Hello fresh - is it worth it?

[oliveaa98]

Yes I am a bit to this type of 'trend'!

Im only asking as someone in work today raved about it and I asked more and it made me intrigued. Ps this person pays for it fully no sort of ad deal like they hand out to influencer lol

But I am kind of fussy, I'm not a good cook! I was never taught it. My worry is my kids will be like this. Again I'm not majorly fussy and love to try things! I have coeliac but heard you can ensure your boxes are gf only recipes?

It was more to help me and the kids try new things and love the cooking process.

DH is extremely restricted and won't try new things but is ND so I dont try to stress him out and push things onto him (in case anyone asks why I only mention me cooking etc)

I prefer Simply Cook. The difference is they just send you the herbs/ spices/ gravy bases and the cooking instructions, and you buy meat, veg etc. The main benefit is it's much cheaper (as it doesn't include the meat etc) plus you don't need to use it quickly as nothing in the ingredients goes off within 3 months or so. You can also vary it eg. If you don't like pork, you can make it with chicken or halloumi or whatever (they offer suggestions for replacements) or buy organic veg if you want etc. It's great for new ideas and also for new cooks (I get my kids to use it sometimes as you can create something impressive with easy instructions so it's very confidence building). You can choose your recipes but I usually just take what they send me.

Yes if you can get a good money off deal. It is a good way of introducing new meal ideas and takes the planning out of it.
We find the portions quite generous, 2 adults a teen and a tween. Sometimes even have leftovers.
Then you can keep your recipe cards for dishes you liked and make them yourself.

Gousto is probably better quality so you could try both if you get money off!
What I do is use them for a bit then cancel then they will send you welcome back offers after a while!

Gousto is much better

Thanks, @GreenFootstool
I've just had a look at the Gousto site and you're correct - they do have a lot of GF options. I'm quite sure they didn't separate it out like that when we used it which was a good few years ago now.

In fact - looks like the offering now is a lot wider with more interesting dishes.

I use Gousto from time to time, typically I have coupons (20% off is regularly sent to me) so it’s about £40 for 4 meals including postage (just 2 of us). It isn’t cheaper than cooking exactly but with zero waste it isn’t much more for more adventurous recipes that I’d have to buy lots of ingredients in big quantities when I only need 15ml or whatever. I pick and choose my recipes so I’m not buying things I can easily buy ingredients for though.

if people in your household are really fussy though I’m not sure it will work

I did it for a while when DH was away. Meals were nice enough but did get a bit repetitve. I kept the recipe cards and have put some in regular rotation on my shoppinglists.

Too much packaging for me.
They like a good stock paste in their ingredients so that goes on my regular shopping list now too.

They pestered/pester regular to come back.

I did it for a long time. As well as gousto. It genuinely made me a better cook, a more efficient chopper and it was fun and tasty! Only issue was it made me fat. There is a lot of oil involved, even just on normal little gem, which before I would’ve just had plain. So it all adds up. Also the calories mentioned on the recipe cards are for uncooked ingredients which is a bit cheeky as that’s not the final calories of what you actually eat.
But if you fancy something a bit different, don’t mind paying a little extra and maybe save some of the large portion for your lunch the next day it’s defo worth doing!

We got them for a whilen when we got 20% off but after the offer found it quite expensive and the kids weren't keen on lots of the meals. Although I still have an account but just skip most weeks and maybe get one once a month if they are particularly nice meals.

We also found that the meals we really liked we could easily recreate at home for cheaper, we kept the menu cards but it was a way to give us new ideas and get out of a bit of a rut and now those meals often feature in our weekly meal plan.

As PP said, simply cook is also good and we got that for a while but built upma but if a backlog so cancelled, it's just herbs and spices so alot cheaper and they last for ages.

I haven't tried gousto but have heard good things

Never used them I assume they are for people who don’t have the headspace to decide what to have for dinner easily nor do they have the time to shop.
,

We used them for a while. They were great for helping DC learn to cook, but the portions were nonsense. One recipe would have loads of bulky carbs - too much to finish, the next would be tiny pieces of meat with no carbs and such mean portions of veg that I ended up having to go out and buy more. I worked out the calories per meal varied massively, so Dc would be left hungry sometimes. Just badly thought through.

I don’t think so. I’ve done it a few times over the years (when I got the vouchers). If you’re new to cooking, it’s a good idea to get you more confident in the kitchen. But if you’re already competent and can scramble an egg and cook a chicken, it’s probably not worth it.

No not worth it. Gousto are much better. Hello Fresh customer service is appalling and they have form for reactivating subscriptions without knowledge. I’m a vegetarian and got sent a random box of meals full of meat because apparently I’d ordered it. First I knew about it was when it was delivered. They didn’t refund me or take away the box, they just left it outside my door.

Have tried both (prefer Gusto), we have used them when we are on self-catering holidays and want a box for 3 or 4 nights meals and eat out or takeaway the rest. The benefit is that everything is pre-portioned for you, if you only need a teaspoon of oil or a tiny amount of chilli paste that's what you'll get. You can choose from a huge range and there is vegan, vegetarian, gluten free and everthing else. The downside is the plastic waste, and it can be expensive.

I can't stand them and had the bloody reps around here - last week- pushing their 'service.' They were trawling around our village - 4 of them! A woman aged about 24 came to my house... As soon as she saw me, she started complimenting my garden, my hair, my jewellery, and my make up, and said 'awww bless, aren't you just lovely..' I wanted to punch her. So fucking patronising! I was like and thought 'what the fuck do you want then?!' I am not taken in by sycophants.

She started this spiel about their service, and rambled on for a few minutes, and then I cut in and said 'no it's fine, we don't need you...' I told her we have gluten allergy and dairy allergy people in the household, I said I cook all my own meals and DH cooks sometimes too and we are happy to do so, we have a car and go out 2-3 times a week so have no issue getting food...

Whilst I am barely past 50 years old she talked to me like I was a doddery old fool, a simpleton, and an idiot who didn't know my own mind. Kept blathering on and on about their 'service!'

She kept trying to get me to get my phone, and call up their app, so I can look at it, I said 'call it up on YOUR phone.' She claimed she was not allowed to. (WTF?) She asked if I would bring my laptop to the front door and bring up their website on there so I can look through it with her. I said 'I am NOT bringing my laptop outside.' I kept saying 'No I don't need Hello Fresh, I am capable of buying food and cooking it myself.' She was so pushy and fucking annoying. I started to get shirty, and said 'I'm going now, go badger someone else!' and I slammed the door in her face. #sorrynotsorry

I have heard they are appalling anyway. Bad service, incorrect orders, often late, things missing, sometimes don't turn up, and expensive. And they make it really hard to cancel! Hell will freeze over before I use Hello Fresh!

My daughter is coeliac and gousto is the most reasonable meal box we can find that is safe. Hello fresh does have non Gluten containing meals but state not suitable for coeliacs, so guessing they must not have great contamination control. I did look at mindful chef and field doctor for Gf but much more expensive.

gousto has clearly labelled gluten free recipes, but sometimes for variety I will look at the gluten recipes as often it’s just a case of swapping out normal soya sauce for Gf soya sauce or orzo pasta for Gf for example.

my husband has never been able to cook, but he loves having the recipe card to follow and will now cook all the gousto meals (he does like doing all the chopping first so everything is prepped as he gets stressed doing it during!) and now feels much more confident.

we had it since January and got good discounts, for the last couple of months we have skipped more boxes in favour of just having salads etc during the heat, and have built up a collection of recipe cards so have gone through and ordered the ingredients from the supermarket.

we normally get 5 gousto meals a week and when I ordered ingredients for 5 meals from the supermarket the price was v similar, although I was ordering bottles of rice wine vinegar etc that would make subsequent slightly meals cheaper as I’ve now got them in the store cupboard, but was quite pleased it worked out similar prices.

the main advantage is I really enjoy just not having to think about what meals to have every week!!

I would prefer buying my own produce. Where you can see what you are paying for. From meat, fish, chicken to veg and fruit.
Which is why I rarely order fresh anything online if I do an online order.
Too often during Covid I looked at something and thought I would never have picked that if in the shop myself.
You get no leftovers either I imagine.
A very expensive way to manage your households food shop.

We used it for a good 8 months, found the portion sizes fine but had a problem with the fact there is so much packaging, although the chill element is now all recyclable. We kept our favourite recipe cards, around 50 meals, and now use those with supermarket bought ingredients. It helps with inspiration, and lead us to eat foods we had never tried before.

We tried both HF and Gousto when they had big discounts and thought Gousto was better - HF sent slimy rancid chicken. I didn’t think the portion sizes were great, but I did like that we weren’t buying a pot of something or a bunch of fresh herbs to use a tiny bit for a recipe then the rest got wasted. We still use some of the Gousto recipes but haven’t done an order for a few years.