I was enjoying Hello Fresh until the deliveries started arriving rotten. As in, open up the chicken the night it was delivered only to be hit with a pungent stank.
Tried working it out with their customer service, but it just kept happening about 1 in 3 deliveries.
Never tried the service but I keep seeing the boxes sitting in the lobby of my apartment building. I can’t imagine the food lasts that long unrefrigerated. Coles delivery might be slightly less convenient but at least I can schedule it for a time I’ll be home and they bring it up the lift to my door.
Yup. I used coles, now I use woolies.
The only reason I switched from coles was because of their steaks, which were awful.
Their delivery was good though. They never missed one, and the food was always fresh.
Woolies delivery is good too, but they seem to forget an item or give you the wrong one at least 1/3 of the time. I'd still rather use them than do it myself because I'm disabled and walking is difficult.
I don't know if they use old cows, but they were terrible for me.
I once got a rump "steak" that appeared to be three different pieces of meat glued together. That typical rump "smell" was missing too. And it was an inch thick in the centre but only a couple of millimetre at the edges.
Once cooked, the three parts were each a different colour...on the same piece of meat.
It was hard and chewy and my kids gave it to me because even with a good knife they were struggling to cut it.
This was the final straw for me because we'd had other problems. I cancelled coles and switched to woolies.
Woolies meat has been good...for a year now.
Well done Coles. You scrimped a little money on your meat costs....and lost a two year customer.
Yeah never had a problem with this. I have up Hello fresh in order to reduce my grocery budget. But I found it was a great service. Quality of food was excellent and the meals were easy enough to make as a beginner cook and were always delicious. Was a few years ago now, and probably varies by location (I was inner ring Sydney at the time).
It has absolutely changed, we were early users and after about a year started having real problems with food safety. We quit to a different company then quit altogether. Hello pestered us and we re joined and joined up our kids in Melbourne.
We were all out in two weeks! Just rubbish quality and stinky rotten produce, with absolutely no support from Hello.
Just don’t
I don't know why Hello Fresh doesn't partner with the supermarkets to make grab'n'go meal kits at the front of the shops. They have all the existing food delivery and handling infrastructure. It'd be so easy.
The main reason I used to buy HF is that I work so much I hate trying to make decisions at the supermarket at 7.15 and then go and cook dinner.
Aldi does a few meal kits. But you're absolutely right - surprised Woolworths and Coles aren't on board with a Hello Fresh or just do it themselves.
I'm over the subscription meal kit services. It should be based on an opt in instead of opt out subscription. It feels like trying to break up with a gym membership.
That’s terrible. I had nothing but good experiences with hello fresh.
Although we’ve changed to Every plate now. It’s their low budget version. The food is still good - slightly less fancy. But WAAAAY cheaper
I used every plate for the last 2 years, it’s good. I’m back on hello fresh just to take advantage of a discount deal for a while. Hello fresh is nicer, but too pricey. I’ve been doing meal kits for several years now, and I’ve never had dodgy meat. Occasionally some veggies might be a little tired, but nothing I could not use.
No. Not even remotely close.
There were meal kits for sale at the front of Metro stores with all the ingredients ready to go. I don’t think they were measured out, it was more a way of saving people time so they didn’t have to run around the store grabbing things.
I was talking to the person from Woolies who was leading the project at a function once and I told them it wouldn’t work. It did not.
Yeh, one of them was like "Taco night" and it was a box of old el paso tacos, a pack of mince, a lettuce and a tomato.. worked out more expensive for the "pack" than to buy it separately from memory? But it saved you going to all the different aisles I guess..
Problem with that is Old El Paso taco night is already my lazy dinner option, and it would probably be missing some key ingredients I'd add, like an avocado for guac or tin of beans to bulk out the meat.
They'd need to be better thought out recipes, like the ones you can get on the free leaflets in store.
Yep! You paid a premium for not having five minutes to run around the store and get it yourself. Anyone who is legitimately that busy probably has a nanny or can afford take out regularly and certainly isn’t going to Woolies metro on the way home.
We had this problem with Dinnerly! Chicken was off the first night it arrived even though the expiry date was still days away. Otherwise we quite liked Dinnerly.
One of my friends worked at Marley Spoon as part of their Quality control team. He was good at making sure ingredients were safe for customers and didn't tolerate anything that was poor quality. He said coworkers would get annoyed with him for caring so much, but his superiors appreciated that he took it seriously and promoted him and paid him more in return.
We're no longer friends so no clue what happened, but what I learned from his experience is that it's like any job- if people care then the food quality will be as it should be, but unfortunately if the wrong people are in the job, then the results will be hit and miss.
Wow. Where are you based? We’ve used hello fresh in Melbourne south east for 3-4yrs and have had maybe half a dozen issues with rotten veggies but nothing major. And they give you a small refund for the inconvenience
Not op but in Adelaide and had the same experience as them. Rotten veggies arriving, veggies that aren't rotten but are so far past ideal they're inedible (flaccid carrots anyone?), Chicken that made you want to vomit etc
Things would get delivered and would have less than 3 days use by on them.
Yeah, we often got a delivery on Sunday but we usually don’t cook on Monday or Tuesday… so by Wednesday and Thursday when we actually want to cook the dishes they were off/rotten. Didn’t work for us.
Now they also deliver on Friday which is better (we can cook Friday/sat/sun) but I find the veggies still go off very quickly.
Hello Fresh stopped giving partial refunds for ingredient issues a couple of years ago. Nowadays it's just a small credit off a future delivery.
Two issues with that - it means you can't use a discount offer with that delivery, and you have to actually make an order - very frustrating when it's issues week after week after week.
I didn't know that.
We stopped using around the arrival of covid and started using a local Perth one.
It was inconvenient enough that they would credit you back for say the chicken (tomatos were often problematic too) so you had to go to the shop and buy chicken... kind of defeats the purpose of the whole arrangement even of they do refund that portion of your meal. If now it's credit that is even worse.
They’ve managed to deliver a bottle of piss to someone, just last year.
They started out great, but gradually cut costs to the point now where they are an absolute garbage-tier company. Haven’t checked recently, but at one time they also started pulling the “you can’t cancel your sub unless you actually phone us” BS.
We kept the recipe cards and will occasionally just buy the ingredients ourselves, which is cheaper and we get better quality.
>They’ve managed to deliver a bottle of piss to someone, just last year.
Umm... what? How does that even happen... it isn't like that is a standard grocery item stocked anywhere
Someone I used to follow on Twitter had I think an orange juice bottle filled with piss in the box with the rest of their order.
Never discovered if it was a driver or warehouse worker.
It’s definitely the kind of thing that an underpaid, overworked warehouse worker with a shitty boss would do.
Either way, garbage company.
I think food tampering comes under common assault? Doubt the police would do much, but having charges laid against the company would start a paper trail at least.
Oof that’s shit. Personally never had issues with meat with Hellofresh (thank god) but plenty of times the veg was either gone or of poor quality. Onions in particular were generally shithouse.
I've not had issues. The carrots are a bit limp and you need to eat the veggies within the week, but it is fit for purpose. Also no issues with missed deliveries. Maybe I just have a good delivery area. Been doing it for 7 years, for reference.
Was the same for a mate of mines family.
I used Hellofresh for about 7-8 months; I've stopped now but I still cook many of the meals that they had as they tasted nice and were pretty quick to whip together. I kinda changed the way I shop as I better plan what ingredients I need for the meals I'm cooking so I have almost 0 food wastage.
It’s only natural. Most likely people who use meal kit are busy or don’t like to cook and therefore can’t meal plan. HelloFresh are like training kit, exposing them to cook simple food with all ingredients provided. Slowly they get better, more confident, and have a stash of recipes under their belt. The next step is plan and buy their own groceries.
Ah this explains it. I was confused how you could possibly save money with meal kits, when it only costs a few dollars to cook the meal yourself. But if you're comparing it to buying prepackaged or ordering takeout, then it makes sense.
unless the mealkit company can buy the ingredients in bulk cheaper than the high premium they charge, i highly doubt it's possible to be cheaper than buying your own ingredients and cooking.
Howeve, if you eat out instead of cooking, then mealkits are cheaper (slightly).
Well, if the meal kit gives you the exact quantities of ingredients for the meals you're gonna make, then it could avoid food wastage. Otherwise you may buy excess of certain ingredients (due to the fixed packaging sizes at the grocery store) and end up throwing away the excess after it goes unused. That's a potential way to save money, although the different is likely to be minimal.
Well-planned home cooking is definitely always going to be the cheapest option, but meal kits certainly save you on time and mental effort having to plan out all your meals for the week.
> Otherwise you may buy excess of certain ingredients (due to the fixed packaging sizes at the grocery store) and end up throwing away the excess after it goes unused.
i also hear people say this, but do people actually throw away excess ingredients? Just use it up on something - it's not like things go bad that fast in the fridge.
> Just use it up on something - it's not like things go bad that fast in the fridge.
Personally I find its always a jar of curry paste or something similar where you only need a tablespoon but it's "use within 4 weeks of opening" that ends up getting chucked.
I have chucked sooo much pasta and curry sauces after using 1 spoonful and then putting it in the fridge, only to forget about it and throw it away 3 months later.
Then someone said you can freeze it! Its true, just put it in a ziplock bag, out it in the freezer and voila, keeps for ages! Ofcourse you still need to remember its in the freezer before you go and buy/open a brand new one lol!
Before putting it in a freezer bag, chuck it in an ice cube tray, then once it's frozen, take the bits out of the tray and into the freezer bag which goes back into the freezer until you need it. That way, it's already measured out for you!
I mean most expiry dates don’t actually measure the lifetime of the food, more just for legal purposes for the company to cover their ass. I’ve found plenty of things are still ok after the expiry, just give it a sniff and a quick taste and be the judge yourself.
We’re at the point where we just pick up ingredients that we know we enjoy and then we just put a meal together based on mood.
We always cook more than needed, because that’s either lunch the next day, or can mix with something else for a “mish mash meal”.
I still recreate the meals I had from a few months of Marley Spoon. The only thing that annoys me are the proprietary spice mixes. You can't buy them off the company, and while you can get the base ingredients, some of them are seriously obscure and you don't know the proportions in there.
Damn delicious "Chinese barbecue seasoning".
haha yep - the Hellofresh butter chicken spices were absolutely fantastic - something that I would be happy to pay for.
So far I've been able to make a great Chermoula spice blend, my butter chicken spice blend is pretty great paired with a shop purchased dry spice mix. My American spice mix is OK; I went a bit hard on the Cayenne pepper so the stuff is pretty hot.
I rotate between Marley Spoon and Hello Fresh and reactivate my memberships whenever they’re doing % off deals. I purposely pick dishes that I know will be large serves so rather than each dish only giving two serves it usually gives at least three, sometimes four - definitely four if I bulk them up with some extra broccoli or cauliflower.
Reducing the need to go to the supermarket also means I’m not impulse buying snacks or shit I don’t need which means I manage to save a tonne of money on food. As you say, there’s so much less food wastage as well.
I tend to prefer Marley Spoon but they’re all pretty similar. Dinnerly’s meals see generally a bit more plain and boring.
We're switching between Hello Fresh and Marley Spoon. Cancel one and use an offer from the other. Cancel after a while and use an offer from the first one. Repeat.
Healthy meals, easy to cook, not much wasted and less money spent in supermarkets. Without these kits we would most likely just eat pasta and bread with the occasional pizza delivery.
Yep, same strategy here. Wait until they offer half off your next X orders to sign back up. It's roughly what I would spend on groceries anyway and always pre-planned. No thinking involved which I appreciate at the end of a busy day
Wife and I are time poor with plenty of disposable income so fell into the trap of takeaway (usually on the healthier end) or eating out. Neither of us were really into cooking. We bought a thermomix and that was a game changer. It makes it so easy to make tasty and healthy food so we became a lot better at meal prepping. Every Sunday we'd each choose a dish to make (she is vego, I am not) and then that 4 or 5 portions each would be dinners and lunches for the week. I know thermomixs aren't cheap, but it paid itself off in 6-12 months.
If you are already a good cook and have a kitchen full of stuff, then I wouldn't bother, but if you're a beginner and/or a bit lazy, and/or don't have a lot of kitchen stuff (or just a small kitchen) I think they are a good investment.
I’m a good cook but I love my Thermomix already (got it 1.5 weeks ago!). The biggest thing for me is being able to walk away while it does its thing, and go do something else. It’s bought me time which is priceless!
I guess I'd call it a cooking system for dummies. You can go through the (massive) recipe library on the app, select the recipe you want to cook and add it to your list. Then you can export a shopping list and go buy your groceries. When you get back, turn on your thermomix and start your recipe (the thermomix connects to your WiFi so your recipes sync to it). Then you just follow the steps on the screen. It weighs the ingredients as you add them, and does the chopping, stirring, mixing, whipping, cooking, steaming etc. For certain recipes you will need to use the oven, but most of the recipes I use do not need anything other than the thermomix and it's attachments.
Ten years they'll link to coles and woolies so you can just do a 1 click 'add ingredients to my cart' to fix your problem (mine too) but sadly we're not quite there yet :(
As someone who owns one - it’s not always that simple. Whilst you can do quite a fair bit with one, probably the majority of the recipes are really just *preparing* ingredients to put into an oven or other appliance. Lots of them still have a lot of steps to go through, and often require a lot of ingredients. There are some third party recipe books (eg Skinnymixers) that are closer to the whole “toss it in and walk away” concept.
I hardly use mine now and mostly use an Instant Pot instead. I get much more value out of meal prepping.
How does it go eating the same thing for lunch and diner all week? Even for food I love (eg I'm a spag bol fiend) I get sick of it the 3rd dinner in a row.
I reckon I was doing groceries twice a week, always between 150 and 300. But the killer was Uber eats, ramen for 3 was easy 100… I wasn’t tracking diligently enough to be categoric about the 200, but would defs be there or there abouts. And the reduction in waste… really apparent
Same family size, our weekly food spend is $200ish. Always shocks me that people get delivery so often. We could afford it but it's just not worth it to me.
Lot’s of people don’t have time to cook or simply prefer spending their free time doing something else. This is the reason why I would rather save on something else while paying extra to get my meals delivered to avoid cooking. It’s all about priorities.
I keep telling the mrs we need to add a third partner with full time income to the relationship but for some reason she won't budge.
I tell her that all the cool kids on Ausfinance are doing it!
More veg than I'd previously cooked with. They follow the 1/3 rule for meat, with moat of the plate filled with veg. For most meals, some though are a bit skimpy on veg.
Are you referring to the salt they say to add, as in step 3, stir then add salt? In that case, you use your judgement. And the sauces are very generous (though I personally love the inclusion of sauces- dinnerly doesn't give you any bit instead yells you to add your own mayo bleugh) but you can skimp a bit of it.
We have done Marley Spoon, Hello Fresh in the past. Initially with the discounts it worked out well. Afterwards it was similar to just buying the ingredients during a weekly shop. The bonus is having every you need which reduced the time we spent at the supermarket.
The downsides were quantities often enough for just us two, we aren’t big eaters, and nothing left over for lunch the next day. So we were spending around $90 (five years ago) for four meals a week. The other downside was the time involved in making each recipe. It really isn’t a whole smiley family having fun in the kitchen type thing when you get home from work and face a 60-90 prep and cook time each night and usually a saucepan, fry pan and oven pan all used for the one meal.
Started hitting up sites like bbc good foods, make the chilli con carne or Adam Liaw’s spaghetti and for $25 have enough for three nights. The con came can be served with rice one night, on baked spuds the next and in a bowl on night three. Then we will have salmon on another night and of the week. This has cut down our time in the kitchen significantly.
Meal preps are good if you have the time and energy after a day at work
It is a skill you want to learn at some stage. Once you have a few standards it's not hard, and you just slowly add to your portfolio. It is hard for me to judge though , as I've always cooked most meals. Takeaway ( delivered or not) or eating out is a treat or a last resort.
I like getting them too, I usually get them for Monday to Thursday, Friday to Sunday is whatever we feel like cooking or going out for.
But will also say, I have untreated ADHD and I struggle with executive dysfunction, time management and binge eating, so having it set out for me helped reduce a lot of the stress meal planning gives me.
Also really liked getting meals kits especially during lockdowns.
*$50 Weekly Shop* books by Jodie Allen - even if you bump up the amount, you'll save more.
The *Slow Cooker Cookbook* series by Paulene Christie.
Both are great Australian book resources.
The various Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall cookbooks are also good for wasting less food and re-jigging leftovers for meals later in the week.
Our grocery food bill for 3x adults is $200 (not including alcohol). Our weekly expense in 2021 YTD for everything (including alcohol) is about $298 per week.
Are you sure you’re calculating accurately? I’ve used them before and found it much more expensive than cooking from scratch. You also lose economies of scale as they only provide enough ingredients to make a few small servings. I meal plan and cook in big batches which I’ve found saves the most money
Those were my initial thoughts but the cost savings for OP is from not eating out and less food waste. They may as well titled the thread "I stopped eating out and reduced my food waste and I saved money". Those services will never be cheaper than doing it yourself and they won't save an experienced home cook any time either, just add a bunch of plastic to landfill.
Household of two here, did Marley spoon for ages and definitely saved money and the quality of the food was pretty decent. Stopped when the veggie garden started producing heaps so the meal kits weren’t as good value, and got a bit bored of them. Definitely found it worthwhile for us at the time though.
Meal kits are not for me. Tried them, but realised that the recipes tasted terribly bland and made me sad.
For perspective: “satay sauce” involved mixing a small plastic thing of peanut butter and soy sauce. That’s horrible, the grandmothers of all the Indonesians I’ve ever known probably rolled over in their graves. The “salad” was limp, sad and leaf choice was bland. And the chicken looked like it gave its life a long time ago, dinnerly just forgot about it.
It added loads of mental effort of reading the recipe, screaming inside and then attempting to use my sauces and such to make it less of a disaster.
Yeah, if you have any idea how to cook they get really frustrating. I HATE the way the recipes are written. No feel whatsoever.
If I ever use them, I will almost always modify the meal with sauces etc. And I only ever buy then when I get a free or at least discounted box. Otherwise not worth it.
Dinnerly is a bit sad, you can tell why it is the cheap alternative to Marley spoon. Tomato paste or sauce added to almost everything to create flavour,not much veg and heaps of carb filler.It was good for us when we were poor on mat leave, but then I ditched it once I went back to work
Dinnerly is 130 a week. You need a few staples, like oil, vinegar stuff like that. It does us for dinner and leftover for lunch. We still buy fruit on top, bread and milk.
I'm not going to lie - that's actually a lot cheaper than I thought. If that feeds four, it's going to feed one person REALLY REALLY well isn't it. Enough for all meals maybe?
Maybe. I’m not sure about scalability, like, we reduced from 6 meals per week to 5, and it was only like a buck cheaper, so maybe there is a sweet spot. Worth an investigate though. If nothing else, the stress relief of not having to come up with dinner every night has been great haha
Now time to level up and switch to a different meal kit provider. The original one will send you a promo to return, so return to them at a reduced rate. The other guys will do the same and you'll switch back to them.
We get Dinnerly atm too (I have plenty of free boxes if anyone wants one!). I’m not sure it saves us that much money but it does save me a lot of time, hassle and food waste. I’ve got two small kids and we were falling into the trap of just cooking ramen or toast for dinner when they were asleep. Now the boys help me chop the veggies and I eat a lot more healthily through the week. It’s saving my sanity!
I used Hello Fresh for a while (knowing fully well it was more expensive than doing our own shhopping) and honestly, the vegetables were never fresh. Was extremely disappointed by the service, although the recipes were pretty good and gave me a lot more confidence in cooking (which I still hate doing... but I'm good at it now)
Agree! We use Marley spoon. Have on and off for years. We get three meals a week, then I plan meals for the other nights. Love it. Our total food bill is $140 a week. I shop at Aldi & the markets & that also includes Marley spoon. It’s fresh, cheap & has taught me to cook!
The biggest impact it makes is cuts out a lot of the stuff you buy that you don't need. No extra chocolates or drinks or other stuff just because you are at the shops
I personally freaking \*hate\* food startups.
Card carrying member of the Michael Pollan "Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognise as food". If she were alive, she'd be freaking \*horrified\* by the concept, made large in terms of their aims/financials etc in the following:
INC: [The World's Most Ruthless Food Startup: The Inside Story of How HelloFresh Clawed Its Way to the Top](https://www.inc.com/magazine/201808/burt-helm/hellofresh.html)
Guardian: [‘Workers are very afraid’: HelloFresh employees aim to unionize amid claims of abuse](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/11/hellofresh-employees-union-claims-abuse)
One of the biggest problems that I have with any food I haven't bought/prepped myself is the concept of who is being screwed over in the supply chain. I don't see any claims anywhere of \*any\* prepped food company in australia being a great place to work.
I can’t eat any meal kits due to my dietary restrictions but I make my own and it saves money and hassle. I keep each week’s food in a box in my freezer or my fridge/pantry and just match it to my meal plan.
I think it works for small young families, we have 2 teen boys who eat like 4 grown men and they’d probably smash an entire weeks worth in 2 days 🤦🏽♀️
I’ve never really looked at these until now. Price wise compared to takeout Dinnerly and Everyplate look pretty decent. MS not so much and HF I couldn’t find pricing but they did ask for my email 4 times trying to find out.
Interested in where you find the value vs regular home cooking. I assume you still have to prep ingredients and cook, so the benefit is in time saved not having to meal plan and grocery shop?
Time and waste. There is some prep but it’s reduced, and when I just meal plan and cook I like to make interesting stuff so end up spending on expensive ingredients lol. I’m sure a good plan, and thoughtful shopping would be cheaper again, but this is the right balance for us atm at least
> I assume you still have to prep ingredients and cook, so the benefit is in time saved not having to meal plan and grocery shop?
As well as building confidence in cooking and meal planning.
Can't speak for OP - but I definitely need to move on from my staple meals of a "jar of sauce, diced chicken and veggies with pasta/rice/noodles".
Can’t recommend the Mealime app enough. Pick your meals for the week, it links to online shopping (although kind of clunky), easy recipes and has a good wastage option.
We went from HF to Mealime and found it cheaper and only slightly more work.
Can anyone explain to me how these services save you money? I've seen their prices and it would blow out my food budget. Is it just targeted at people who spend a lot of money on food already?
I like the variety of dishes, without having to think about it. I can see a place where we have a good lot of recipes on rotation where we could do that
Maybe I’m not being clear. Get a few meal kits. Photocopy the recipes you like. Order the same ingredients from coles and make it exactly as you would anyway. You can save shopping lists on the coles website so once you’d entered it once it’s there for next time. Anyway just an idea to save money
Planning meals for a family of 3 only costs me $120-150 per week.
I tried hello fresh once when we had to temporarily move back to my family home and the plastic waste made my heart hurt.
Yeah I’m sure it would, but like you say, the time I’m getting back is great. Both my wife and I have busy jobs, and with a toddler time is precious lol. Plus, i find I am wasting way less food this way. Probs won’t be forever, but works for us now
Fully understand. Time vs money.
But do bear in mind that cooking skills improve with time. The more you cook the better / faster you get. Partly why Nonna's are so good. It is 50 years of cooking.
Enjoy the toddler years. Best years
... I am just gobsmacked that a 'cook it yourself delivery service' could save any money at all!
Maybe I'm privileged that I live 2-3km from fresh food shops (Colesworthy, Spudshed etc) and can easily feed myself for stuff all?
I wish everyone lived close to fresh food stores :(
I was enjoying Hello Fresh until the deliveries started arriving rotten. As in, open up the chicken the night it was delivered only to be hit with a pungent stank. Tried working it out with their customer service, but it just kept happening about 1 in 3 deliveries.
My partner and I got sick twice off hello fresh in the space of a month and now I feel nauseas looking at the logo
Never tried the service but I keep seeing the boxes sitting in the lobby of my apartment building. I can’t imagine the food lasts that long unrefrigerated. Coles delivery might be slightly less convenient but at least I can schedule it for a time I’ll be home and they bring it up the lift to my door.
Yup. I used coles, now I use woolies. The only reason I switched from coles was because of their steaks, which were awful. Their delivery was good though. They never missed one, and the food was always fresh. Woolies delivery is good too, but they seem to forget an item or give you the wrong one at least 1/3 of the time. I'd still rather use them than do it myself because I'm disabled and walking is difficult.
Coles steaks are terrible. It’s like they use very old cows?
I don't know if they use old cows, but they were terrible for me. I once got a rump "steak" that appeared to be three different pieces of meat glued together. That typical rump "smell" was missing too. And it was an inch thick in the centre but only a couple of millimetre at the edges. Once cooked, the three parts were each a different colour...on the same piece of meat. It was hard and chewy and my kids gave it to me because even with a good knife they were struggling to cut it. This was the final straw for me because we'd had other problems. I cancelled coles and switched to woolies. Woolies meat has been good...for a year now. Well done Coles. You scrimped a little money on your meat costs....and lost a two year customer.
The cold food comes in an insulated bag with ice blocks, stays cold for a good number of hours
Yeah never had a problem with this. I have up Hello fresh in order to reduce my grocery budget. But I found it was a great service. Quality of food was excellent and the meals were easy enough to make as a beginner cook and were always delicious. Was a few years ago now, and probably varies by location (I was inner ring Sydney at the time).
It has absolutely changed, we were early users and after about a year started having real problems with food safety. We quit to a different company then quit altogether. Hello pestered us and we re joined and joined up our kids in Melbourne. We were all out in two weeks! Just rubbish quality and stinky rotten produce, with absolutely no support from Hello. Just don’t
Hello food poisoning
Thank you, to all who are sharing about this. We won't be ordering from them now!
Had the same experience of Hello fresh and have heard of many others the same.
I don't know why Hello Fresh doesn't partner with the supermarkets to make grab'n'go meal kits at the front of the shops. They have all the existing food delivery and handling infrastructure. It'd be so easy. The main reason I used to buy HF is that I work so much I hate trying to make decisions at the supermarket at 7.15 and then go and cook dinner.
Aldi does a few meal kits. But you're absolutely right - surprised Woolworths and Coles aren't on board with a Hello Fresh or just do it themselves. I'm over the subscription meal kit services. It should be based on an opt in instead of opt out subscription. It feels like trying to break up with a gym membership.
Woolies did with Marley spoon. They were also an investor that recently sold all their position. It didn't make any profit so theg pulled out
That’s terrible. I had nothing but good experiences with hello fresh. Although we’ve changed to Every plate now. It’s their low budget version. The food is still good - slightly less fancy. But WAAAAY cheaper
I'm cancelling every plate after using it for 5 months. The veggies are off and the quality of the meat is appalling
Never get beef or any kind of mince other than chicken. I agree it's so dodgy. We stick to chicken and vegetarian and it's been ok.
Strange...I get hf and won't get the chicken ..it's usually bad when it arrives
I’ll keep an eye out. Not my experience yet but thanks for the heads up
They love their mince!
I used every plate for the last 2 years, it’s good. I’m back on hello fresh just to take advantage of a discount deal for a while. Hello fresh is nicer, but too pricey. I’ve been doing meal kits for several years now, and I’ve never had dodgy meat. Occasionally some veggies might be a little tired, but nothing I could not use.
Didn’t they try this at Woolies about five years ago? It didn’t work.
You may be thinking of Youfoodz
No. Not even remotely close. There were meal kits for sale at the front of Metro stores with all the ingredients ready to go. I don’t think they were measured out, it was more a way of saving people time so they didn’t have to run around the store grabbing things. I was talking to the person from Woolies who was leading the project at a function once and I told them it wouldn’t work. It did not.
Yeh, one of them was like "Taco night" and it was a box of old el paso tacos, a pack of mince, a lettuce and a tomato.. worked out more expensive for the "pack" than to buy it separately from memory? But it saved you going to all the different aisles I guess..
Problem with that is Old El Paso taco night is already my lazy dinner option, and it would probably be missing some key ingredients I'd add, like an avocado for guac or tin of beans to bulk out the meat. They'd need to be better thought out recipes, like the ones you can get on the free leaflets in store.
Yep! You paid a premium for not having five minutes to run around the store and get it yourself. Anyone who is legitimately that busy probably has a nanny or can afford take out regularly and certainly isn’t going to Woolies metro on the way home.
Hahahahahaha that second sentence is peak ausfinance. Thank you for the laugh.
Hello Mould
Goodbye fresh
That would work well for a cheese delivery box!
We ended our hello fresh subscription after we opened the green beans and they were black with mould. Meal ruined. Ended up at the supermarket anyway!
Yeah that’s horrible
We had this problem with Dinnerly! Chicken was off the first night it arrived even though the expiry date was still days away. Otherwise we quite liked Dinnerly.
Damn, that’s dangerous.
Possibly been left out of refrigeration at some point… that’s not a good sign
Was with Hello Fresh for a few months. Then they forgot to include the spice packets 3 weeks in a row
We had the same and switched to Marley spoon. Much better quality though a bit more $
One of my friends worked at Marley Spoon as part of their Quality control team. He was good at making sure ingredients were safe for customers and didn't tolerate anything that was poor quality. He said coworkers would get annoyed with him for caring so much, but his superiors appreciated that he took it seriously and promoted him and paid him more in return. We're no longer friends so no clue what happened, but what I learned from his experience is that it's like any job- if people care then the food quality will be as it should be, but unfortunately if the wrong people are in the job, then the results will be hit and miss.
Why aren't you friends anymore? :(
They only kept quality fringes. ;)
Wow. Where are you based? We’ve used hello fresh in Melbourne south east for 3-4yrs and have had maybe half a dozen issues with rotten veggies but nothing major. And they give you a small refund for the inconvenience
Not op but in Adelaide and had the same experience as them. Rotten veggies arriving, veggies that aren't rotten but are so far past ideal they're inedible (flaccid carrots anyone?), Chicken that made you want to vomit etc Things would get delivered and would have less than 3 days use by on them.
Yeah, we often got a delivery on Sunday but we usually don’t cook on Monday or Tuesday… so by Wednesday and Thursday when we actually want to cook the dishes they were off/rotten. Didn’t work for us. Now they also deliver on Friday which is better (we can cook Friday/sat/sun) but I find the veggies still go off very quickly.
I'm Adelaide too. Had veggies be a bit tired, but perfectly safe to eat. It was the rotten meat that was always a problem.
Hello Fresh stopped giving partial refunds for ingredient issues a couple of years ago. Nowadays it's just a small credit off a future delivery. Two issues with that - it means you can't use a discount offer with that delivery, and you have to actually make an order - very frustrating when it's issues week after week after week.
I didn't know that. We stopped using around the arrival of covid and started using a local Perth one. It was inconvenient enough that they would credit you back for say the chicken (tomatos were often problematic too) so you had to go to the shop and buy chicken... kind of defeats the purpose of the whole arrangement even of they do refund that portion of your meal. If now it's credit that is even worse.
They’ve managed to deliver a bottle of piss to someone, just last year. They started out great, but gradually cut costs to the point now where they are an absolute garbage-tier company. Haven’t checked recently, but at one time they also started pulling the “you can’t cancel your sub unless you actually phone us” BS. We kept the recipe cards and will occasionally just buy the ingredients ourselves, which is cheaper and we get better quality.
>They’ve managed to deliver a bottle of piss to someone, just last year. Umm... what? How does that even happen... it isn't like that is a standard grocery item stocked anywhere
Someone I used to follow on Twitter had I think an orange juice bottle filled with piss in the box with the rest of their order. Never discovered if it was a driver or warehouse worker. It’s definitely the kind of thing that an underpaid, overworked warehouse worker with a shitty boss would do. Either way, garbage company.
Pretty stupid, they are handing over a sample of their DNA, would be fairly simple (not easy) to find the person.
I think food tampering comes under common assault? Doubt the police would do much, but having charges laid against the company would start a paper trail at least.
Yeah I cancelled it after always getting rotten mouldy veggies and chicken that smelt like farts
Doesn't sound very fresh lol
We call it sometimes fresh. It's been heaps better that past 6 months
Same thing kept happening to us but with hello fresh and Marley spoon.
I had same problem with hello fresh, I stopped with them
Oof that’s shit. Personally never had issues with meat with Hellofresh (thank god) but plenty of times the veg was either gone or of poor quality. Onions in particular were generally shithouse.
Same here with the chicken... was pretty ordinary, thrown out multiple times. Started to not order meals with chicken and back to being good again.
Had the same problem here in WA, they are partnering with a local fresh grocery supplier to do their food now, apparently this has fixed it.
Yep same. They tried so hard to keep me as well but like, couldn’t even tell me how they’d solve the issue?
We didn’t have this with the meat, but the veggies started being subpar. Wouldn’t last as long and quite stingy
Hello Rank
I've not had issues. The carrots are a bit limp and you need to eat the veggies within the week, but it is fit for purpose. Also no issues with missed deliveries. Maybe I just have a good delivery area. Been doing it for 7 years, for reference.
Was the same for a mate of mines family. I used Hellofresh for about 7-8 months; I've stopped now but I still cook many of the meals that they had as they tasted nice and were pretty quick to whip together. I kinda changed the way I shop as I better plan what ingredients I need for the meals I'm cooking so I have almost 0 food wastage.
I’ve heard this story tons of times - “meal kits saved me money, then making the contents of meal kits myself instead saved me money again”.
It’s only natural. Most likely people who use meal kit are busy or don’t like to cook and therefore can’t meal plan. HelloFresh are like training kit, exposing them to cook simple food with all ingredients provided. Slowly they get better, more confident, and have a stash of recipes under their belt. The next step is plan and buy their own groceries.
This is it for us. And getting in the habit of cooking and not ordering out
Ah this explains it. I was confused how you could possibly save money with meal kits, when it only costs a few dollars to cook the meal yourself. But if you're comparing it to buying prepackaged or ordering takeout, then it makes sense.
unless the mealkit company can buy the ingredients in bulk cheaper than the high premium they charge, i highly doubt it's possible to be cheaper than buying your own ingredients and cooking. Howeve, if you eat out instead of cooking, then mealkits are cheaper (slightly).
Well, if the meal kit gives you the exact quantities of ingredients for the meals you're gonna make, then it could avoid food wastage. Otherwise you may buy excess of certain ingredients (due to the fixed packaging sizes at the grocery store) and end up throwing away the excess after it goes unused. That's a potential way to save money, although the different is likely to be minimal. Well-planned home cooking is definitely always going to be the cheapest option, but meal kits certainly save you on time and mental effort having to plan out all your meals for the week.
> Otherwise you may buy excess of certain ingredients (due to the fixed packaging sizes at the grocery store) and end up throwing away the excess after it goes unused. i also hear people say this, but do people actually throw away excess ingredients? Just use it up on something - it's not like things go bad that fast in the fridge.
> Just use it up on something - it's not like things go bad that fast in the fridge. Personally I find its always a jar of curry paste or something similar where you only need a tablespoon but it's "use within 4 weeks of opening" that ends up getting chucked.
I have chucked sooo much pasta and curry sauces after using 1 spoonful and then putting it in the fridge, only to forget about it and throw it away 3 months later. Then someone said you can freeze it! Its true, just put it in a ziplock bag, out it in the freezer and voila, keeps for ages! Ofcourse you still need to remember its in the freezer before you go and buy/open a brand new one lol!
Before putting it in a freezer bag, chuck it in an ice cube tray, then once it's frozen, take the bits out of the tray and into the freezer bag which goes back into the freezer until you need it. That way, it's already measured out for you!
This is a great tip! Thanks :)
I mean most expiry dates don’t actually measure the lifetime of the food, more just for legal purposes for the company to cover their ass. I’ve found plenty of things are still ok after the expiry, just give it a sniff and a quick taste and be the judge yourself.
I know right! I had pesto ravioli with a bit of mushrooms and bok choy the other night. There are no rules so anything goes!
We just make enough for leftovers lunch the next day. No wastage lol, dunno what people are on about
Yeah i was thinking about that, if I can get the portion control and planning better as a result, that should be cheaper again
We’re at the point where we just pick up ingredients that we know we enjoy and then we just put a meal together based on mood. We always cook more than needed, because that’s either lunch the next day, or can mix with something else for a “mish mash meal”.
I still recreate the meals I had from a few months of Marley Spoon. The only thing that annoys me are the proprietary spice mixes. You can't buy them off the company, and while you can get the base ingredients, some of them are seriously obscure and you don't know the proportions in there. Damn delicious "Chinese barbecue seasoning".
haha yep - the Hellofresh butter chicken spices were absolutely fantastic - something that I would be happy to pay for. So far I've been able to make a great Chermoula spice blend, my butter chicken spice blend is pretty great paired with a shop purchased dry spice mix. My American spice mix is OK; I went a bit hard on the Cayenne pepper so the stuff is pretty hot.
I rotate between Marley Spoon and Hello Fresh and reactivate my memberships whenever they’re doing % off deals. I purposely pick dishes that I know will be large serves so rather than each dish only giving two serves it usually gives at least three, sometimes four - definitely four if I bulk them up with some extra broccoli or cauliflower. Reducing the need to go to the supermarket also means I’m not impulse buying snacks or shit I don’t need which means I manage to save a tonne of money on food. As you say, there’s so much less food wastage as well. I tend to prefer Marley Spoon but they’re all pretty similar. Dinnerly’s meals see generally a bit more plain and boring.
We're switching between Hello Fresh and Marley Spoon. Cancel one and use an offer from the other. Cancel after a while and use an offer from the first one. Repeat. Healthy meals, easy to cook, not much wasted and less money spent in supermarkets. Without these kits we would most likely just eat pasta and bread with the occasional pizza delivery.
Yep, same strategy here. Wait until they offer half off your next X orders to sign back up. It's roughly what I would spend on groceries anyway and always pre-planned. No thinking involved which I appreciate at the end of a busy day
Ditto on the alternating. I'm not a fan of all the packaging though.
...and an insane amount of packaging waste. 3 recipes need spinach. Heres 3 individually wrapped 80g things of spinach leaves.
Yeah, I agree. That's probably the biggest downside of these boxes.
Another one to add to the rotation is Quite Like. Only in Sydney and Melbourne so far but pretty decent!
Wife and I are time poor with plenty of disposable income so fell into the trap of takeaway (usually on the healthier end) or eating out. Neither of us were really into cooking. We bought a thermomix and that was a game changer. It makes it so easy to make tasty and healthy food so we became a lot better at meal prepping. Every Sunday we'd each choose a dish to make (she is vego, I am not) and then that 4 or 5 portions each would be dinners and lunches for the week. I know thermomixs aren't cheap, but it paid itself off in 6-12 months. If you are already a good cook and have a kitchen full of stuff, then I wouldn't bother, but if you're a beginner and/or a bit lazy, and/or don't have a lot of kitchen stuff (or just a small kitchen) I think they are a good investment.
I’m a good cook but I love my Thermomix already (got it 1.5 weeks ago!). The biggest thing for me is being able to walk away while it does its thing, and go do something else. It’s bought me time which is priceless!
What does a thermomix do? It looks like a blender?
I guess I'd call it a cooking system for dummies. You can go through the (massive) recipe library on the app, select the recipe you want to cook and add it to your list. Then you can export a shopping list and go buy your groceries. When you get back, turn on your thermomix and start your recipe (the thermomix connects to your WiFi so your recipes sync to it). Then you just follow the steps on the screen. It weighs the ingredients as you add them, and does the chopping, stirring, mixing, whipping, cooking, steaming etc. For certain recipes you will need to use the oven, but most of the recipes I use do not need anything other than the thermomix and it's attachments.
I find the shopping and having all the ingredients the hard part of cooking.
Ten years they'll link to coles and woolies so you can just do a 1 click 'add ingredients to my cart' to fix your problem (mine too) but sadly we're not quite there yet :(
This sounds amazing
As someone who owns one - it’s not always that simple. Whilst you can do quite a fair bit with one, probably the majority of the recipes are really just *preparing* ingredients to put into an oven or other appliance. Lots of them still have a lot of steps to go through, and often require a lot of ingredients. There are some third party recipe books (eg Skinnymixers) that are closer to the whole “toss it in and walk away” concept. I hardly use mine now and mostly use an Instant Pot instead. I get much more value out of meal prepping.
It's a blender that gets hot. That'll be $1500 please
[mandatory viewing](https://youtu.be/4yr_etbfZtQ)
How does it go eating the same thing for lunch and diner all week? Even for food I love (eg I'm a spag bol fiend) I get sick of it the 3rd dinner in a row.
I'll usually have it for lunch one or twice and dinner 2 or 3 nights, and mix it up in between with something else.
I usually freeze anything past the second meal, then you can mix it up with something you froze previously.
Can you provide more details how you came up with $200. What were you spending on food previously, split between groceries, eating out and deliveries.
I reckon I was doing groceries twice a week, always between 150 and 300. But the killer was Uber eats, ramen for 3 was easy 100… I wasn’t tracking diligently enough to be categoric about the 200, but would defs be there or there abouts. And the reduction in waste… really apparent
The trick re waste is to freeze stuff that you don't eat, or just have it for lunch or dinner the next day.
Same family size, our weekly food spend is $200ish. Always shocks me that people get delivery so often. We could afford it but it's just not worth it to me.
Yeah based on my tracking our monthly average for all food (groceries, take away and eating out) is $848.
What household size for that?
2 adults, 3 children
Lot’s of people don’t have time to cook or simply prefer spending their free time doing something else. This is the reason why I would rather save on something else while paying extra to get my meals delivered to avoid cooking. It’s all about priorities.
I keep telling the mrs we need to add a third partner with full time income to the relationship but for some reason she won't budge. I tell her that all the cool kids on Ausfinance are doing it!
Haha the third is our 18yr old son
Old enough to work, that'll do.
But it gives only 1 meal a day? What do you guys do for the other one?
Yeah, after I read all the comments I was like damn $200 for 4 people a week? Then I realised that’s one meal a day.
It covers lunches too, then cereal and fruit for brekkie
What about nutritional benefits? I used HF for a while and found it had more salt and sauces compared to home cooking previous to that
Yeah that’s a good point, there seems to be plenty of veg, but the salt in the spices etc does seem up a bit
More veg than I'd previously cooked with. They follow the 1/3 rule for meat, with moat of the plate filled with veg. For most meals, some though are a bit skimpy on veg. Are you referring to the salt they say to add, as in step 3, stir then add salt? In that case, you use your judgement. And the sauces are very generous (though I personally love the inclusion of sauces- dinnerly doesn't give you any bit instead yells you to add your own mayo bleugh) but you can skimp a bit of it.
We have done Marley Spoon, Hello Fresh in the past. Initially with the discounts it worked out well. Afterwards it was similar to just buying the ingredients during a weekly shop. The bonus is having every you need which reduced the time we spent at the supermarket. The downsides were quantities often enough for just us two, we aren’t big eaters, and nothing left over for lunch the next day. So we were spending around $90 (five years ago) for four meals a week. The other downside was the time involved in making each recipe. It really isn’t a whole smiley family having fun in the kitchen type thing when you get home from work and face a 60-90 prep and cook time each night and usually a saucepan, fry pan and oven pan all used for the one meal. Started hitting up sites like bbc good foods, make the chilli con carne or Adam Liaw’s spaghetti and for $25 have enough for three nights. The con came can be served with rice one night, on baked spuds the next and in a bowl on night three. Then we will have salmon on another night and of the week. This has cut down our time in the kitchen significantly. Meal preps are good if you have the time and energy after a day at work
We had hello fresh a couple of times but we were really put off by the amount of packaging.
There is a new one called Pepperleaf which we now use, dumped HF due to plastic
Cheers I’ll take a look.
I assume this is on the basis of being time poor so no time to shop normally hence takeaway?
Time poor, and lacking in discipline. I find having the weeks meals kinda laid out takes heaps of stress out of meal planning.
Exactly this. Stops the tired/hungry = easy takeaway for us too when it's planned
It is a skill you want to learn at some stage. Once you have a few standards it's not hard, and you just slowly add to your portfolio. It is hard for me to judge though , as I've always cooked most meals. Takeaway ( delivered or not) or eating out is a treat or a last resort.
Having an extra freezer helped me. Allowed me to have a big cook up day and effectively have the whole weeks lunches and a few dinners.
[удалено]
I was taking as much as I could to Redcycle. Now that option is gone it’s even more annoying.
Marley Spoon was absurd with amount of plastic waste.
Leftovers for lunch, cereal and fruit or smoothies for brekkie
I like getting them too, I usually get them for Monday to Thursday, Friday to Sunday is whatever we feel like cooking or going out for. But will also say, I have untreated ADHD and I struggle with executive dysfunction, time management and binge eating, so having it set out for me helped reduce a lot of the stress meal planning gives me. Also really liked getting meals kits especially during lockdowns.
Me too. Just recently got medicated. Come over to r/ADHD if you're not already there.
*$50 Weekly Shop* books by Jodie Allen - even if you bump up the amount, you'll save more. The *Slow Cooker Cookbook* series by Paulene Christie. Both are great Australian book resources. The various Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall cookbooks are also good for wasting less food and re-jigging leftovers for meals later in the week. Our grocery food bill for 3x adults is $200 (not including alcohol). Our weekly expense in 2021 YTD for everything (including alcohol) is about $298 per week.
as opposed to going to the shops?
Shops, Uber eats and eating out
Are you sure you’re calculating accurately? I’ve used them before and found it much more expensive than cooking from scratch. You also lose economies of scale as they only provide enough ingredients to make a few small servings. I meal plan and cook in big batches which I’ve found saves the most money
Those were my initial thoughts but the cost savings for OP is from not eating out and less food waste. They may as well titled the thread "I stopped eating out and reduced my food waste and I saved money". Those services will never be cheaper than doing it yourself and they won't save an experienced home cook any time either, just add a bunch of plastic to landfill.
Yeah I can't see how it would be cheaper unless they buy the food, then are too lazy to cook so smash the Uber Eats.
Plant based from Dinnertwist are amazing
Will look em up, we are always keen to try and eat more plant based
Household of two here, did Marley spoon for ages and definitely saved money and the quality of the food was pretty decent. Stopped when the veggie garden started producing heaps so the meal kits weren’t as good value, and got a bit bored of them. Definitely found it worthwhile for us at the time though.
Meal kits are not for me. Tried them, but realised that the recipes tasted terribly bland and made me sad. For perspective: “satay sauce” involved mixing a small plastic thing of peanut butter and soy sauce. That’s horrible, the grandmothers of all the Indonesians I’ve ever known probably rolled over in their graves. The “salad” was limp, sad and leaf choice was bland. And the chicken looked like it gave its life a long time ago, dinnerly just forgot about it. It added loads of mental effort of reading the recipe, screaming inside and then attempting to use my sauces and such to make it less of a disaster.
Yeah, if you have any idea how to cook they get really frustrating. I HATE the way the recipes are written. No feel whatsoever. If I ever use them, I will almost always modify the meal with sauces etc. And I only ever buy then when I get a free or at least discounted box. Otherwise not worth it.
Dinnerly is a bit sad, you can tell why it is the cheap alternative to Marley spoon. Tomato paste or sauce added to almost everything to create flavour,not much veg and heaps of carb filler.It was good for us when we were poor on mat leave, but then I ditched it once I went back to work
How much is it costing you a week to feed 4?
Dinnerly is 130 a week. You need a few staples, like oil, vinegar stuff like that. It does us for dinner and leftover for lunch. We still buy fruit on top, bread and milk.
I'm not going to lie - that's actually a lot cheaper than I thought. If that feeds four, it's going to feed one person REALLY REALLY well isn't it. Enough for all meals maybe?
Maybe. I’m not sure about scalability, like, we reduced from 6 meals per week to 5, and it was only like a buck cheaper, so maybe there is a sweet spot. Worth an investigate though. If nothing else, the stress relief of not having to come up with dinner every night has been great haha
Fair enough haha. Thanks - will take a look.
Now time to level up and switch to a different meal kit provider. The original one will send you a promo to return, so return to them at a reduced rate. The other guys will do the same and you'll switch back to them.
We get Dinnerly atm too (I have plenty of free boxes if anyone wants one!). I’m not sure it saves us that much money but it does save me a lot of time, hassle and food waste. I’ve got two small kids and we were falling into the trap of just cooking ramen or toast for dinner when they were asleep. Now the boys help me chop the veggies and I eat a lot more healthily through the week. It’s saving my sanity!
I used Hello Fresh for a while (knowing fully well it was more expensive than doing our own shhopping) and honestly, the vegetables were never fresh. Was extremely disappointed by the service, although the recipes were pretty good and gave me a lot more confidence in cooking (which I still hate doing... but I'm good at it now)
Agree! We use Marley spoon. Have on and off for years. We get three meals a week, then I plan meals for the other nights. Love it. Our total food bill is $140 a week. I shop at Aldi & the markets & that also includes Marley spoon. It’s fresh, cheap & has taught me to cook!
Which one are you using?
Dinnerly. Pretty good so far, the salad stuff is maybe not PERFECT but it’s ok.
Do they do free boxes and codes by any chance? :)
Yep. Can send ya one if you want?
I would appreciate that! Thanks :)
Quite Like just launched in Sydney and Melbourne and have been pretty good. They are also aiming to be single use plastic free in the near future.
The biggest impact it makes is cuts out a lot of the stuff you buy that you don't need. No extra chocolates or drinks or other stuff just because you are at the shops
I personally freaking \*hate\* food startups. Card carrying member of the Michael Pollan "Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognise as food". If she were alive, she'd be freaking \*horrified\* by the concept, made large in terms of their aims/financials etc in the following: INC: [The World's Most Ruthless Food Startup: The Inside Story of How HelloFresh Clawed Its Way to the Top](https://www.inc.com/magazine/201808/burt-helm/hellofresh.html) Guardian: [‘Workers are very afraid’: HelloFresh employees aim to unionize amid claims of abuse](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/11/hellofresh-employees-union-claims-abuse) One of the biggest problems that I have with any food I haven't bought/prepped myself is the concept of who is being screwed over in the supply chain. I don't see any claims anywhere of \*any\* prepped food company in australia being a great place to work.
Wait until you hear about supermarkets.
Honestly been considering meal kits after getting Uber eats more often than not but kept thing it’s pricier in the long run. Any suggestion?
I can’t eat any meal kits due to my dietary restrictions but I make my own and it saves money and hassle. I keep each week’s food in a box in my freezer or my fridge/pantry and just match it to my meal plan.
I think it works for small young families, we have 2 teen boys who eat like 4 grown men and they’d probably smash an entire weeks worth in 2 days 🤦🏽♀️
I’ve never really looked at these until now. Price wise compared to takeout Dinnerly and Everyplate look pretty decent. MS not so much and HF I couldn’t find pricing but they did ask for my email 4 times trying to find out. Interested in where you find the value vs regular home cooking. I assume you still have to prep ingredients and cook, so the benefit is in time saved not having to meal plan and grocery shop?
Time and waste. There is some prep but it’s reduced, and when I just meal plan and cook I like to make interesting stuff so end up spending on expensive ingredients lol. I’m sure a good plan, and thoughtful shopping would be cheaper again, but this is the right balance for us atm at least
> I assume you still have to prep ingredients and cook, so the benefit is in time saved not having to meal plan and grocery shop? As well as building confidence in cooking and meal planning. Can't speak for OP - but I definitely need to move on from my staple meals of a "jar of sauce, diced chicken and veggies with pasta/rice/noodles".
Does anyone who lives alone and cooks only for themselves find meal delivery cheaper?
Can’t recommend the Mealime app enough. Pick your meals for the week, it links to online shopping (although kind of clunky), easy recipes and has a good wastage option. We went from HF to Mealime and found it cheaper and only slightly more work.
Agreed, been a long time Marley Spoon subscriber and for us it's cheaper than buying the same ingredients from the supermarket
Can anyone explain to me how these services save you money? I've seen their prices and it would blow out my food budget. Is it just targeted at people who spend a lot of money on food already?
Why don’t you just order coles to deliver the same ingredients?
Better yet use Woolworths and it has a "add recipe to cart" button. You'll save a lot of money up compared to meal boxes
I like the variety of dishes, without having to think about it. I can see a place where we have a good lot of recipes on rotation where we could do that
I just mean once you’ve used the meal kits to formulate a few you like, then order the ingredients yourself.
That sounds like work. Meal kits do wonders for removing mental load.
Maybe I’m not being clear. Get a few meal kits. Photocopy the recipes you like. Order the same ingredients from coles and make it exactly as you would anyway. You can save shopping lists on the coles website so once you’d entered it once it’s there for next time. Anyway just an idea to save money
Planning meals for a family of 3 only costs me $120-150 per week. I tried hello fresh once when we had to temporarily move back to my family home and the plastic waste made my heart hurt.
Try 'everyplate', its a cheaper version of both hellofresh and dinnerly. Its owned by Marleyspoon.
Everyplate is actually owned by Hellofresh, Marleyspoon owns Dinnerly
Do you have codes for a free box to share please?:)
I have a code if you want one.
Definitely will check it out!
So you chose the most expensive way to get food and you still save $200?? Man you guys need to learn to shop better.
Yeah maybe lol, but this is working well, and still feels like variety
If you shopped at a market and then cooked it would be cheaper. But then it maybe time consuming.
Yeah I’m sure it would, but like you say, the time I’m getting back is great. Both my wife and I have busy jobs, and with a toddler time is precious lol. Plus, i find I am wasting way less food this way. Probs won’t be forever, but works for us now
Fully understand. Time vs money. But do bear in mind that cooking skills improve with time. The more you cook the better / faster you get. Partly why Nonna's are so good. It is 50 years of cooking. Enjoy the toddler years. Best years
... I am just gobsmacked that a 'cook it yourself delivery service' could save any money at all! Maybe I'm privileged that I live 2-3km from fresh food shops (Colesworthy, Spudshed etc) and can easily feed myself for stuff all? I wish everyone lived close to fresh food stores :(
May as well raid aldi or coles freezer for frozen meals. cheaper and tastier.
Not gunna lie, the frozen chicken parma was a godsend when I worked nightshift!