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, I’m not an adventurous cook and wouldn’t know where to start with looking for recipes and shopping for them. Gousto has expanded my repertoire massively. I agree the packaging isn’t great, but I like only having small amounts of what is needed, with some ingredients I could spend a fortune buying the full sized version of them only to never use them again. I wouldn’t do it every week, but tend to get a box at least once a month and then use the recipe cards again when I find one I really like that isn’t too difficult to shop for.

I agree with you. I got the free box too and after having a free hello fresh box a few weeks ago, I expected a similar set up. Hello fresh is all organised pristinely so each ingredient for each meal is lumped together in a bag. All I had to do was lift the bag for that meal out of the fridge and crack on.

Gousto was hugely disappointing in comparison, just so disorganised and I totally agree about the bag filled with small sachets. Hated routing through that bag to find each little thing every time. I wouldn’t bother with it again personally. Now I just steal recipes off their website and buy the ingredients, much cheaper.

I love it. We spend far less the weeks we get Gousto and eat a wider range of things with much less wastage.

DH cooks it though.

I loved it during lock down as it gave me something new to do each evening. I'd finish work and then set up in the kitchen. I now get a box every couple of months, the novelty wore off. I now cook from scratch a few nights a week and bung something beige in the oven the other nights.

I love it! A lot of the problems people are reporting are to do with expectation or choosing the wrong meals.

I tend to order a box every so often as a break from “creative cooking” and shopping. It’s like cooking by numbers. Sometimes one of the DCs will choose & cook a meal or two. When my teenaged DD was isolating with her friends, I ordered her a box & they had from choosing recipes & trying their hand at cooking.

Between boxes I sometimes use the recipes on the site for inspiration, and often I freeze the meat to create vegetarian versions, or I make more & freeze portions. It’s cheaper than takeaways and I think they’ve worked hard to tackle the recycling issue over the years. With the exception of a few plastic sachets, I use every single part of the box - compost, cooling things down, watering the flowers.

They are also a generous and responsive company. How many free boxes did they give away, recently?

Can i ask how you all managed the gusto deliveries , if you dont have a porch or somewhere similar it can be left in? I had to wait in all day and after speaking to their customer service today it seems theres no way round it??

I’ve had both and prefer HelloFresh to Gousto, simply for each recipe having its own paper bag of ingredients. I don’t do it every week, but it’s a good way out of a food rut, and just clicking a few choices on the app means minimal mental load in terms of dinner planning. I can see why it would work less well with small dc, but for a couple or family with teens I think it’s really good.

I can receive parcels at work so I get it delivered there, it keeps cold for the rest of the day till I get home. One of my friends get his delivered to his retired parents house, but then they started doing their own and they wouldn’t deliver from two accounts to the same address so they get theirs on a different day at his house and one of them waits in there (it’s only round the corner).

I agree about the separate bags for HF being a big advantage over Gousto.