Hello Fresh

[SpiderinaWingMirror]

Albu to think that Hello Fresh need to spend less effort on advertising and more time actually putting the right ingredients in the chuffing box?
Had a 2 week trial. 6 meals in. Missing ingredients in 3 of them, 2 recipe cards missing, poor quality veg and substituted products in one.
Needless to say that I have pushed the cancel button.

Totally agree!

Pushy sales and when you eventually place an order, it's disappointing!

I’ve tried a few meal boxes. HelloFresh were the worst. I’m now on mindful chef. It’s excellent. More expensive, although meals are individually priced so you can bring it down, but much more user and environmental friendly. Wouldn’t use HF again.

I've also just cancelled. We never had a problem with missing ingredients but found lots of the meals really samey. It was either curry or burgers and lots and lots of wedges.

Gousto is a lot better. Was not impressed with Hello Fresh

I used them for a couple of months when I was going through a tough time. They did help take the pressure off and I enjoyed it for a few weeks but then got a few stuff ups, a looooot of courgettes, and some off chicken a couple of weeks in a row, so I cancelled it. It was also very expensive to upgrade to any of the more interesting options so I ended up with a lot of variations on curry & rice or wrap/burger and wedges.

The quality has got worse and worse, the portion sizes are getting smaller and smaller and there are often things missing. It’s a shame as I like the idea.

I've just had my trial box and wasn't overly impressed.
They sent chicken thigh instead of breast and kidney beans instead of black beans (not the end of the world admittedly)
And some of the veg was a bit manky,had to bin the spring onion they sent and use my own.
Lots of non recyclable containers though so felt like I was binning too much as my area is limited on what they will recycle.
Recipe was tasty and easy to follow though so not terrible. I was also a bit dubious as to portion sizes as I was unpacking the ingredients but once plated up it looked very generous.
Not right for us I don't think but I can definitely see the appeal for people that are super busy but still like to cook

I did it on the basis that we could try something different, fed up with having to think about what to have, and dh could just get on with it.
However, in practice that hasn't worked! The veg is certainly not what I would pick at the supermarket.

Completely agree OP! We tried it for about 3 weeks if I remember rightly and every week there was something wrong with it.

• missing ingredients


• 3 packs of rotten chicken in one delivery! (Green slime 🤢)


• a whole meal bag missing


• week 3 never turned up! Delivery due late afternoon and got an email an hour after the delivery time telling me that our box had been sent to the wrong depot and couldn’t be redirected so they’d refund us with HelloFresh credit instead. They refused to refund to my card!

Wouldnt touch them again! Have heard better things about Gousto but haven’t tried them myself!

I didn’t have any problems with missing ingredients, but I did find they gave me a bag of fridge stuff, which I’d stick in the fridge, and then when I opened the recipe bags a couple of days later I’d find stuff like rocket or spring onions which really should have been in the fridge.

Also one packet of chicken actually honked and it flavoured the whole dish of gone-off chicken (which given it was quite spicy was quite a feat).

Also most of the dishes apart from the cheapest cuts of meat had exorbitant mark up prices. One salmon dish cost me an extra £12 for the teeniest bits of salmon you’ve ever seen.

All of this was for a fairly heavily discounted package for a couple of weeks - there’s no way I’d pay full price. I’m not sure who it’s aimed at? Most of the online supermarkets have recipes where you can click a button and add all the ingredients to your basket.

Ah they've pissed me off recently so I've cancelled. I paused my order for a week but didn't get a reminder to check my order and so when I went on to check it I couldn't change what they'd put in my basket as it was too late. I thought I'd missed an email reminding me to confirm my order and check what I wanted but they hadn't sent me anything. I thought that was quite sneaky as when I then went on to cancel my subscription I had probably 3 emails confirming whether I actually wanted to cancel

They even have the cheek to send around doorstep salesman. Banging on your door and you think it's a delivery or something important only to find its some guy trying to sign you up on a worse deal than their numerous leaflets with codes on offer you

After a thread I posted asking for help I opted for COOK and Christ it’s changed our life.

really nice food but all done and straight into the oven with no cooking from us.

highly recommend.

Actual spring onion. That's a teaspoon for size comparison!

I agree. I have tried them a few times and was not impressed. The fresh meat and fish had short use by dates, missing ingredients, had the smallest spring onion I have ever seen, mushy mushrooms and a battered courgette.
The meals are bland and the choices are repetitive.

I much prefer Gousto. Much better quality, more variety of exciting tasty food and you can pause your subscription so you don’t have to remember to keep going online to skip the weeks you don’t want a box.
mid you would like to try Gousto, my code will get you 65% off your first box and 30% off for any further boxes ordered in your first month.
cook.gousto.co.uk/raf?promo_code=NICOL274409&utm_source=iosapp

@Merryoldgoat you are right. Cook works out at around £4 to £5 per head if I remember rightly. And all you have to do is bung it in the oven!

I live the concept, I haven't used them myself as I am never in for the deliveries, and also it does seem a bit on the expensive side.

It would be good if a supermarket started to offer this sort of stuff (or maybe they do, but I have missed out)

*love the concept

Omg I think that's the tiniest spring onion I've ever seen!

I tried it for a bit but the packaging! So much packaging. It felt like it was enormously environmentally unfriendly.

@SpiderinaWingMirror

The ‘basic’ mains are about £8-£9 for two and a fancy one can be £20 - Beef Wellington (delicious)

we basically got a load to try and got a microwave veg steamer. Once we take the meal out the veg goes in the microwave for 4 ish mins and dinner is done.

We actually love cooking but we don’t have the time to do it all and have some down time too. It’s really been amazing.

I sound like an advert but I’m really not 🤣

Gusto is the same.

I had the same problem with hello fresh! I thought I was just unlucky! Missing recipe cards, missing ingredients, gone off peppers, and the meat was always just about to go off.

Same. We didn't enjoy the recipes we had and wasn't impressed with the ingredient quality.

Happy to shamelessly post a Gousto referral link if anyone wants to try them. You get 65% off your first box and then 30% off any additional boxes for your first month. I get £20 credit towards my next box.

cook.gousto.co.uk/raf?promo_code=ALLIS33205208&utm_source=androidapp

We've used Gousto for years and get approx a box per month. I keep the recipe cards and remake them with supermarket ingredients - such easy meal planning.

I’ve found that gusto mean and ingredient quality has dropped massively - maybe it’s just me 🤷🏻‍♀️

For example they used to give you decent stock cubes too- now they give you bland flavourless powder - I’ve cancelled that one.

Is it very different to the Scratch kits from Waitrose? www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/scratch-meal-kit-vietnamese-curry/638122-741228-741229