Hello fresh - why?

[Montymorency]

Just wanting to understand why people go to the expense of these food boxes when they could just choose a recipe and buy the ingredients themselves

I completely understand the convenience but I find the amount of plastic packaging so depressing (we don’t use it, I saw a friend’s delivery). Between the cool packs, cool bag, and plastic around the individual items it was really eye opening. Some brown paper but even that can’t be recycled in my area (or maybe any area, I don’t know). When we’re trying to reduce waste as a society this just feels like a huge backwards step.

How do you dumb down a recipe? 😂It's not a GCSE or a degree, why does it matter how 'difficult' it is?!

You know what, I've just done it. It cost me £30 for a big box as I got a discount but it's honestly same as my ALDI shop even at a full price!

🤔

For us convenience and when they send good money off vouchers then it works out quite cheaply compared to buying all the ingredients in the supermarket. Plus you get ideas for things to make yourself in the future.
I tend to rotate hello fresh/gousto for a few weeks while there I have a discount code then cancel it and rejoin when they send a reactivation special offer!

A couple of teenagers I know basically learned to cook using Hello Fresh, as it was all set out and ready for them, meaning that they could just focus on the physical aspects of food prep without having to worry about other things, like not having enough of certain ingredients in stock. They have now moved on and do grocery shopping and provisioning as well, but it was a useful entry point for them.

My daughter also started baking independently using some mix sets, and has now branched out into proper/normal baking with recipes and checking what there is the fridge/cupboard.

I clicked on this expecting OP to be looking for an opportunity to have a dig at people for using this type of service. OP credit where credit is due your response shows you were genuinely just curious! What has Mumsnet done to my perspective 😂

@GreenTeaLikesMe When I started baking I used the mix sets too (a long time ago) and now I bake a lot from scratch, I can see things like hello fresh are a good entry point if you want to learn how to cook and don't know where to start like some other people have said.

@piccolorhinoceros I think I understand the dumbed down recipe thing because the recipes aren't as good as when you make them yourself from scratch - they cut stuff out or make a pretty basic version of the sauce so it's easy to do but more basic in flavour.

So husband could develop cooking skills when he retired.

each meal works out about £3.70 per person and that's with selecting pricier options like salmon and free range meat where I can. Plus the family chooses a lot of meat-heavy dishes in general that cost more- I'd have all veggie if I could but I'll pick my battles.
It's probably twice the amount that a savvy cook would spend but so worth it

You’re missing the point - it’s not cooking from scratch (I rarely do that) but a good range of interesting recipes with the convenience of not having to do any planning.
Many people who use them are excellent cooks but don’t have the time.

@mrspaulhollywood oh okay, I always assume that's a cost thing, with them trying to reduce how many expensive ingredients they give you. For example butter and flour and honey used to be included; now it's a pantry ingredient. I have to say, for a midweek dinner I don't really care. We order 4 meals a week so we do cook more exciting things at the weekend.

What’s mix sets? Sorry if its a stupid question

I had it for a few weeks with some voucher codes. I was expecting to hate it, but honestly it was amazing. As the only cook in the house and working full time it gave me an enormous amount of brain energy and time back. If I could afford it all the time I probably would for a few meals a week! Negatives for me; too much packaging (30g blocks of cheese etc), veggie options often felt "cheap," and once or twice the fresh produce didn't last long enough - fermenting sweet potato chunks and leaves that had really gone over. When I'm tired and fed up I really do consider signing up again for a few weeks though!

We do it occasionally (and Gousto) when we get offers of 20% or 50% off.

Otherwise yeah it is pretty expensive.

But the bonus is that it means you don't have to think about what to cook (I get fed up of deciding whether it's jacket potatoes, spag bol, fajitas etc etc on rotation 😂) and can make a lovely new dish like Korean chicken or a Sri Lankan curry without the faff of having to source all the ingredients yourself.

You also don't waste fresh ingredients. I bought celery for a recipe at weekend, used one stick and can guarantee the rest of it will die a death in the bottom drawer of my fridge!

The flour thing nearly caught me out a couple of weeks ago, I hadn't checked the card until I was about to start making something and it asked for plain flour which I didn't have.

I know how to cook and store. Buying in bulk isn't very useful if you live on your own. Did you mean to be so patronising?

I had Hello Fresh for a bit but cancelled after the promotional period. I did think there was a lot of unnecessary packaging.

Honestly @eggplant16 - I've tried for years, I'm not far off 50 years old. I'm still very capable of destroying a very simple meal if left to my own devices.

Portion control

Not having to think up or find recipes

I tried a box on offer thinking it would be a bit of a change and liberating.... but tbh I found it a huge faff, the veggie options were dire and both DH and I felt horribly unwell after eating the fish cakes we made (turned out to be Basa which is an Asian catfish). Put me off ever trying again. Cheap and nasty ingredients with a plethora of plastic packaging - no thanks.

I started getting Gousto a few weeks after my husband died very unexpectedly. I had completely lost my appetite, often forgot to eat and lost masses of weight and I wasn’t overweight to start with. It’s been brilliant - I don’t have to think about what I might want to eat, and the step by step instructions mean I have to use minimal brain power while cooking. ASD ds enjoys cooking the recipes too so he’s learning useful life skills and he’s gradually expanding the foods he will eat. I can’t understand how people think the portions are stingy - we think they’re enormous! There’s usually quite a bit more than we can eat so we get leftovers for lunch the following day too. I’ll stop/take a break in a while but for now it’s a godsend

Rude. Hope you got a kick out of it.

I used Hello fresh for about 18 months.I.wanted to cook real food for my family without always need to think of the weekly plan.
It also seemed to free up my fridge space, I seemed to buy too much before this..So I only had what I needed.
I stopped , because I couldn't order 3 meals it had to be 2 or 4.
I mostly was really happy with it, the food was very fresh.

I’ve had Gousto before and it’s a massive bargain when you use the offers. Easily cheaper than buying the stuff yourself. I didn’t take to it though, I found if faffy and didn’t really rate the meals much and binned it when the offer period ran out. I did like the “mental load” aspect though. My friend absolutely loves it and really it’s perfect for someone like her -DINKY couple with full on jobs who are both really basic, not particularly interested, cooks so it really broadened what they were eating, cut down on takeaways, and they can’t be faffed looking up new recipes to try when you can click and it comes to the door.
As others have said, they are good for teens to cook unsupervised which is good when you are all busy.
There are zillions of things that people pay a “premium” for when they could do it themselves - why buy the ingredients when you can farm and forage them? Why buy food at all when you could just eat dust?

I hate meal planning, shopping, weighing things. Other half can't cook really so the A4 recipe card with pictures means he can.
When my MH is not good, I don't even bother to choose the meals, just cook what they send

Interestingly when I started Hello Fresh I thought they were nice recipes but portions a bit small. Now I realise, like many people, my home portion sizes were probably a bit big ! I do sometimes add more veg, especially ones that come with salad which is just leaves.