Is Gousto / hellofresh / other meal kits worth it?

[amaiseing]

I have just been looking as it’s £40 for 4 meals for two. This seems so expensive. We did it years ago so have used our first order codes, so we would have to pay full price. Does anyone do it regularly and is there another way to get things cheaper? I love the principle of it sending different recipes each time as we aren’t very creative and do just cycle round the same meals, but weighing up the cost of it

We have Gousto every week unless we are on annual leave. You may think its expensive but the odd time we've gone out and bought the ingredients for a recipe we've had before there has not been much in it. You also have to take into account that you are paying for the convenience as well as the product. We will continue as it makes my life easier and keeps our meals varied. Life before Gousto and coming up with what to cook was one of my most hated tasks!

I agree with this about Hello Fresh. I joined 5 years ago and what you get today is markedly different. I notice that when I unload the box, there is just less overall in there. Several ingredients are "pantry" meaning that you have to buy them yourself. This includes salt, pepper, oil - fine. But when they don't provide something like honey or mayo I find it a bit irritating - and this is a new thing with more and more having to be "pantry". They have obviously cost cut their offering. Also, meals have had stuff taken out of them to make them cheaper. We often think that when we cooked a similar meal 5 years ago, that it had more ingredients.

We still do it because we are busy and it does give us fresh food. I have a shop round the corner and nearly every meal that we cook needs a nip to the shop to top up vegetables. I think that when the chef says "2 carrots", they are not meaning 2 fucking tiny carrots that wouldn't feed a guinea pig, let alone a family. Hello fresh's garlic heads are tiny compared to tesco. etc.

It's loads of little things that all add up.

I reckon they have skilled people putting together these meals, but that the cost cutting has really impacted the quality.

We like gousto. Like others, I use it when I have access to a discount. I'm not as fussed on Hello Fresh.

@sjs42 yep, absolutely agree. They’ve lowered the quality and increased their prices. It’s a shame as they could have just increased their prices but kept the same quality. I also made sure I never forgot to choose my recipes as the ones they send automatically are their worst dishes, I think anyway.

No, I really didn't get on with either of them. The packaging, the portion sizes, the meat quality. I think they are only for people who really can't cook / are learning to cook.

I do use Simply Cook when I need inspiration though.

I like it about once a month to add some variety and stop myself cooking the same things over and over again. If you've still got the recipe cards from having done it previously then I'd have a look through those as it's probably cheaper to buy the ingredients and make it yourself then buy from Gusto / HF.
On Gusto the boxes for 4 people used to work out a lot cheaper than the ones for 2. If you pick carefully you can get meals that will freeze or will be easier to have a second portion for lunch the next day.

I've just had my first order with gousto I paid £29 for 5 meals for 4 people using a 50% voucher. We had our first meal yesterday and it was lovely, They have given me a referral link with a 65% discount on first order and a further 20% on second and third order. You are welcome to use
https://gousto.co.uk/raf?promo_code=DAVIN44996918&utm_source=androidapp

It's helpful if you're having anxiety or depression and struggling with decision making. I find the 20min ones a couple of times a week ensure I get cooking veg, often the thing I expect to take the most time and effort if I'm feeling low, yet obviously the most beneficial! Also if you're bored or in a rut with your usual meals it can be refreshing. You can. Skip weeks or stop at any time too.

We get Gusto, 5 meals for 4 people for the two of us (plus the kids may have some depending what we ordered). We have it for dinner and leftovers next day. Saves the hassle of meal planning and shopping for meals, no waste, no buying lunches out / at work in the week which saves us lots, and plenty of variety. I don't think it works out hugely expensive for us. Sure it could be done cheaper yourself but would be a fair bit more effort. We both can cook very well and enjoy cooking but we're time poor with work and small kids so it works for us for now.

Simply cook is great just 3 little pots of seasoning with a recipe card, all meals we've tried are lovely

We had a few months of gousto and enjoyed it. I always added extra veg, but otherwise the portions were just right.

We liked the menu options, and I still regularly cook some of the recipes.

I bought a Simply Cook box from Sainsbury's at the weekend. It was reduced from £7 to £1.75 for everything needed to make 2 portions of teriyaki aubergine.

I added some chicken to it as I'm not veggie but my god it was tasty. I nearly signed up for Simply Cook to send me regular spices last night. I just couldn't decide which recipes to get in my introductory offer set of 4 which would cost £1 total.

I like to buy my own food and frequently change plans so might have the spices in the cupboard for a week or two before I make them. I think Simply Cook would get me out of a food rut.

We got a Gousto box with a wowcher code (got stiffed over that mind, it didn’t end up being the price I expected) We really liked it, ended up with a lot of kale. DH said “why didn’t we do this ages ago?” (We have both just retired) Then I showed him the price. I cancelled but never once got the please come back email.

We've been using Hello Fresh for months. We just let them "choose" as part of the reason we use them is because I hate hate HATE meal planning.

Some of the meals are a bit samey and no, not enough vegetables but they're all really tasty and the portion sizes are good for us.

I wouldn't say they're good value for money at all but they have saved my sanity so worth every penny in that sense.

We use Gousto, we actually find it cheaper as we aren't buying things we dont need when we to to the shop. We really enjoy the meals and they're usually quick and easy!

We started Hello Fresh during lockdown and were isolating longer than many due to DH health vulnerability. We were very happy for a long time, however did cancel in the end due to deteriorating quality, short dated use by dates for meat and increasingly missing items. We now have Gusto for 3 - 4 meals a week and are happy with them. Have not had any issues, happy with portions sizes and no waste.

Yes. When you deactivate they send you offers and codes to activate the subscription again. I always cancel again once the offers are used. I currently have two months of 50% and 35% off for reactivating. Once these are used up the cycle goes again....I suspect a lot of people do what I do.
Email them and say you are interested in subscribing but want an offer.
Or failing that check your inbox emails as they often send out offers to entice you back as well.

This is with hello fresh btw

No, do Cherry Pick instead!! It's great.

You basically choose the meals, how many people and it's connected to Sainsbury's app; it's so good and we have a lot less waste now.

I viewed Gousto as an alternative to eating out so then the price didn’t seem so bad as it was easy and we were trying lots of new recipes.

We tried Gousto when heavily discounted a little while back. Recipes were easy to follow, tasted decent, portion sizes about right. If you tend to order take aways often, they are definitely the healthier option. Game me a few cooking ideas too

As someone who cooks regularly (I know I’m not their target market), they were ridiculously expensive for what you get. First of all the packaging was crazy - 4 half cucumbers sent all wrapped in plastic - bit puzzled why they couldn’t just send two whole ones, especially as they covered just two recipes. Other similar items individually wrapped. Lots of meals required turning on an entire oven just to warm two items such as bread. Again, huge waste of energy and cost as it’s not cheap to heat whole oven. I don’t usually use it for one meal, will plan so multiple things cook simultaneously.

Not tried HelloFresh and not particularly tempted to after reading comments on here. I sometimes struggle to decide what to make and get stuck in a rut - Gousto was nice as a break from our usual meals and for some new ideas. Definitely would not consider it long term

I found it very expensive. The portion sizes weren't that good, especially with hungry teenagers. Could have got bigger portions but it was too expensive in the end.

I’ve used both Hello Fresh and Gousto in the past but only by making use of discount offers.

As previous PP have mentioned, I now use Simply Cook - so much easier.

www.simplycook.com

ooh thank you for those recommending the simply cook spices, I've been wanting something like hellofresh or similar, but they don't deliver to where I live but simplycook does