To not get gousto, hello fresh, etc?

[MayThe4th]

I know that a lot of people swear by them, but I just don’t get it.

I do see that they have all the ingredients to make a recipe, but they A, seem so expensive, B, have a million teeny tiny packets so presumably a lot of single use plastic etc, and are far more faff than just cooking the same recipe (which can be found on their website) from scratch, which is essentially what you’re doing anyway.

Plus I’ve heard horror stories of ingredients either having gone off or being missing entirely.

What am I missing?

It’s not for me but I have known people who really helped them with their confidence cooking and meal planning. If you’re a competent, confident cook and organised re meal planning it probably does seem pointless

They’re really being pushed on here at the moment, but then high demand means they cancel a lot of offer orders. As well as the constant threads with ‘Gousto’ in the title I really don’t like their marketing strategy, spamming sites and then failing to even honour the offers!
I also wouldn’t trust DPD to deliver food to me.

I’m not going to be sniffy about people who need precise ingredients and recipes posted to them, but I do think Gousto etc are taking advantage of people who don’t have the confidence to find a recipe and order the ingredients from a supermarket.

Convenience I guess. You don't have to look in the cupboard to check you have all the herbs and spices etc. and if you are not likely to use a spice e.g. again you don't need to buy a whole jar which is expensive. I tried a Gousto box because I was given a free box code. It was a novelty to have all the little sachets etc but I don't think I would use them again.

We did Hello Fresh for a bit. We had a lot less food waste because they send you the exact amounts you need. It gave us lots of new ideas for meals so we didn’t keep having endless conversations about what to cook, and we tried things we wouldn’t have thought of making. It meant less shopping and not having to rely on only what the small nearby shops stocked. Occasionally something would be missing but you would get a generous refund.

It’s expensive but we found it did make life a bit easier with two of us working full time shifts and a small child to run around after. We did it for about six months, then cancelled and just used the recipe cards and got our own stuff.

It helps with the mental load of meal planning, gets you out of a rut, forces you to include a variety of veg in each meal, and can be quite good for making fussy tweens and teens be a bit more adventurous or indeed cook the family meal themselves.

They're not for everyone for all the reasons you list, but they do have advantages. DH and I are competent cooks with a very well-stocked larder but we still use them for the occasional week or two to mix things up a bit.

oh yay, another faux 'I dont understand Gusto/Hello Fresh' code spamming thread.

We have used them in the week our babies were born, week of new job etc.

My husband isn't a confident cook and it means I eat well at times of high stress, and without him making a production out of it.

Both DH and I can cook well but I’ve started Keto and having 5 meals I don’t have to even think about is a help.

I agree about the waste and dislike that a lot.

Hoping to just use it for a few months whilst I get used to the new way of eating.

Never used we do all our own meal planning, shopping and cooking.

They're not for me but I'm a good cook and have a well stocked store cupboard so sending out teeny pots of soy sauce or whatever is unnecessary.
I do see that they could help those who want to cook from scratch with a bit of help, but it's a very expensive way of doing it.

Everything is measured out, no wastage, just follow the instructions. Pretty much all the little packaging can be recycled.

I don't find it that expensive because there is no wastage, whereas if i bought some of the stuff from the supermarket, i don't need all of it unless i make another meal that uses the same. Also new ideas for recipes.

We tend to do it for a few months, then stop, then start up again

The exchange is clearly cost/waste for convenience. Of course it is less wasteful and costly to go and buy the ingredients and cook it yourself from scratch, but the business model works because people are willing to trade that off versus having only to do the assembly part

I love cooking but hate hate hate meal planning, especially when having to meal plan around bits and bobs left over because you made something containing the ingredients but they are only sold in large quantities so you then have to factor in using them up before they go off. Gousto solves that issue, rather than meal planning it is more like browsing a menu and no leftover jars of mayo or some obscure spice sitting in your kitchen for months.

I've used them for a few weeks with the discount codes. I'm a confident cook but felt like I'd got into a rut of meals. I've also got long covid fatigue and not having to think and shop (I'm well aware I could do an online shop but it takes effort to set up) was great.
I've continued to make some of the meals since but the boxes are too expensive to use all the time.

Feel free to scroll past.

Fact is they’re promoted constantly here in fact I think that countless people posting heir referral codes is far more spammy than asking what it’s all about.

They have some good offers and makes me think of new ideas to cook :)

I am a confident cook, but love my boxes. Two days a week when I don’t have to think about getting meat out of the freezer before work, thinking about what we’re going to have, realising once I’ve started that I don’t have x ingredient in the cupboard that I thought I did. Just get home from work and mindlessly cook the dinner that’s in the box. I see it as a much healthier alternative to getting a takeaway (which we never do) or eating out (that we rarely do). I have about 10 recipes that started out from one of the boxes that have entered my general rotation of things I cook with ingredients I have which is always a good thing

After 25 years of being the only one deciding what to eat every single meal time and the answer to every time I asked, what do you want for dinner being "I don't know what do you want for dinner", I found it gave me a few days off when I actually didn't even need to think about it, and just picked up what was in the box and made it. Gave me a few ideas of newer things that were easy and adaptable too. Three weeks of Gusto was however enough. I also like Simply Cook, which is more spice subscription (as you need to shop for the main ingredients) -again i just buy one off boxes rather than a subscription - but it means I'm not filling my cupboards with random spices/rubs/jars that I'll only use once.

I actually also had a lot less food waste when I used/tried them, as portioned and eaten was better for a two house household than random shopping and then putting a meal together.

Hello Fresh horror stories 😂😂😂 How middle class.

I liked the free box I got, I generally hate cooking and avoid if possible but the things I made were nice, one was really good and I would make again with own ingredients. It's too expensive to use all the time but now and again is good to try new things.

Hello Fresh with a good code was ok - tried new recipes, good portion sizes etc.

Free Gousto box recently was shite. First one cancelled, stuff missing from second one, boring recipes, not that nice, recipes not well written and too many fucking unnecessary exclamation marks. Won’t bother again.

The suspicious part of me makes me wonder whether they do it knowing that some people will order anyway even if the offer has been discontinued.

I don’t know about others, but this is why I like Gousto:

I hate cooking, I hate thinking of what to cook. DP is the same.

This helps take the faffing and planning out of meal prep - you choose dishes you like the look of and they bring you all the ingredients. You don’t have to go searching around Asian supermarkets for xxx rare ingredient/spice which normal people will never have. You never have the ring where you haven’t got cornflour in so you can’t do xx thing.

There are only 4 meals a week. But we always have leftovers, so it stretches to the other days too.

We don’t bother buying any meat and veg from supermarket any more, we get the veg we need delivered for the recipes we are cooking, so you don’t need anything more. This is saving money on out general food shopping bill. We previously had broccoli and asparagus and whatever going manky in fridge and ended up throwing it out.

I have started to quite like cooking because Of Gousto. It is highly enjoyable getting all your ingredients out ready to cook like a TV chef - and then following the instructions and it comes out really nice. This is life changing for me.

We are all sitting down together to eat the nice meals together. Previously, we often didn’t bother/did our own thing.

The packaging is mostly recyclable, mostly in paper bags.

we have only had one thing go bad, a cucumber went slightly mouldy. I told them about it and they gave me £2.50 back on my account.

You can pause it really easily.

I like the app, you can see all the recipes really easily and add them. It usually takes me about 5 minutes and then we don’t have to think about what’s in for tea for the rest of the week.

It's probably not a money saving solution for us. But it gives me a little bit of joy and has made life nicer.

So there you go!

The suspicious part of me makes me wonder whether they do it knowing that some people will order anyway even if the offer has been discontinued.

Exactly. Especially with a discount.

I’ve had the free boxes from both companies because why not, it’s free food! Really lovely meals for the most part, only one or two weren’t great. Much less plastic packaging from hello fresh than gousto, gousto had a bag literally filled with tiny plastic sachets which just isn’t great.

I think it’s a good idea if you’re not the best cook and also if you can’t be bothered with meal planning every week. Other than that, probably not worthwhile and is far more expensive than buying the same stuff from the supermarket.