To think meal prep box costs are hard to justify

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I finally decided to try one of those meal prep boxes. Always resisted due to cost but wanted to at least give them a try.

It was easy my to prepare, tasted nice etc but doing the sums just don't see how cost can be justified long term.

If I bought the ingredients in the supermarket individually it would be at least 50% less.

I know the whole point is paying for the convenience and not having to spend time shopping and meal prepping but the premium just seems sky high! We could afford it now if we wanted to but when I compare costs of 4-5 boxed meals for two vs what we'd get for same money in supermarket it seems insane!

I feel like I must be missing something as I know these boxes are really popular and I'm constantly bombarded by marketing messages for them - is it all just hype??

If you have to buy chicken breasts, mushrooms, onion & potatoes then what are they actually sending you?

Use Gousto occasionally. There is just me and DH. It is more cost effective to order the meal plan for 4 servings per meal so effectively 16 meals per box. Either freeze the extra or lunch the next day

@UnNiddeRides I believe (I looked at it a while ago) it's the spices/seasoning/sauces plus recipe

Just checked and it is
I like the look of it as it means you're not left with some weird ingredient hanging about you only used once

They are expensive compared to buying the ingredients and making the same meals at home but they’re cheaper than getting take away several nights a week and buying expensive ready meals and eating out etc. They’re healthier than just eating toast and frozen pizza and oven food. I have ADHD and find meal planning and thinking about what to eat and shopping overwhelming so I would rarely think about what to have for dinner until getting home from work tired and hungry at 7pm. It’s easy to then just order a takeaway or just eat something quick and easy from the freezer with no nutrition. The meal boxes for me are worth the cost because they take all the effort out of planning a healthy meal, they mean I eat something nutritious and don’t pay to get takeaway several nights a week.

I use both Gousto and Hellofresh, depending on who has the best offer.
I live alone and don't drive, so for me it is convenient to have everything I need delivered. I find the portions are generous. Often one meal will be enough for one evening then lunch next day.

We prefer Mindful Chef as the food is more interesting than Hello Fresh or Gousto. Venison, duck, nice steak, unusual spice combinations. HF is a bit more bog standard stuff I could come up with myself. They rarely repeat a recipe, which a pretty impressive.

I’m a good cook but cba with meal planning a whole week in advance and I find a lot of food gets wasted if I shop without really having decided exactly what to cook. They have some interesting textures, quick pickles, things I would not think to do. We are indeed cash rich and time poor though, and only cooking for 2 adults. Portions are quite generous though so sometimes I can feed DS(8) as well as DH and me using a 2 person meal.

I love a bargain but I am picky about both quality and (the extent I can afford) the provenance and of my food, with an eye toward sustainability and animal welfare. I can’t imagine what kind of ingredients, in what quantities, could be produced for under £2.50, including the meal box company’s costs for pre-preparation as well as profits.

There is no meat included. You have to buy it yourself. simply Cook is not the same as HF, Mindful Chef and Gousto. It’s just recipes and seasonings.

We get one Hello Fresh each month.

It's a fun way to try new recipes for us.

We use it for variety. It's not. Bout cost saving it convenience for us.

We find them very good value. DH likes to cook a wide variety of dishes and the small packages are more per gram but much better than the quarter used packages he used to hoard.

You're basically paying for (your) time. To me it's worth it, to have someone already thought about it all, and I pay a little bit more to get one where the prep has already been done. It's expensive, but worth it (just).

A few things I would say on this:

It's nothing like a ready meal - it's a freshly cooked meal you get at the end

I do enjoy being creative with cooking a lot - but for me gousto helps with that. I don't get Gousto all the time - roughly once a fortnight for four dinners so I am still cooking 10/14 dinners a fortnight. I pick Gousto recipes from cuisines I am less familiar with and that use ingredients I wouldn't typically buy so I get to try things out which I then incorporate

I use Gousto occasionally. There’s also a supermarket version whose name escapes me - you log on to its website, choose a recipe, and it adds all the ingredients for that recipe to your shopping basket at Sains/Ocado/whatever.

I don't use them, but I know people who do. It is a good option particularly for people who are bad at meal planning. I think the biggest thing they do is take off the mental load of planning and shopping, and they help unconfident cooks who are unsure about branching out from their 5 reliable standbys. With the kits you get exactly enough to make the recipe, so if you want to try something really new to you, you don't have to make a big investment in ingredients that you might not use again. If you understand the very basics of how to cook but not much more, the kits help you figure things out. The recipes are easy to follow. I know people who started out with the kits and then as they got better, started cooking on their own.

I also think the market is much more people who would otherwise spend a lot on ready meals and takeaways, not so much people who are regular cooks. It helps a bit if you're very short on time (I have a friend who does them occasionally for that) but you do still have to cook.

We are really enjoying using HF after receiving a 65% discount code for our first box and 20% off subsequent boxes.

The time I have saved at weekends not going shopping and thinking about what to have for tea, and the worst part about food shopping (as I shop at Aldi, so no deliveries) is packing it all into bags and unpacking and putting it all away at home , well I'm happy to pay a premium for that.

We've not had a repeated tea for around a month. Portion sizes are good, meals are tasty.

Yes, you still have to go to the shops, but it isn't the same.

It has made my life a lot easier that's for sure.

I use Gousto for our mid week meals and it’s really improved the variety of what I eat and reduces the mental load of deciding what to eat and shopping (and usually forgetting something and going shopping again). My DH is also not a great cook and usually does much better with the Gousto recipes where everything is portioned out and there are clear instructions.

It might have a bit more plastic waste but theres less food waste than when I shop and cook separately, especially if cooking for 2 people. I am also guilty of buying some expensive ingredient for a recipe, using a small amount and then not managing to use the rest before it goes off so for recipes with an unusual ingredient it could be cost effective.

We alternated between Hello Fresh and Gusto for a few years, using codes etc. Then switched to Simply Cook which we found much more cost efficient as you buy your own fresh ingredients so you don't have to eat everything within a certain timeframe. And I just chose my meals then added what I needed to my Tesco delivery. But then I was like why am I paying £40 a month for these boxes when I can just choose meals out of a recipe book and add ingredients to my shop. So now I do that...come full circle I guess!! But I really try to keep food costs for family of 4 at £500 a month.

I've never used them myself, because generally I enjoy meal planning and cooking. But I think the boxes are a great idea for those who don't. A close friend has had some rough times recently and does not enjoy meal planning (so understandably it got dropped). Using the meal boxes meant at least she was still eating reasonably balanced meals, not purely living off ready meals for months.

For a lot of people, being able to have decent food without using brain power is a real boon, I think it's fab these exist as an alternative to take aways etc. Of course you can do them cheaper, same as almost always where something is designed for convenience, it won't be the cheapest.

i also like simply cook

I found them tiny. We had to add extras.

It doesn't work for us because we have children and we all eat together. We used it briefly on nursery days when they are fed there but we're still starving afterwards

I used Hello Fresh once, when I got a free box. It was okay.

The ingredients were very fresh, the portion sizes were pretty big. The meals were fine. I thought they might have been a bit more interesting that they were. Had I paid full price I would have been disappointed.

They definitely have their place with people that want to cook proper ingredients but are limited for time, and I would use them again with a good enough offer - but full price just wouldn't be worth it for me.

We had a few of them, I was pretty unimpressed! So over priced and so much plastic waste. And I already had most of the ingredients.

I use Hello Fresh as a cookery lesson/practice for teenagers. Absolutely fantastic for that imo, they crack on and choose/cook an entire meal with no input from us. But would be far too expensive to feed us all for a week.

We get two meals for 4 each week and both dc1 and dc2 have one night where they cook. However, I also find the portions small - a box for 4 is usually enough to feed the 3dc only (16, 14, 7). Dh and I just have egg on toast or something on HF nights.

I think overall I probably saved money when doing Gousto. I made far less trips to the supermarket and therefore had less opportunity to fill my trolley with things I just fancied rather than needed. I also ate healthier for the same reasons - I bought far less crisps/biscuits etc.

ExH and I really enjoyed the meals, they weren’t always things the children enjoyed though which is why I don’t use it anymore now that I’m divorced and it’s just me and DC.

The portion sizes are fine, the quantities calculated to create portions that are a relatively healthy calorie/fat/carb/protein balance. If you think the portion sizes are too small, you are likely eating portions that are too large ordinarily. That’s certainly my experience.