I don't get Gousto

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Confession: I jumped on the bandwagon and nabbed one of the free boxes. I looked forward to the free food, some interesting recipes and an easy life for a few days.

It was free. That's good! But the rest of it? I don't get it.

About a million tiny plastic sachets in a bag that needed sorting out. Lots more work than I'd anticipated in preparing the food. Something as simple as chicken burger with fries and slaw took a military approach of organising things before I could start cooking.

Sugar being required in recipes that I'd never add sugar to, including a beef dish that we had, that turned out very oddly and the slaw for this evening. It might be the recipes I chose without thinking, other than 'that sounds nice', but our box is all so sweet.

It might just be me, maybe my expectations were wrong but the quality of ingredients did not justify what would be the normal cost of the box. I'd be able to go all 'posh farm shop' for the price.

Just so much plastic and packaging. I guess we live and learn!

Im prepared to be swamped with opposite viewpoints to me as it does seem to be really popular.

I love Gousto, game changer for me. Agree re the waste but my Tesco delivery always drives me nuts with a lemon or lime in a plastic bag etc. Gousto chuck all the vegetables and fruit, garlic etc in loose which is great so I think they cancel each other out. Plus if I needed mustard say, I'd have to buy a pot of mustard that would probably go off before I needed it again so I do think it's better in terms of wastage. We've been left with absolutely zero left over food which is fantastic.

I'm sold on it!

I got my free box today. My heart sank at the sight of all the veg to be prepared - I assumed it came pre-cut!! It's going to take bloody ages. I too was shocked at the amount of plastic (I know, I know, that's a bit of a tall order if I wanted everything to come prepped! But I hoped it would be the whole 'this isn't plastic it's made from plants' plastic type stuff you can get these days.) Also a bit unhappy that every single tin is heavily dented. I would normally avoid dented tins in the supermarket because of the food poisoning risk.

I tried to cancel my account and got an 'Oh Crumbs, we can't find the page you're looking for' message... Convenient that!

Same, I don't need a big meal every night, or am out in the evening. The mindful chef ones serve 2, and I order 2 of them a week. I live by myself so it lasts 4 nights, which is about right for me.

I felt really off colour for 2 days after eating the basa fish in a Gousto recipe..... so I cancelled the rest of my boxes. I didn't like the idea that the ingredients had sat in a cardboard box for days.

I went through some of the non gluten free dishes to see if I could adapt any of them and a fair amount of them just had one gluten containing ingredient like soy sauce which you could easily swap out at home which gave us more choices. But as I mentioned up thread in general the recipes were much too time consuming for someone who can already cook. We just got a £20 voucher from a referral so we'll use that on meals that can be frozen to build up our supplies for this coming winter!

Check out lollipop they don't send actual recipe cards, but the recipes are on the app/website. The actual grocery shop is done via Sainsburys.

In terms of the gousto boxes. I like them, I wouldn't pay for them but enjoyed the free ones. Some meals have been better than others and we've tried things we wouldn't usually.

They aren't any easier than any recipes I make usually though, but neither are they more complicated!

Most of the packaging is recyclable isn't it?

I'm so glad you posted this as I felt exactly the same @OhYouBadBadKitten
I ordered the free box, and whilst I am obviously grateful for the free food I feel they really missed a trick here as we go through phases of using similar services such as Hello Fresh, Simply Cook etc. We genuinely expected to order the next two boxes at 30% off but I ended up cancelling after we received the free one. My main gripes:

1. Inaccurate communication in that I received 2 emails about substituted ingredients. Fair enough, I get that this is sometimes necessary. However, one of them described a substitute that then arrived as planned, the other was for a completely random ingredient that wasn't part of any of our meals so then I worried about whether we'd even receive the meals I'd selected.

2. They've missed a trick by not separating out the meals. Hello Fresh put the dry/ non-fresh ingredients for each meal into separate labelled paper bags. It was an absolute ball ache both when putting things away when it arrived and then spending 5 mins before each cooking session searching through all the ingredients again to find them. Ditto just saying "double all this for 4 people". I ordered a 4 person box. Is it that costly to have a second version of the meals for four people given they sell it as 2/4 options!? I'm exhausted after work with two kids, I don't have the mental head space to be checking I've multipled all ingredients and liquids mid-cooking by two!!

3. In all honesty we weren't impressed with the quality of fresh ingredients, which we've never had issues with when using other providers. One carrot was black and mulchy most of the way through, and one of the onions was also mush inside. Garlic cloves also very small and shrivelled/dry. I think if they expect people to pay £55 for 4 meals then you at least need to feel you're getting ok ingredients.

As I said we were fully anticipating ordering the next 2 boxes before the end of the free box. We won't be trying Gousto again. I wonder if the free box scheme was so popular it's like they shot themselves in the foot as they couldn't maintain their usual quality as I thought they marketed themselves as higher end?

The frozen bag things they use are grand in bed whilst it's so bloody hot . Have put it in a plastic bag and it's keeping my feel cool. May not be crowing when if it bursts in the night though.

The chicken was the biggest issue for me. Chicken breast portions that were out to shame by the cheapest value pack from Asda. Chock full of water to the point that just holding them to slice saw my fingers slipping into the flesh. It was awful and, of course, trying to follow the instructions to brown it was impossible, as for ten minutes I was just stuck repeatedly emptying out the water that was in there.

I don’t even understand the rationale behind supplying this sort of meat. Cheap chicken is full of water to make it look bigger and more appetising on the shelf. It’s a bit of a con to make people think they are getting a better deal than they are. What purpose does it serve in a kit like this?

I hated it to start with especially because of all the little packets. But we had a few referrals so did a few boxes and found it was saving us money. Then before long I was hooked!

Yes it does take longer than cooking my own recipes and more brain power! So some weeks I will skip a box and enjoy the ease of just cooking what I know.

But we eat a much more varied diet as a result. I think of myself as a fairly good cook but we’d definitely got into a rut of always cooking the same 10 recipes on repeat. Now it’s always something different to look forward to which makes weekday evenings more interesting for sure.

I always go for something I’d never cook at home (so attend to avoid burgers or anything with chips). We eat a lot of the Asian recipes and I used to think I hated that style of food, turned out I was just not using the proper ingredients. I also had a 10 min pasta the other day which didn’t sound like much but was honestly restaurant quality and again something I’d never thought to have cooked at home.

I do agree there can be excess sugar, I just don’t add it.

I was in a bit of a meal rut so my free box came at a perfect time. It has broadened our tastes and my cooking horizons, and I can be quite adventurous with meals (my fave to do are bao buns with all the trimmings).
Some have been a bit hit or miss, I wouldn't get one with chips again but saying that it has a really good tasting slaw and the paprika fries would have been good had I not over cooked them.
We have had a few 30% off boxes and in a week or so will have a full priced box. I am planning to continue for a while at least.
I do agree about all the packets. Just so much waste. I do add all the appear and card to our garden compost bin. Speaking of, I was missing one of the sachets of five spice which I told them about and got a £1 credit!

I got my free box today and had the first dinner this evening. I really enjoyed it. I liked the packaging, loved the ice packs (which will be coming to bed with me shortly!) And liked the food a lot. If I were living alone I would absolutely use this for my dinners, but my partner works a tough physical job and portions aren't enough for him, he reckons.

The only thing that puts me off getting gusto again is the delivery time, 8am-6pm. I waited in the whole Saturday and it came at 6pm and i onlygot a text saying its between 4-6pm around 3pm.

I had hello fresh before and I think that was better. I didn’t like:

• the small packets of stuff


• the way everything is mixed up


• the recipes jump about, chop onions and then use them 6 parts later etc. when you could have just used them and put them aside then.


• I didn’t like lack of veg. Lots of recipes with one single shallot. Hello fresh was better for this.


• felt like it was meat and carbs


• some meals are small and some are massive. I had a curry with Nan and paneer kebabs, too much


• ingredients felt cheap

i might use some of the things and adapt them a bit.

i cook everything but I found it all a bit messy, DH even commented. Even though it is meant to save time it creates lots of dishes/mess.

ooo, thanks, I will!

Asda has a recipe section on its website. You can click to add the recipe to the basket and then remove what you don't need or sub more expensive ingredients with own brand ones.

I have a gel one from Amazon! It's meant for injuries but you can use it hot or cold so doubles as a hot water bottle or freeze it for hot nights
I'm smug when I remember to freeze it

With you op. I tried it as I thought it would save time / be easier. I think if you can't / won't cook it might help but otherwise it's shite, and all the packaging pissed me off

Agree about the packaging, it really annoyed me. Food was pretty uninspiring too. Didn't get any boxes after the freebie.

I get Mindful Chef on and off as meal planning and deciding what to cook and what to buy for it is a nightmare to me.

I also tried Hello Fresh but thought it was a bit basic.

I got a free Gousto box and made the first recipe tonight. I was surprised the ingredients were all together - the great thing about MC is you just take a meal bag out of the fridge, open it and follow instructions.
But I used some veg bags to package Gousto into separate meal bags.

Was surprised I needed to add flour to chickpea flour, and sugar to a salad dressing. Lucky I had them in,! MC tends to use maple syrup instead.

The Gousto rice was white rice, which MC never really uses.

But I enjoyed the meal, I think in cost it's between MC and Hello Fresh. I'll persevere for a while before I move onto my Hello Fresh coupon.

We like the simply cook range too!

I have just 'paused' my Gousto account after only one box, as like PP, I felt under pressure to use a day's food just because of the use-by date.

Can I ask, though, what happens after 'pausing'? Will I be constantly reminded or even penalised in some way? Would I be better cancelling?

I just got a discount posted to me for 25% off. Even with that, a 4 meal box for 2 people is still £28. The recipes mostly contain things I already have.

I would love to be able to access the recipes without buying the box! I reckon that £28 box would cost me £10-£15 in the supermarket, because of my store cupboard ingredients

I have yet to receive my free box - they cancelled the first one because too many people signed up apparently, so they chose to apply my free code to a date 2 weeks later, I went along with it as I thought "free food can't complain" and it was due yesterday, however when I went to check on Wednesday what I had ordered so I could sort out my Tesco shop for the remainder of the week I noticed I didn't have a delivery scheduled and that my free box had been moved to a totally unsuitable date next Friday! The first time they did this they emailed me - not so for the 2nd one, had I not gone onto the site to check I would never have known until my delivery failed to arrive.

I went onto live chat and they weren't exactly "helpful" it took me over 25 mins of back and forth with them offering dates that wouldn't work for me due to a big family event and a holiday coming up so I asked them to move it to 2nd Sept and they said they couldn't do that as the offer only ran to 28th August and I would have to pay full price for the box!! Even though they have admitted this has all been caused by themselves.

They eventually agreed to do move it to September and I thought fine I'd give them another chance (and I've got several £20 credits on the account from referals too) but they still haven't moved the code for the free box which they have set for this coming Friday and thats not going to work at all it would be a complete waste of the food as no one will be here to take delivery! I can't move the date myself as then it tries to charge me for the box.

To add to the frustration I've since had an email from the service agent telling me I need to cancel/pause all the deliveries between now and Sept or else they'd send (and bill me) random boxes.

I had been inclined to do that but having read about the faffage when the boxes arive etc. I'm now thinking of just telling them to close my account and not bother with the free one.