Food Delivery Boxes

Mel1967

Does anyone use or have used any of the Food Delivery Boxes?
Hello Fresh etc.
If so what are did you think of them, are they good or bad?
All comments appreciated.
I’m bored with eating (See my post).
And thought that maybe they might be a way for me to enjoy food again 😊
Thank you 😊

No we've not used food delivery boxes. Not sure they're available way out here. I'm easily bored eating, though I cook a wide variety of foods - I assume old age to be the culprit and eat what I need to survive.

I've used Gousto and Green Chef. The meals are better on Green Chef but are about £15 a week dearer ( for 5 meals) so I've gone back to Gousto. Main problem I find is expiry date of the fish/chicken, very short. I have to cook the five meals in expiry order so occassionally end up with chicken on three consecutive nights.

A relative very kindly ordered a lot of individual Cook meals for me and dh after I’d spent 3 weeks in hospital last year, and was still weak and wobbly.

Unfortunately, probably because of all the ABs I’d been on, and still was, everything continued to taste weird or horrible for quite a while.
Dh pronounced them very good, though!
Same relative has used the large Cook meals for big family gatherings.

None of them are available where I live so can't comment.

My DD has a subscription to The Spicery which i would recommend.. I don't know all the details. It's not an actual meal you get but the necessary spices and recipe/method card for the meal you choose.

You did say you were bored with eating so i'm assuming you would be happy to shop for the necessary ingredients for the recipes. It gives a shopping list for what you need to buy.

She is vegetarian but the recipes can often be made with either meat or the veggie options. I've had lots of them, many different nationalities of food, and helped make some so can say that the instruction leaflet is very well done. It's laid out in time order so that your meal all comes together at the right time.

The recipes usually serve 4 so when it's the 2 of us it does twice . The servings are generous. Be prepared though for a full on cooking session as it's often a 2 course with sides as well. I'm glad i've always done it with help but then i suppose you don't have to make everything on the menu card. You could choose which dishes to make and when.

Mindful Chef was a godsend for us in lockdown, and we carried on with them afterwards as DH (my chef) likes to try different recipes and this is an easy way to ring the changes. We’ve changed to Gousto now as they’re a bit cheaper. We have a fortnightly delivery of three meals for two, which suits us. We certainly wouldn’t have carried on if the ingredients hadn’t been top quality and the recipe choices interesting and healthy.

Ocado is my salvation as I struggle to shop. They deliver the freshest of own brand food and a great selection of M&S meals
Far preferable to a veg box whaich in my area was delivered on a Tuesday and rarely lasted until the weekend

I can endorse hello fresh. The ingredients are always top notch, and all the additional things that come in the small sachets I find really useful if I don’t end up making the recipe.

I've used Simply and Hello Fresh. Both not very good especially if you want anything vegetarian. I use Gousto and find them excellent. I got fed up with food and it was nice to have recipes that used herbs and spices that I'd never dreamt to use. I also find it saves money in that I have no waste. I get fed up with the fridge clear out when there's things gone off. I live on my own BTW.

I prefer Gousto, as they have a better variety and more choices for vegetarians, although there are usually several meat substitutes which I'm not keen on. Most of the Hello Fresh veggie choices seem to be pasta based, which is not great value.

The packaging is recyclable, other than perhaps the sachets - you get things like tomato puree in a sachet rather than the usual tube, as the ingredients are weighed out. Everything else is paper or cardboard, other than a woolly thing that they use to wrap the ingredients that have to go straight into the fridge. I don't think they are any worse than supermarkets for packaging. I find the portion sizes are fine. We sometimes have leftovers.

Started using Hello Fresh during lockdown and then moved to Gousto and remained with them ever since. We order 4 meals per week and can highly recommend them. Great choice and good value. If anyone wants to try -
Here’s my link to try Gousto! Use it to get 65% off your first box, PLUS 20% off all other boxes in your first two months.
gousto.co.uk/raf?promo_code=CATHE42027908&utm_source=iosapp

How can people afford these

I stopped having Riverford deliveries as they are expensive and not all the vegetables were fresh. I felt they were palming me off with what they had over as I could not choose.

I used both Gousto and Hello Fresh off and on and found them both very good. Unfortunately I moved house and they don’t deliver to my postcode 😞

I have tried a few (when I’ve had a discount referral) and Gousto are by far the best imho. For older people - my father is 94 - we’ve found that Oakhouse Foods are very good.

I used Hello Fresh a year or so ago and enjoyed it. But Im vegetarian so wasn’t concerned about meat being delivered and delayed in the post.
It was nice to have a variety of meal choice. I collected a selection of their recipe cards and can revert back to them if I want ideas.

My daughter uses Gousto and loves them.
It cuts out having to plan for healthy meals and shop when you already have a very busy life and schedule.
The variety is appealing.

The telegraphs View

The best recipe boxes and meal delivery kits – from healthy options to indulgent weekend dinners
www.telegraph.co.uk/recommended/home/best-recipe-boxes-meal-delivery-kits/

We tried both and enjoyed hello fresh more.
They are good for trying new ideas and help relieve the boredom of the usual offering!

We did it whilst there was an offer on and it did give us a chance to try new dishes and spices. We thought the portions were small but agreed that they did leave us satisfied. However, it was expensive with far too much packaging so we cancelled our subscription before the end of the offer.

wrt evri. The man who lives across the road from us is our local evri driver so we get our parcels much earlier than expected

t is interesting to read all these opinions. I think if you are short of time, why not give them a try? or even if you just want to

We had one trial box from Hellofresh, it was good, but as my DH is somewhat set in his ways as to what he’ll eat it wasn’t viable for us.
Whilst not cheap I would recommend ‘Cook’ who produce extremely good quality ‘ready meals’, they are fab

MissAdventure

I used oddbox for a few months.
Its made up from surplus and odd shaped fruit and veg.

It wasn't great value though, for someone living alone.

I find it almost impossible to shop for a single household. The supermarkets prepackage everything in family sized portions and very rarely can I find anything for one, unless of course it's processed meal for one.

My daughter and son-in-law have been through Hello Fresh and Mindful Chef and are currently using Gousto! I think one of the advantages is little or no food shopping (other than store cupboard staples) and that avoids the stress of planning, impulse buying and food waste. I've come away from visiting them with a good few 'crib sheets' from Hello Fresh but not tempted by copying the other two although the meals are perfectly acceptable.

I had Hello Fresh for a while but living alone the problem was having to eat somethng twice every time as there were 3 x meals for 2 people. I also found them wasteful in that if ba recipe had a couple of cloves of garlic in you got a whole bulb, so I was accumulating lots of unused garlic. You can cancel the order but I sometimes forgot then got meals I really didn't fancy. Fortunately I had a friend who enjoyed cooking who would eat anything and was unemployed at the time so I gave unwanted stuff to him - including all the extra garlic bulbs! They are not particularly good value unless they are on a special offer - I can certainly buy the ingredients more cheaply - but they are convenient for some people as the exact quantities are provided for many of the ingredients.

Oddbox for fruit and vegetables. Tried Gousto. Liked them at first for the novelty but found I already had all the ingredients they sent and I can cook my own recipes as quickly. I also found choosing what to order too time consuming. My DIL sent me an offer for Green Chef which I’m thinking of trying as the recipes look a bit more unusual.