Hello fresh meat issues

[SunQueen24]

Is it me or is the quality of the meat terrible?

I like the convenience of the boxes. It takes some pressure off me. I recently cancelled citing meat quality as the reason. The mince is grissly and fatty. The chicken is full of veins, fat and today my chicken breast still had skin on it (the portions are not big enough IMO to allow for wastage). The chicken is often grissly too.

The boxes aren’t cheap and I am always adding extra veg etc - to then have rubbish meat makes them really bad value.

They assured me they would review and applied a discount if I re subscribed. Having the same issues again.

It’s been a long time since I used gusto - is it better?

I didn't have any issues with gusto when I used them

I much prefer the quality of meat and fish from Gousto, and also just find them a lot tastier and better portions.

I’ve always found the quality of Gousto meat and fish to be very good. On occasion we’ve complained about some of the veg such as tomatoes not being at the their best or some clever packer puts the ciabatta roll at the bottom with the potatoes and tins on top 🙄 if we’ve ever complained about a box we’ve always received some money back straight away each time depending on the issue.

Honestly nothing beats the quality of meat you can get in a butcher or even a decent supermarket. With the boxes you’re paying for conscience - not quality.

Gousto meat is fine. I wouldn’t not eat it (have had it twice at friends house) but my local butcher is cheaper and better so I’ll always go with that - buy local and all.

The selling point of these boxes is how cheap and convenient they are - that comes at a cost, I.e cheaper meat

We stopped Hello Fresh when the chicken pieces looked like scraps. Every single piece had sinews. They rang up asking why we cancelled and while I was explaining, she tutted and hung up on me 🤣x

I agree that you are likely to get better meat from a butcher but our local butcher price a whole chicken at anywhere between £13 and £16 which is not a cheap way to shop unfortunately.

I find gousto meat to be better than say Tesco quality but you are correct it is very much about convenience!

I do otherwise get my meat from a butcher. I don’t agree the boxes are cheap though. I think it’s £52.66 for three meals for 4 people. A “meal” is two small chicken breasts or 480g mince. So not a huge amount of meat. That’s £17.55 per meal. So not cheap IMO. I’m paying for convenience, but accept that comes at a premium not a saving.

Yes! The chicken is awful, I told them and was reassured they regularly review their suppliers. I cancelled for maybe 6 months but was lulled back by the promise of discount.

I cancelled Gousto recently because of their small, slimy, smelly vacuum packed chicken. Their pork was okay. Not tried their mince.

Yes that’s exactly my issue. I get my meat from the butcher which he vacuum packs for me in portions of two breasts. No veins, very little fat and a better texture when cooked.

I do hello fresh and Gousto - Gousto has better quality meat and a much better variety of meals. Though the hello fresh meals are a lot quicker and easier to cook.

You could try Simply Cook if you want the convenience of having the meals planned for you - theyre 3 pots of sauces / spices per meal, and then you buy your own meat and veg to make it with. The recipe cards have a little tear off strip with a shopping list, and also gives lots of ideas fir substitutuons.

@AzureSheep yes I do also use simply cook, they are good.

You could try Cherrypick which says it gives the 'meal box' experience but your groceries are delivered using normal supermarket online shopping, so cheaper and presumably if you buy something like chilli powder, you've got a whole pack that you can keep using instead of all the tiny sachets and pots of a teaspoon of this and that.

I'd expect you can also substitute brands to pick something on offer, delete something you already have in or upgrade the meat if that's what you prefer. Or if Cherrypick doesn't offer this flexibility, just look at the recipes on the supermarket website, click the 'add to online order' button then do your own customisation.

I stopped getting them the chicken sticks and it ruins any chicken meal.

@Scallopp yes it does stink and sometimes you can taste the smell if that makes sense?

Apparently it's always the same with hello fresh, the quality of the food they send you drops the longer you stay with them. We had it too.

We are using Simply Cook which is a slightly different model, you choose and buy the main food ingredients, they supply the bits that change it from ordinary to absolutely delicious. Much cheaper and you choose the main ingredients yourself according to your budget so never those quality issues, or needing to eat up before it goes off.

Yeah exactly, it's vile.

@SunQueen24 Same issue for us with any of these boxed meals. Its also the huge amount of plastic waste that got to me. 2x2 cm of cheddar cheese parcels!! In the end we bought a Thermomix and are using the Cookidoo App to plan meals and order online. It’s super convenient and will save you money in the long run.

I like green chef but it's expensive, I use it only when I get a discount.

HF is certainly terrible these days, they are definitely skimping for example naanizzas don't even have cheese!

We had Gousto recently and the chicken had already gone off a day before the best before so we've cancelled now and will return to the chore of meal planning!

@CrotchetyQuaver I thought the choice of meals got worse along with quality but wondered if I was being too cynical. As time goes on I find it harder to pick meals we actually like.

I think they both have poor quality meat and for the price you pay it isn’t exactly cheap. I cancelled them both and just went back to meal planning.

I agree. The diced chicken is always in tiny tiny bits and the mince is always really fatty.

I've found the ones from riverford to be excellent.

I had a free trial of Hello Fresh which I used when DP was working away, thinking the meals would do me x 2 nights. I’d had Covid quite recently previous to it, and lost taste smell for months. You can see where this is going, can’t you? I thought the chicken looked a bit yuck, cooked and ate it anyway, then spent the next 24h being violently sick. I couldn’t look at the rest of it and would never use them again! After that I only ate veggie food if I was alone until I got my taste back because it freaked me out so much.

We did Gousto with a trial afterwards and I thought it was much better but we now just use their recipes rather than the boxes (which I know defeats the purpose).