To think meal prep box costs are hard to justify

We prefer Mindful Chef as the food is more interesting than Hello Fresh or Gousto. Venison, duck, nice steak, unusual spice combinations. HF is a bit more bog standard stuff I could come up with myself. They rarely repeat a recipe, which a pretty impressive.

I’m a good cook but cba with meal planning a whole week in advance and I find a lot of food gets wasted if I shop without really having decided exactly what to cook. They have some interesting textures, quick pickles, things I would not think to do. We are indeed cash rich and time poor though, and only cooking for 2 adults. Portions are quite generous though so sometimes I can feed DS(8) as well as DH and me using a 2 person meal.

I use both Gousto and Hellofresh, depending on who has the best offer.
I live alone and don't drive, so for me it is convenient to have everything I need delivered. I find the portions are generous. Often one meal will be enough for one evening then lunch next day.

They are expensive compared to buying the ingredients and making the same meals at home but they’re cheaper than getting take away several nights a week and buying expensive ready meals and eating out etc. They’re healthier than just eating toast and frozen pizza and oven food. I have ADHD and find meal planning and thinking about what to eat and shopping overwhelming so I would rarely think about what to have for dinner until getting home from work tired and hungry at 7pm. It’s easy to then just order a takeaway or just eat something quick and easy from the freezer with no nutrition. The meal boxes for me are worth the cost because they take all the effort out of planning a healthy meal, they mean I eat something nutritious and don’t pay to get takeaway several nights a week.

Just checked and it is
I like the look of it as it means you're not left with some weird ingredient hanging about you only used once

@UnNiddeRides I believe (I looked at it a while ago) it's the spices/seasoning/sauces plus recipe

Use Gousto occasionally. There is just me and DH. It is more cost effective to order the meal plan for 4 servings per meal so effectively 16 meals per box. Either freeze the extra or lunch the next day

If you have to buy chicken breasts, mushrooms, onion & potatoes then what are they actually sending you?

We have EveryPlate in Australia (it’s Hello Fresh but cheaper, same company) and we love it.

Its definitely cheaper than regular shopping and the portion sizes work for 4 adults. I love the reduced mental load and it genuinely saves me time.

My only issue is they never send enough garlic!!

They are expensive but cost effective to people who madly shop without meal planning and therefore waste lots. I'm pretty good about using things up but it was all the plastic that put me off. Lots of tiny packets of eg chilli flakes or oregano. Would rather they listed a few common herbs and spices to buy for their popular meals then they added the main vegetables and meat.

This is exactly what we do. I don’t really enjoy cooking and it’s full of short cuts you can take for prep and cooking time which I wouldn’t have thought of. We’ve had a break for a few months now but will probably go back to it.

Have you heard of cherrypick? I used it ages ago when it was called lollypop (I think). It does meal planning for you. You pick the recipes and it adds the ingredients to your online supermarket shop. You can then remove any ingredients you already have and can add on whatever else you need. It's a but of a halfway house but keeps the costs down as you're buying from the supermarket like usual. There are various subscription levels but I can't remember the cost and I haven't used it since it changed to cherrypick so can't fully verify it but sounds like it's a cheaper option.

I have used Gusto and Hello Fresh once a week. I’m a perfectly decent cook, but life is busy and I am so bored of deciding what to cook for dinner. My two evenings off of just mindlessly cooking what’s in front of me are a real break- for us it’s an alternative to eating out, which we almost never do. It’s helped the kids broaden their palettes and several of the recipes have entered the rotation of meals I cook regularly. Also have ordered boxes on UK self catering holidays where we don’t necessarily want to eat out every day but definitely don’t have well stocked cupboards.

when you think about the cost of packaging, staffing to pack and deliver, the marketing, the cost of discount coupons....
of course it's more expensive than buying the ingredients from the supermarket

Yes to Simply Cook, they're brilliant (and cheaper than the others).

Well, I for one find cooking to be pretty joyless - and the thinking part is the biggest chore. At least with something prepackaged it takes away (pardon the pun) the daily "what are we going to have for dinner?" conundrum.

I use gusto and love it, for me it is totally worth it, planning what to make, working out what I need, going to the shop to get the ingredients is a real pain for me. It also encourages me to make new things & saves me buying a tub of sour cream for 2 spoonful's then throwing the tub out.

Plus i don’t always like the quality of the meat.

Well you're paying for the food. But then you're paying for the offices, all the staff, someone to plan the menus, someone to pack it all, make the cards that go with it, maintain the app if there is one, the website, HR etc it all adds up!

We cook a lot so have tons of store cupboard ingredients. Tried it and ‘ok’ but they don’t easily cater for gluten allergy and portions a tad small/no leftovers whereas I batch and freeze. Good for variety but overall not for me.

They are great if you have never cooked. Friend is teaching himself to cook family dinners. He found meal planning and shopping totally daunting so this take s pressure off his partner

Very few people can cook as well as Gousto makes the dinners, I know, having eaten at people's houses for a couple of decades. You are paying for the convenience, the wide variety and the chance to try new things- if you can make exactly the same cheaper, then do that!

Reasonable decision

I have never used them but I have always assumed they are for cash rich time poor people, and as such, a reas decision

*If I bought the ingredients in the supermarket individually it would be at least 50% less."

But you're not just paying for the ingredients, are you? You're paying for someone to devise the recipe, source the ingredients, assemble them in the correct quantities, pack them, in packaging which also has to be paid for, and deliver them to you. Do you think the people who do all that don't get paid? Then there's maintaining and updating the website, dealing with customer queries and complaints, finance and accounts, staff payroll, and everything else that goes with running a business that has to be paid for, before there's any sniff of a profit.

I prefer Simply Cook because I like to be able to choose good ingredients and I found the others weren't the freshest.

But the meals are lovely. We have one a week as a treat.