Hello fresh - why?

This.

As someone who lives alone and has a chronic illness, it's nice to offload a bit of the mental load to a service like this so I don't have to plan a meal, shop for the stuff, put it away, buy jars and bottles I might only use once which means they get wasted...

I use it because I am very lazy, I like nice food and I hate cooking.
I just pick some meals every week. It isn’t difficult to add a bit to it in order to feed all of us. I don’t have to think, I follow the recipe card instructions whilst watching netflix or something.
There’s no wastage either. We don’t have a lot of storage in our kitchen, and can’t store random bottles of things. Hello fresh only deliver what you need

For people who don’t use them or like them I can’t understand why you’d care (so much so that snarky comments are made) if other people use them. It has absolutely no impact on you whatsoever.

It is easy and you don't have to think about what to eat as much or do shopping -that's really the only benefits.

I thought the quality was very poor and even though there's no food waste there's a lot more packaging waste so I think if that's what you care about then you're doing the wrong thing. The range you can get on the basic plan is pretty boring too and are all easy recipes that mostly rely on packet sauces.

It is definitely more expensive than supermarket shopping if you invested the money in all the spices and stuff upfront like the cost of a box then the rest of the ingredients are much cheaper than paying the subscription.

I don't think it is that expensive in comparison to supermarket shopping especially when you bear in mind that you'd have to buy a whole pot of whatever seasoning rather than a spoonful.

Might be different if you're feeding a family of four but for me as a solo adult it's definitely not. I also got an Amazon Prime offer for a year's free delivery.

That’s so rude and unnecessary, it seems to me only stupid people would make such a sweeping and scathing statement.

I’ve used them in the past and I wouldn’t consider bringing up children single handed and holding down a job Mon-Fri to be lazy or stupid. They were really handy for me. I don’t use them now as I don’t need to (older kids, more independent and I’m no longer working Mon-Fri). I still meal plan for the week but HF and Gousto were just what I needed at the time.

The advantage of the meal boxes is you don’t have to work out what ingredients are needed or whether you have them. Look at the picture of the meal and select - job done

Because I’m currently 7 months pregnant, work full time and my husband is away for 3 weeks and my motivation to think and meal plan doesn’t extend much more than toast.

I only get it on deals and normally a couple of meals a week so it doesn’t feel very expensive and I cook the rest of the time.

Utter crap.

I did it during Covid when I couldn’t get food at the supermarket. I got sick of doing my meal plan, only to arrive at the supermarket to find that none of my ingredients were in stock. Hello Fresh was how I was able to put a dinner on the table every night. I kept the recipe cards and still use them regularly.

I have Hello Fresh meals 4 xweek.Been having them for months,never had anything missing and always had fresh vegetables.You can unsubscribe any time.

They have saved me loads of money,as I was shopping in M and S and always buying “treats”.The portions are perfect for 2 adults,one a 6 foot man.

I love the convenience of them,I usually choose the quick recipes.Also I am a very good cook! During lockdown I had Mindful Chef meals,they took ages to cook and they were not nice,I only kept having them because it occupied my time!

@Parker231 but it's not exactly meal planning to order the food you might want from the supermarket, is it? Or onerous. I've just done my weekly Ocado order and it's taken me six minutes. It will take me a couple of minutes to think what I might want to cook each night, and to decide if I've got the right ingredients in the cupboard / fridge, or choose something else if I haven't.

I'm all in favour of saving time and have tried three of the recipe boxes, but I like to be able to choose good quality ingredients and sensible portion sizes, and I honestly didn't find there was any time saving with the meals I bought.

Never underestimate how much of the mental load hello fresh type meals take out of some peoples lives.

Yes its expensive, but thats for the convenience and ease of planning.

I’ve had HF and Gousto. I don’t anymore because I’ve pretty much exhausted their recipes but still use their recipe cards with my own ingredients.

I found them really useful. They made cooking a lot easier and only gave you the amount of spice or condiment you needed so no half jars going to waste.

They get repetitive after a while so I think a lot of people, like myself, use them for a bit and then stop. They opened my eyes to a variety of recipes I probably would never have cooked. I used them, stopped, went back to them, stopped, on numerous occasions.

Convenience and forced me to cook some new things.

Not worth it though. Quality hit and miss, items left out. Can by organic for the same amount and batch cook some dishes.

I'm aware they aren't the most cost effective but we enjoy them 3 nights a week because they offer us new ideas, new recipes and the ingredients we need in the exact quantities. If I went out and bought a full jar or spices or whatever for one dish I probably wouldn't use them again for ages.

You might not need them, like them or see the point in them but others clearly do so why not just leave them to it?

Teens. Deciding what to cook them every night. All of the pettifogging moaning about what they do and they don’t like. Give them the app. Tell them to pick meals that they all agree on. Job done. They cannot complain.

Well each to their own eh, after a full day at work if I was to come and stand in front of the fridge trying to decide what we were having, 50% of the time we'd probably end up ordering in. So it might be slightly more expensive than supermarket shopping, but it saves us money in real terms. It also forces us to cook the stuff before it goes off. It's basically a life hack for busy people with a tendency to laziness/ADHD.

Vague idea of what I might want to cook... add a selection of ingredients... decide what we're having... what we fancy... improvise

That is all mental load. It may not bother you but it does some people.

Am neither lazy or stupid and can afford these food services. Time is precious.

All you have to do is decide what you want to eat. And then they send it to you with instructions. Makes it really easy to eat home-cooked food, and there's no waste.

Awww. Wibble wibble.

So it does! Add ingredients to the basket button is there!

Some of us don’t want to spend time on meal planning or shopping when it can be done for us

We stopped using Hello Fresh. It was more like Hello Rotten. Soggy spinach and the meat always smelled off.

Mindful Chef however 👌

Totally delicious, healthy, no processed crap, perfectly portioned. No meal planning, no mental load, no supermarket shopping. It's like having good quality restaurant food every night. No thinking required for the cooking, can all be done while listening to a podcast.

It usually costs about £60 for 4 meals as we generally go for the cheaper vegan options. As don't drink and don't have a social life (young kids) then I think we deserve it.