorts of reasons why it wouldn't be good.

Kerley +1

Perhaps Drac should set up an email list with five varied recipes a week to send out, with a comprehensive shopping list, for all of us who lack his incredible foodie imagination. Can't be that difficult, right?

Used Hello Fresh too for a while. Really couldn't fault it for the quality of the ingredients or the recipes.

Felt the full price boxes were a bit expensive though. If they send me another offer I'd gladly use it again

Why does there have to be a debate about why someone's lifestyle choice can be improved by someone else's superior suggestion?

If OP fancies a crack at something then maybe don't suggest an alternative that he's likely to know already exists.

We know cooking from scratch is the best way to eat (providing you are good at it) overall but that doesn't take into account each and every one of our commitments.

My GF does all the cooking (from scratch - green grocers and all) and I do all the cleaning - and all of it is time consuming and expensive. However you jig the parameters about.

It's up to the individual to figure out if they want to try a different tact so save one or the other, or just have a change.

Personally I don't like food to be frozen I think it tastes inferior but I completely get the benefits.

FWIW rone  , hello fresh et al aren't frozen, but fresh ingredients delivered in an insulated (recyclable) box.

They take about 30-40 minutes to make (including chopping veggies)

Oh, I assumed one of the selling points was the veggies etc all came prepped.  How do they ship this stuff to you so it all arrives fresh?

Try Google Hungry Monkey you can find lots of info from there but not sure it’ll catch on for busy people.

I’ve not tried them precisely because of that Kerley yeah. I could see they were a waste of money like some of  those who tried them found out.

If only I could google something to do my shopping for me huh...

And I don't think anyone said it was a waste of money, just that it wasn't always great vfm - which differs from person to person and situation to situation.

If you don't like the concept, don't bother doing it. Clearly you're so upset by other people making their own food shopping decisions that you felt the need to comment 5 times on a thread with 30 posts, about something you so clearly dislike. You obviously do have a lot of time on your hands...

FWIW rone , hello fresh et al aren’t frozen, but fresh ingredients delivered in an insulated (recyclable) box.

Like a lot of these, the nice cardboard recyclable boxes and "fresh" / "natural" / "ethically sourced" ingredients are great for making you believe you're saving the environment... only to be delivered in a polluting diesel van.

Way over priced stuff for a sense of self satisfaction. Graze is another one. "Heathly" snacks, in ridiculous amounts of packaging (even if recyclable) for insane prices.

Anyway, on the subject of buying small portions at the supermarket, that is a problem, especially with the smaller ones as they have a nasty habit of packaging stuff in bulk packets (spuds, carrots etc) with no option for loose. Far too many just go for the packet as it's quicker to stuff in a basket and few look at the price of the things next to the loose ones where they do exist which are almost always way cheaper for the absence of a plastic wrapper.

Some stuff will keep fine bulk buy. Huge bag of Indian brand basmati rice aimed at the local Indian community will last me a year boxed up in sealed containers vs for the same price a tiny bag of rip off Tilda that'll last a few weeks.

Bloody hell.... glad I bothered to write a considered, informed post about my experience of cooking aprox 250 hello fresh meals over the course of a year, and about how we specifically compared VFM over buying the ingredients yourself, food waste and packaging

for a sense of self satisfaction

Yeah, that is clearly coming across from the people who like Hello Fresh on this thread...

I've used Hello Fresh a couple of times when they've been on offer. I thought the ingredients were pretty good quality and recipes decent. It's very expensive at full price and you do end up with a lot of packaging waste.

Thanks for the review batfink. It sounds as if you really like the company and the link was informative. I'm going to try and find a promotional code/offer and see if it is for us. I like the idea of no contract etc.  Means we can suspend it for holidays etc .

I cook everything from scratch and i agree it does take time and planning, but to me it is worth it. As said above batch cooking is the key, as is experiamentation, as if you re missing an ingredient you have to find an alternative.

Problem in the uk is i find the supermarket layouts geared up to maximise their revenues, so all the packaged and ready to eat stuff is placed where you will find it.  To shop for the ingredients for a meal you have to search and it takes some time.

Anyway, i have the time and enthusiasm to do it, no idea re cost as the food budget would be the last to be cut if austerity calls.

Means we can suspend it for holidays etc

Yeah, you do that in the app - you can just "switch-off" weeks that you don't want.  You can move between the 3 day and the 5 day plans too, but thats a bit more fiddly.

I'd sent you a link for a free box - but I think its probably only valid in Australia!

Problem in the uk is i find the supermarket layouts geared up to maximise their revenues, so all the packaged and ready to eat stuff is placed where you will find it.  To shop for the ingredients for a meal you have to search and it takes some time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruen_transfer

Not just the UK.

IMHO Anything that encourages people to cook is a good thing, anything that reduces a barrier to entry for people is a good thing. I remember a STW thread about helping somebody eat better descended into an elaborate discussion on the merit of variations of diets and what oil to use - pointless and counter productive.

Just taken a look a Hello Fresh as I'm interersted, £42 for 4x2Person meals a week?

If the variety is good it could be worth it, the 50% off offer looks great for the weeks that I'm busy. Currently living on my own. kitchen not that established, my cooking variety is way down as I don't have the variety of stuff in and buying herbs etc for the small amount I'll use is expensive and wasteful. I remember a cupboard full of jars etc. with 1 teaspoon out of them from an attempt to follow a recipe only version, by the time they are used again they have lost their punch so waste.

I'll see if the offers are still on next month and how delivery works for an apartment building but I might give it a go for a few weeks.

Are you still in Tassie Mike?  If so, msg me your email and I'll send you a voucher.

Back in the UK now but cheers for the offer.

Before we signed-up, we downloaded the recipes off the website for a few weeks and went to the supermarket and bought the ingredients. Our finding was that buying the ingredients yourself is significantly more expensive, and resulted in significantly more food waste.

I wonder about that. I cook most stuff from base ingredients and my food bills are tiny, as is the food waste. At times I think if I was on minimum wage I'd still cope fine at least for food (so long as you avoid all the convenience options). It all depends what you buy and where from though. Said before about the expensive wrapped packaging, but loose items being far cheaper, less packaging and would be far less wasteful just buying what you need. And of course local market, butchers etc can be better for this, though they are rare these days, especially traditional markets rather than exotic food stalls.

I wonder about that.

You need to see the ingredients that are used and you will see that although you could save money you wouldn't save that much, i.e. buy exactly the same brand of passata, the same brand of haloumi etc,.

Was given a voucher code for 5 days free meals for 2 people . Only stipulation it was the "Classic Box". Starting after the bank holiday. Silly not to try with that deal.

I have a friend who was very busy in his personal life and with work and never grew up with proper meals - as a result he lived off takeaways and ended up with diabetes (despite being pretty thin!). He used these sorts of services for a while to get nice fresh healthy meals to improve his diet and food knowledge and was really chuffed with them. I could imagine being the same if I was on my own and they would probably work well for me too.

I would also like Drac’s list of weekly meal suggestions please! We always end up having the same things. Googling “food ideas” doesn’t really narrow it down. No repetition on a 6-weekly cycle please.

We used Abel & Cole for a bit, which is just the veg, but they provide meal suggestions with the sort of stuff you’d have in stock. Wasn’t bad, the quality degraded noticeably over a couple of months, presumably as their subscriber numbers increased. I can absolutely see the appeal of Hello Fresh etc.

No repetition on a 6-weekly cycle please.

Why would you need this? Good for learning what you like to cook and eat but no one needs that much variety long term.

I see it as a good educative concept for people who never got into the habit of cooking properly and don’t have the wherewithal yet to buy and plan smart to reduce waste. But as a long term solution for decades of food shopping, no.

I would not not put it past them to design their output to make cheaper replacement with conventional buying harder to achieve. You can normally plan out most waste by pairing up meals that use parts of an item or with enough cooking knowledge and experience knowing what you can substitute with minimal negative change.

It was a tongue in cheek comment to Drac’s repeated “ermahgerd how stupid are you that you don’t have an inexhaustive list of meal ideas?!” comments.

Quite incredible you can’t think of meals for a week. Even more so you can’t find inspiration from google.

I don't know what impresses me the most, this, his perfect quoting with none of the shit the rest of us get or his modest house.

I suggest you check out the reference to the modest house Mike.

Don't worry Drac I know what the reference is, I'm just so in awe of your culinary creativity.

Ah just thought you’d tag it on the end then, yeah right.

I use Riverford for my veg and the local butchers for meat. My cupboards are pretty well stocked with all the herbs, spices, rice, pasta, pulses, tinned tomatoes etc. Riverford sell recipe boxes but I don't need them as I usually have everything I need in the cupboards.

The Riverford delivery comes with recipes for that weeks box contents and when I signed up they gave me a recipe book that covers all the veg they supply.

Where before I would go to the supermarket three of four times a week to get things (and end up buying loads I didn't go in for!) I now only go maybe once a week if I need to restock cupboard items. So by paying weekly for a veg box to be delivered i'm saving money by not impulse buying!

Love it

It has helped us transition to 75% vegetarian diet

So how to plan meals for a week....

Decide what's in season and we'll priced

Look up recipes and make lists (couple of stops may be needed)

Pick ones to complement each other both using ingredients and balance diet

Get to shops and realise 2 key ingredients are either crap or really expensive

Swap out stuff

End up with no what was planned and left overs for more £ than you planned

Repeat again....

Or few clicks, get what you need and make steps to cooking fresh food from scratch. Try new things and become more confident in the kitchen. How is that not a win win?

I’ve cupboards with tins in such as beans and tomatoes, a fridge with fresher stuff in, always have garlic and ginger stashed away, loads of dried herbs and species. The freezer has batches of a base curry sauce in and maybe 1 or 2 curries left but I think I may have used them for work. Unless the freezer has frozen meat stored then it’ll usually just requires buying enough fresh meat or fish for the chosen dish, pretty much everything else is there except fresh herbs as I’ve never got around to making a successful herb patch. Loads can be made from that Mrs makes a cracking lasagne nothing was bought for it this weekend as we had all the stuff. I made teriyaki salmon the other night all we needed was salmon as we didn’t have any.

Cheating tonight as it’s sausages from the local butchers baught a few weeks ago and put in the freezer. Other times we cheat with frozen items such as crispy chicken or such like.

Buying from these food companies seems to gain very little at all, sorry it’s nothing to do with being superior just that there is no real hassle in coming up with and cooking dishes. If I fancy something new I’ve cookbooks in the house, my iPad has a few on, I’ve spotted ideas on TV, had a meal out somewhere and thought I’d try that, seen ideas on here from other amateur cooks and Googled.

We did Gousto for about 5 or 6 months - just 2 meals a week for the two adults. It worked well when we just had one kid, wife went back to work full time and we had a couple of evenings where we didn't have to think, just follow the instructions and have a decent meal quickly. No faffing about or finding you're missing a key ingredient as you're getting started. Cheaper and better than resorting to takeaways anyway.

More hits than misses, although as we're veggie it was getting a bit samey - there's only so many ways you can do halloumi - but plenty of the recipes were good enough to keep and have become part of our usual rotation.

Wouldn't want to do it long term (the packaging is silly - so many sturdy boxes, little plastic pots and packs of wool insulation to get rid of) but good for a short while to mix things up.

I’ve cupboards with tins in such as beans and tomatoes, a fridge with fresher stuff in, always have garlic and ginger stashed away, loads of dried herbs and species.

...

Unless the freezer has frozen meat stored then it’ll usually just requires buying enough fresh meat or fish for the chosen dish, pretty much everything else is there except fresh herbs as I’ve never got around to making a successful herb patch.

That's great - but not everyone has that sorted, not everyone has got round to getting that cupboard full of stuff. The general feature of STW is the inability to see how other people might live, with the way work goes I'll probably be in for 2-3 meals a week a lot of the time - having the stuff sorted and ready for that would be great.

Buying from these food companies seems to gain very little at all, sorry it’s nothing to do with being superior just that there is no real hassle in coming up with and cooking dishes.

Do you  mean for you or for other people?

I think the large number of people who are positive about them, along with their success tells you they are offering something useful to a lot of people.

What's the monimum order value for Food Service, Brakes, 3336, Ribble Farm Foods or any of those chilled delivery companies who supply the pubs and hotels?  Wouldn't it be cheaper to place an order once a month and fill a big freezer? All you need then is a microwave and a grill.

Tried Hello Fresh and got bored after a while.

At the time they added paprika to too many dishes so there was a similar underlying taste that cropped up too often for me. Many of their dishes also took too long to cook / were not worth the effort for the end result. Find you can copy from restaurant menus better where they are under pressure to create dishes that are tasty and can be made quickly to maximise profit - the problem there is ingredient sourcing.

None of the meals featured any ingredients that you couldn’t pick up at the supermarket. I could achieve the same cheaper just online ordering everything for the week with a set time slot, while getting more interesting items delivered from other sources.

If you are busy and life is hectic they are perfect. If you’re just starting to cook and moving away from ready meals / takeaway they are great.

£35 per week for 4 meals for 2 from Gousto works great for us. Gives me more time to spend with family and biking, plus has helped kick-start healthy eating. Lost over 12 pounds since April. Think we'll stay on it.

Got a nice load of recipes I can dip into. Used one for a meal with mates a few weekends back, just bought the ingredients, doubled the amounts.

They do need to address the amount of packaging.

That’s great – but not everyone has that sorted, not everyone has got round to getting that cupboard full of stuff.

It didn’t take not long Mike.

Success doesn’t mean they are good McDonalds is massively successful as are many takeaways but it’s not a good way to get food.

Probably didn't, I know I did it a few times having started from scratch about 5 times now, it is however expensive to start, annoying as stuff loses it's flavour and makes every new meal a right what do I need for that one exercise.

At the moment this seems like a great way to kick start the next 6-8 weeks and get some variety into my meals for one.

Don’t get me wrong I see the appeal why some may see it as easier maybe more so for those on their own but simple planning or having stock ingredients means you can do the same without these companies. I’ve looked at them before with interest when these threads have popped up but they didn’t seem to offer much at all for the money. They seem to be based around simple to prepare meals anyway which is what I will cook if I want something quick and simple.

The menus seem simple and the ingredients basic. Yes they are something that you can knock up for yourself . However, our current situation is that we have a young family and long working hours with long commutes. Finding time to shop and menu plan is hard. We rely on family favourites but realise we want variety. Hello Fresh seem like giving us the direction we need. Maybe after trying their meals we will be inspired to buy the ingredients and widen our cooking repitoire again. We have always cooked from scratch, just at the minute we are stretched but recognise that a good varied balanced diet is essential. I don't think people use these companies with a view to using it forever, and neither do they as the app is easy to navigate on terms of start/stop deliveries.